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CKS Curriculum and Tooling Updates

Itai Ganot
Site Creator

The Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) exam is frequently updated to stay aligned with the Kubernetes ecosystem and its evolving security landscape. This post tracks official updates to the CKS curriculum and tooling environment provided by the CNCF.

The goal is to help CKS candidates stay on top of the exam’s scope and prepare accordingly.

Update Log​

2025-10-15 — CKS Updated to Kubernetes v1.34​

  • New Kubernetes version: v1.34
  • Major exam environment update: Environment now running Kubernetes v1.34 (as of December 2025)
  • Pod Level Resources feature graduated to Beta and enabled by default
  • Updated tooling versions aligned with Kubernetes v1.34:
    • kubectl updated to v1.34
    • kube-bench updated for v1.34 compliance
    • trivy updated with enhanced SBOM scanning capabilities
  • Gateway API v1.4 reached GA with new networking features
  • Enhanced focus on modern networking with Gateway API replacing some traditional Ingress patterns
  • Emphasis on Changed Block Tracking API (alpha) for efficient volume snapshot management
  • Ingress NGINX retirement announced (maintenance until March 2026)
  • Continued emphasis on runtime security with eBPF-based tools

2025-06-15 — CKS Updated to Kubernetes v1.32 and v1.33​

  • New Kubernetes versions: v1.32 and v1.33 released
  • Exam environment updated to align with v1.32/v1.33 within 4-8 weeks of release
  • Tooling updates for compatibility with newer Kubernetes versions
  • Continued refinement of supply chain security topics
  • Enhanced emphasis on workload identity and Pod-to-Pod encryption (Cilium, Istio)
  • Updated kube-score and kubescape versions for better configuration validation
  • Falco remains a required tool with updated detection rules for v1.32+ features

2025-04-01 — CKS Updated to Kubernetes v1.29 and Tooling Enhancements​

  • New Kubernetes version: v1.29
  • Exam tools updated to include:
    • kube-score (configuration validation)
    • kubescape (compliance scanning)
  • Falco added under "Runtime Security" domain as a required tool
  • Pod Security Admission (PSA) modes now included in detail under "Pod Security"
  • Emphasis on detecting privilege escalation paths
  • Updated trivy version includes SBOM and VEX support
  • Clarified importance of runtime eBPF tools for detection and alerting
  • New subtopic: Workload identity hardening (ServiceAccount tokens, projected volumes)

2024-07-01 — CKS Updated to Kubernetes v1.28​

  • New Kubernetes version: v1.28
  • Tools like kubectl, kube-bench, and trivy updated to reflect this version.
  • Removal of deprecated APIs.
  • Minor updates to audit logging objectives.

2023-06-30 — Curriculum Realignment​

  • Topics under “Supply Chain Security” restructured for clarity.
  • Emphasis added on detecting insecure base images and signed artifacts.
  • Link time attacks and tampering highlighted as new subtopics.

2022-09-01 — CKS Upgraded to Kubernetes v1.25​

  • Updated exam clusters to Kubernetes v1.25
  • Introduced seccomp profiles under the “Pod Security” domain
  • Deprecated PodSecurityPolicies officially removed from exam scope

2021-10-15 — CKS Environment Tooling Updated​

  • Switched to using crictl as the primary container runtime interface tool
  • Default editor changed from vi to nano (optionally configurable)
  • Introduction of kube-bench, trivy, and kyverno as allowed tools

2021-06-01 — Initial CKS Curriculum Launch​

  • Focused on 6 domains:
    • Cluster Setup
    • System Hardening
    • Minimize Microservice Vulnerabilities
    • Supply Chain Security
    • Monitoring, Logging, and Runtime Security
    • Incident Response

Stay Updated​

To ensure you're always prepared:

This post will be regularly updated with future changes to the CKS curriculum. Bookmark this page or subscribe to our updates.