Taking the KCSA Exam on My Washing Machine (And Passing!)

#kubernetes #devops #certification #security

After grabbing my CKA on Jan 11, KCNA on Jan 23, and CKAD on Jan 26, I kept the momentum going and took the KCSA on February 6th!

Briefly, the KCSA (Kubernetes and Cloud Native Security Associate) is a multiple-choice certification that tests your fundamental knowledge of Kubernetes security.

Kubernetes and Cloud Native Security Associate

Exam Results

I passed with a score of 81% (passing score is 75%).

Usually, I rent a private room in a coworking space to take these exams, but this time I wanted to save some money and decided to take it at home. After desperately searching for a completely empty space in my house that met the proctoring requirements, I ended up putting my MacBook on top of my washing machine!

Since the KCSA is a multiple-choice exam without practical labs, I figured, "It doesn't matter if the laptop wobbles a bit!"

Date: Feb 6, 2026, 10:00 AM~
Location: My laundry room
Device: MacBook Air (2022, M2, 13.6")

Impressions & Difficulty

By the time I finished my first pass through the questions, I had flagged about 40 out of 60 questions for review. Honestly, I thought, "I'm completely doomed..."

Moreover, since it's the only one of the five core Kubernetes certifications not offered in Japanese, I stumbled over English reading comprehension in a few places. However, there was plenty of time left on the clock, so I read the questions very carefully, tried to visualize the scenarios, and managed to work my way through.

Looking back, if I had taken the CKS first, I would have had a clearer image of the scenarios and found some questions much easier. I managed to pass this time, but if you want to solidify your knowledge and guarantee a pass, I honestly recommend taking the CKS before the KCSA.

Study Materials I Used

I used KodeKloud and a Kubernetes Security KCSA Mock Exam Simulator.
In total, I spent just under 20 hours studying.

KodeKloud

I watched all the video lectures on KodeKloud and looped through their 3 Mock Exams about four times.

Reflecting on it now, while concepts like STRIDE and the 4C's are specific to KCSA, topics like securityContext, Admission Controllers, Istio, and Falco heavily overlap with CKS. If I had done hands-on CKS prep beforehand, I could have studied much more efficiently.

Kubernetes and Cloud Native Security Associate (KCSA)

GitHub Mock Exams

From reading other people's review articles, I felt that KodeKloud alone wouldn't give me enough practice, so I additionally tackled a web-based mock exam repository containing about 300 questions.

You can launch an app to practice, but since it lacked a feature to flag questions I couldn't solve, I cloned the repository locally and opened it in my IDE (Cursor). My workflow was simple: I manually deleted the questions I solved correctly, and asked the Cursor AI chat for explanations on the ones I didn't understand.

I felt these questions were closer to the actual exam content than the KodeKloud mock exams, so I highly recommend doing them!

Kubernetes Security KCSA Mock Exam Simulator