AWS Certified Security Specialty

Take your AWS knowledge to the next level with this AWS Specialty certification!

Check out our popular training for the AWS Security Specialty that will maximize your chances of successfully passing your exam with confidence

About the AWS Security Specialty

Find answers to the most frequently asked questions related to the AWS Certified Security Specialty Exam

There are no prerequisites to sit any AWS exam. However, the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam is a difficult exam that requires a solid foundation of knowledge of AWS services.

For those who do not have significant experience working with AWS technologies, it is recommended that you first pass at least one associate-level certification, such as the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate, before attempting the AWS Security Specialty exam.

Even better would be to pass the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam before attempting the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam. The Security Specialty certification will be much easier if you follow this path.

How should you prepare for the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam? This is not an easy task and requires careful planning to ensure you’re fully prepared before you attempt this difficult exam.

The best way is to enroll in our training courses for the AWS Certified Security Specialty Certification. You’ll gain access to our on-demand video training and practice tests (in both exam simulation and training mode). Cheat sheets are also available which summarize the key facts you need to remember for the exam.

Specialty certifications vary in difficulty with the more difficult exams being on par with the professional level AWS certifications. The AWS Certified Security Specialty exam is a bit easier than the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam but more difficult than any of the associate level exams.

Questions in the Security Specialty exam can be quite lengthy and complex. You MUST have a strong understanding of a broad range of AWS services before taking this course or the exam. You then need to understand how to secure these services, apply security controls, and adhere to security best practices – and this is the scope of this course.

If you follow our recommendations for passing at least one associate level exam and preferably a professional exam, you should then allocate around a month for the additional study to successfully prepare for the Security Specialty exam.

The passing score is 750 points out of 1000 points (75%). There are 65 questions in the exam and the entire time allocation is 170 minutes.

The exam cost is $300 USD. Please remember that if you’ve passed another AWS certification exam previously (which you should have!) then you will have a 50% discount coupon available in your account over at aws.training.

The learning objectives for the AWS Security Specialty exam are as follows:

  • Incident Response
  • Logging and Monitoring
  • Infrastructure Security
  • Identity and Access Management
  • Data Protection

On-demand Training Resources

This popular training covers everything you need to know to ace your AWS Security exam

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Training Notes (PDF)

The AWS Certified Security Specialty is a highly sought after certification as robust security is an imperative of every organization. Many companies won’t even allow you to touch their AWS infrastructure without having completed this certification.

The AWS Certified Security Specialty certification demonstrates a strong understanding of security services, features, and best practices for ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and applications running on AWS. 

To pass this challenging certification exam, you’ll need a strong understanding of identity and access management on AWS, infrastructure security best practices, data protection techniques, how to audit and monitor AWS resources, and respond to security incidents.

All of this and much more is covered in great detail in our AWS Certified Security Specialty online training so you have everything you need at your fingertips to fully prepare for this exam. We teach you through a unique combination of video lectures, guided hands-on exercises, practice questions and cheat sheets.

This is the best online training for the AWS Security Specialty certification available today and is completely up to date with the latest concepts featured on the exam.

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Our instructor-led video course combines essential theory with guided practical exercises that are backed by high-quality diagrams and references.

  • 10 hours of on-demand video training with guided hands-on exercises
  • Coverage of the latest exam topics for the SCS-C02
  • Hands-on lessons using the AWS Management Console
  • Separate theory lessons with amazing architectural diagrams
  • All diagrams, code, links, files and slides are available for download
  • Course Certificate is issued upon successful completion of the course

The video course is taught in a style that includes theory lessons with lots of visualization such as architectural diagrams and animated graphics (this is not death by bullet point).

After the theory lessons, you’ll get to put your knowledge into practical use with hands-on lessons that teach you how to use AWS and complete exercises that reflect real-world situations. Learning by doing increases knowledge retention and is the best way to ensure you build practical skills.

Test your knowledge and assess your exam readiness with practice questions that match the difficulty of the real AWS exam. 

Practice exams are delivered in 4 different formats:

  • Exam Mode – 6 sets of practice exams with 20 questions each, time limit of 55 mins, and pass mark of 75%. These are shorter than the real exam to make it more manageable when studying.
  • Training Mode – Check answers and explanations after every question (no time limit).
  • Knowledge reviews: Collection of practice questions for a specific knowledge area that allows you to focus your efforts where they’re needed most.
  • Final exam simulator – Full-length exam with 65 questions pulled randomly from our pool of questions. Same time limit (170 mins) and pass mark (75%) as the real AWS exam.

