CRTE
Certified Red Team Expert
Multi-forest AD compromise — cross-trust abuse, advanced delegation, and persistence in hardened enterprise environments.
› Quality score
Four-axis SecProve rubric, each 0–10. SecProve editorial assessment — each axis carries a written justification so you can push back on any single call without dismissing the whole score.
› Market signals
public, citable inputs to the recognition scoreVendor doesn't publish exact counts; conservative estimate from community cohort signals.
› Built for these roles
› Exam format
48-hour hands-on lab exam against a multi-forest enterprise environment with EDR-style controls. Report submission within 48 hours of lab close. Multiple flags across forest trusts and tier-0 compromise required.
› Recertification
Credential is permanent — no recertification or AMF.
› NICE Framework work roles
The NIST NICE work-role IDs this cert maps to. NICCS lookup.
› Core domains covered
The 2 domains this cert is centrally about. Passing the exam demonstrates working knowledge of each.
Methodology (OSSTMM, PTES), web/network/mobile pentesting, social engineering, purple teaming.
AuthN/AuthZ, SSO, MFA, PAM, RBAC/ABAC, identity governance, FIDO2/passkeys, plus non-human identity: service accounts, workload identity, agent / plugin identities.
› Also touched
Present in the blueprint but not the primary focus — you’ll be introduced but shouldn’t expect depth.
Firewalls, IDS/IPS, network segmentation, DNS security, SD-WAN, VPN, traffic analysis, wireless security.
SIGMA/YARA/Suricata rule writing, hypothesis-driven hunting, log deep-dives, detection gap analysis.
AI-assisted pentesting, automated recon, AI-generated phishing/social engineering, deepfake attacks.
› Prerequisites
Solid AD-attack fundamentals — CRTP-level knowledge or equivalent operational experience. Familiarity with multiple C2 frameworks helpful.
- Active Directory trusts, ADCS, and delegation
- Lateral movement and persistence techniques
- Bypassing common Windows security controls (AMSI, AppLocker)
› Progression
requiredrecommendedWhere this cert fits in the typical learning path. Required edges are vendor-gated; recommended edges reflect de facto industry progression.
No vendor-gated prereqs.
No certs require this one.
No follow-on certs reference this one yet.
› Common exam traps to study
Cybersecurity cert exams reuse the same 25 distractor patterns over and over — category confusion, RTO vs RPO, IDS vs IPS, MD5 vs SHA-256, and more. Once you can name the trap, you stop falling for it. Each archetype page covers what it is, the specific pairs candidates confuse, and how to avoid it.
See this cert’s domains highlighted on the interactive map, or compare it against the rest of the catalog.