GIAC Cloud Security Essentials Certification (GCLD)

Exam Certification Objectives & Outcome Statements

• Attacking the Cloud and Responding to IntrusionsThe candidate will demonstrate a basic understanding of the overall process and considerations when conducting a penetration test or responding to an incident involving public cloud resources.
• Cloud Account FundamentalsThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of cloud identity fundamentals and access management principles. The candidate will show familiarity of security best practices to control access to a cloud environment using each identity type.
• Cloud AutomationThe candidate will demonstrate a basic understanding of provisioning and managing cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code. The candidate will demonstrate familiarity with using automation practices to support continuous and repeatable evaluation tasks.
• Cloud Logging FundamentalsThe candidate will demonstrate familiarity with cloud logging capabilities and methods to collect logs in a way to facilitate utility and dissemination. 
• Cloud Networking TechnologyThe candidate will demonstrate knowledge of fundamental network security concepts and the implementation of these principles using cloud resources. 
• Containers and Cloud StorageThe candidate will demonstrate familiarity with serverless compute resources, container technologies, and how each can be orchestrated to achieve elasticity. The candidate will demonstrate familiarity with cloud storage options and how to architect these resources securely.
• Discovering and Storing Sensitive DataThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of data security considerations in a multi-tenant environment and how to configure and monitor cloud resources to deter data leakage using encryption and data loss prevent strategies. 
• External access and IAM Best PracticesThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of the security considerations when integrating 3rd party services with a cloud environment and the proper steps to evaluate the resilency of the integration configuration.
• Frameworks for Built-in SecurityThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of system development life cycles and AppSec frameworks to create a baseline configuration with security built-in. The candidate will demonstrate familiarity with continuous integration and continuous deployment.
• Network Security Monitoring in the CloudThe candidate will demonstrate basic knowledge of the collection and interpretation of network flow data and packet capturing using cloud resources. The candidate will demonstrate familiarity with using network security monitoring practices to enhance detection and response capabilities in the cloud.
• Risk Management and ComplianceThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of regulatory, compliance, security assurance, and risk management requirements and the best practices and frameworks for addressing these considerations.
• Secrets ManagementThe candidate will demonstrate knowledge of the responsibilities and capabilities to securing user secrets. The candidate will demonstrate familiarity of the integration process for a variety of authentication mechanisms in a cloud environment.
• Secure Compute DeploymentThe candidate will demonstrate fundamental knowledge of resource allocation and image evaluation when deploying cloud compute resources. The candidate will demonstrate the ability to maintain the compute resource attack surface through automation practices and patch management.
• Securing Cloud NetworksThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of network isolation and remote access. The candidate will demonstrate fundamental knowledge of common attacks against cloud resources and best practices to protect against them.
• Understanding Shared Responsibility and Threat Informed DefenseThe candidate will demonstrate basic knowledge of using the practice of threat modeling to architect threat informed defenses for cloud resources. The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of the various service delivery models and shared responsibility for each when using a public cloud service.
• Using Sensitive DataThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of cloud resource elasticity and high availability functionality. The candidate will demonstrate fundamental knowledge of securing data in transit between cloud resources and application users.