You will be presented with an overall score at the end of the exam with a pass/fail message.

A Certificate of Achievement is issued when you score 75% and above in your final exam simulator. 

Take your studies offline with this cheat sheet for the AWS Security Specialty exam.

  • Exam-specific knowledge you need to successfully pass your exam
  • Ideal resource for last-minute revision
  • Get straight to the facts and shortcut your study time

What you'll learn [Scope & Content]

We teach you all of the skills required to successfully pass your AWS Security Specialty exam

Our AWS Certified Security Specialty training covers all knowledge areas in the exam. You’ll gain in-depth knowledge of the services featured on the exam today as well as a strong practical knowledge through completion of the guided hands-on lessons. 

You can then test yourself by attempting our practice tests that reflect the style and difficulty of the real exam. We also provide cheat sheets that you can use for last-minute exam cramming.

The AWS Certified Security Specialty exam guide groups the required skills into various domains.

You’ll learn the following skills (grouped by domain):

AWS Services covered in the AWS Security Specialty exam

The following is a non-exhaustive list of key AWS services that may feature on the exam. The exam also covers additional services where security features of the services are in scope. All of these services and more are covered in our training courses for the Security Specialty certification.

  • AWS Audit Manager
  • AWS CloudTrail
  • Amazon CloudWatch
  • AWS Config
  • AWS Organizations
  • AWS Systems Manager
  • AWS Trusted Advisor
  • Amazon Detective
  • AWS Firewall Manager
  • AWS Network Firewall
  • AWS Security Hub
  • AWS Shield
  • AWS Web Application Firewall (AWS WAF)
  • Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (AWS VPC)
    • VPC endpoints
    • Network ACLs
    • Security groups
    • Network Access Analyzer
  • AWS Certificate Manager (ACM)
  • AWS CloudHSM
  • AWS Directory Service
  • Amazon GuardDuty
  • AWS Identity and Access Management (AWS IAM)
  • Amazon Inspector
  • AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)
  • Amazon Macie
  • AWS Single Sign-On

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If you’re looking for high-quality certification training that will fully prepare you for your AWS Certified Security Specialty exam – our popular training courses are for you.

With our monthly or yearly plans, you’ll gain access to our entire library of Video Courses, Practice Exams, Training Notes and Master Classes.

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  • Over 150 hours of video lessons and 3,000+ practice questions
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  • On-demand video courses with guided hands-on lessons​
  • Exam-difficulty practice exams (exam simulation and training mode)
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Frequently Asked Questions

If you don’t have any experience with cloud computing, we recommend that you first complete at least one associate-level AWS certification as those will set you up with a strong base of knowledge to build upon. 

You may also consider passing the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam before attempting the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam.

All of our video lessons, practice exams and training notes are regularly updated to reflect the latest AWS changes.

All diagrams, code, links and files are available for download (in PDF format). 

You also get access to all slides (PDF).

Exam Mode: In exam mode, you complete one full-length practice exam and answer all questions within the allotted time. 

Training Mode: When taking the practice exam in training mode (no time limit), you will be shown the answers and explanations for every question after clicking “check”. 

Knowledge Reviews: Now that you have identified your strengths and weaknesses, you get to dive deep into specific areas with our knowledge reviews. You are presented with a series of questions focussed on a specific topic. There is no time limit and you can view the answer to each question as you go through them.

Final Exam Simulator: The exam simulator randomly selects questions from our pool of practice questions – mimicking the real AWS exam environment. The practice exam has the same format, style, time limit and passing score as the real AWS exam.

With practice exams, a Certificate of Achievement is issued when you score 75% and above in your online exam simulator.

A certificate of completion is issued upon successful completion of the video course.

All of our AWS training courses include guided hands-on training where you can follow along in an AWS Free Tier account. Additionally, we offer Challenge Labs for those who are looking for extensive hands-on practice opportunities to develop real-world cloud skills. Challenge Labs are scenario-based hands-on exercises that run in a secure sandbox environment. 

When you sign up for our monthly or yearly plans, you get access to our entire library of AWS training courses (current and future).

Our subscriptions come with no lock-in or minimum terms and can be cancelled at any time.

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AWS Certified Security Specialty Training

Take your cloud career to the next level with our popular training courses and earn your AWS Security Specialty certification.

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