CKS: Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist 2026

About this course

The Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) is the hardest Kubernetes certification — and the most valuable one for engineers who secure production clusters.This course prepares you for the CKS exam and gives you the hands-on security engineering skills to back up the credential.What you'll build and configure:Harden a Kubernetes cluster against the CIS Benchmark from scratch. Design RBAC with true least privilege — scoped service accounts, bounded roles, no wildcard verbs. Enforce Pod Security Standards and OPA Gatekeeper policies that block insecure workloads before they ever reach a node. Lock containers down at the kernel level with AppArmor profiles, Seccomp policies, and capability drops.Secure your container supply chain with Trivy image scanning, Cosign cryptographic signing, and admission policies that reject unsigned or vulnerable images. Isolate workloads with default-deny NetworkPolicies and mutual TLS. Encrypt etcd secrets at rest with AES-CBC or AES-GCM providers.Detect attacks in real time with Falco behavioral rules. Investigate incidents with Kubernetes audit logs and jq forensic queries. Build the complete observability stack that makes every API call in your cluster traceable.Exam preparation built in:Every module maps directly to a CKS exam domain. The final module covers time management strategy, must-know kubectl commands by domain, worked walkthroughs of the five most common examStandards and OPA Gatekeeper policies that block insecure workloads before they ever reach a node. Lock containers down at the kernel level with AppArmor profiles, Seccomp policies, and capability drops.The Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) is the hardest Kubernetes certification — and the most valuable one for engineers who secure production clusters.This course prepares you for the CKS exam and gives you the hands-on security engineering skill