You can see it againUnder pressure people bring back shapes and positions long after the wording has gone.
Picture superiority · Shepard 1967, Standing 1973
GIAC (SANS)GIAC Cloud Threat Detection
The GIAC Cloud Threat Detection (GCTD) certification validates your ability to detect and investigate suspicious activity in cloud infrastructure. It is designed for security professionals who monitor, detect, and respond to threats across AWS and Azure environments. Earning GCTD proves you can leverage cloud-native tools, third-party solutions, and custom automations to defend cloud services effectively.
Exam formatMultiple choice
Duration120 minutes
DeliveryGIAC
Passing score70%
Free questions575
Content last reviewed 30 July 2026 · Up to date
The certification
What GIAC Cloud Threat Detection proves, and what it asks of you
What this certification covers, who it is written for, and what the exam itself looks like on the day.
4domains
12objectives
102concepts
What it is
What this certification is
What it validates, who it is written for, and the experience it assumes.
About this certification
The GIAC Cloud Threat Detection (GCTD) certification validates a practitioner's ability to detect and investigate suspicious activity in cloud infrastructure. It is designed for experienced professionals in cyber threat intelligence, secure cloud configuration, and critical practices for defending cloud solutions and services. GCTD holders demonstrate hands-on skills in monitoring Azure and AWS environments, analyzing cloud telemetry, and responding to threats in near-real-time.
The certification covers detecting attacks in the cloud, cloud investigations and cyber threat intelligence, and assessments and automation in AWS and Azure. It emphasizes practical, real-world skills—from configuring and accessing host, network, and application logs to using cloud analytic services and building automated detection and response workflows. Earning GCTD proves you can protect cloud environments by understanding attacker techniques and applying effective detection and investigation strategies.
Who it’s for
This certification is for anyone who performs monitoring, threat detection, or incident response in cloud environments, as well as those responsible for logging in a cloud environment. It is ideal for security analysts, security engineers, security architects, vulnerability assessors, and incident responders who work with AWS and Azure. Candidates should have practical experience with cloud security and be comfortable using cloud vendor-provided capabilities, third-party tools, and native command-line tools to detect and investigate threats. The certification is designed for professionals who want to validate their ability to defend cloud infrastructure effectively.
Recommended experience
Practical work experience in cloud security, threat detection, or incident response is recommended to ensure mastery of the skills necessary for certification. Experience monitoring and investigating threats in AWS and Azure environments; Familiarity with cloud logging, telemetry sources, and security analytics; Understanding of cloud automation and serverless functions for response workflows; Knowledge of containers, orchestration, and common cloud attack techniques
The syllabus
What you’ll learn
Every domain and objective GIAC (SANS) measures, with the weight they carry on the exam.
The official GIAC (SANS) exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
Cloud Monitoring Foundations
- Cloud Monitoring Fundamentals
- Log Centralization
- Network and Flow Monitoring
Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring
- Host OS Monitoring
- Containers and Orchestration
- Data and Storage Monitoring
- Application and Proxy Monitoring
Cloud Threat Detection and Response
- Automated Detection and Response
- Cyber Threat Intelligence for the Cloud
- Cloud Vulnerability Analysis
Cloud Provider Investigations
- Investigating AWS Environments
- Investigating Azure Environments
On the day
The exam itself
Everything GIAC (SANS) publishes about sitting it, and nothing we inferred.
Prerequisites
No mandatory prerequisites — this certification has no required predecessor exam or credential.
CertificationGIAC Cloud Threat Detection
Exam formatMultiple choice
Duration120 minutes
Questions75 questions
Passing score70%
DeliveryGIAC
LanguagesEnglish
After you pass
Where this credential goes next
The path GIAC (SANS) lays out, how the credential is kept, and where to book.
Step-by-step path to GIAC Cloud Threat Detection
Credential earnedGIAC Cloud Threat Detection Certification Renewal and maintenance
GIAC certifications must be renewed every four years by earning 36 CPE credits or retaking the exam. Stay current with the latest technologies and maintain your certification.
Learn more about renewal requirements Lifecycle status
This certification is currently active and available. GIAC (SANS) maintains this certification to validate current skills and industry relevance.
Exam status: ActiveMaintained by GIAC (SANS)
Exam registration
Register for the exam through GIAC, GIAC (SANS)’s authorized testing partner.
Schedule your examVisit the official GIAC (SANS) certification page for exam policies and requirements.
View the official pageYour coach
And when you are serious, your coach Pip takes over
Your coach in the app reads what you have answered with the book closed and tells you one thing to do tonight. It will not count an answer you gave with the page open, and it will tell you when you are not ready.
See how the coach worksBefore you book
Questions people ask
How does GCTD relate to other GIAC cloud certifications?
GCTD is a Practitioner certification focused on threat detection and response in cloud environments. It complements other GIAC cloud certifications like GIAC Cloud Security Automation (GCSA) and GIAC Cloud Security Architecture and Design (GCAD), which cover different aspects of cloud security.
Is there a hands-on or lab component in the GCTD exam?
The GCTD exam is a proctored, multiple-choice exam. It does not include a CyberLive hands-on component, unlike some other GIAC certifications.
What is the retake policy for the GCTD exam?
GIAC allows candidates to retake the exam after a waiting period. Specific retake policies are detailed in the GIAC terms and conditions on the official website.
Can I earn CPE credits for the GCTD certification by taking SANS courses?
Yes, SANS training courses and conferences are eligible for CPE credits toward GIAC certification renewal, including GCTD.
What job roles does the GCTD certification map to?
GCTD is designed for security analysts, security engineers, security architects, vulnerability assessors, and incident responders who work with cloud environments.
Is GCTD available in regions outside the United States?
GIAC exams are available globally through remote proctoring via ProctorU and onsite proctoring through PearsonVUE, subject to regional availability.
Information freshness · Content last reviewed on 2026-07-30 Up to date
Practice free questions 575 questions, free, no account needed.
The curriculum
The whole exam, mapped and written
Every domain, every objective, and every concept GIAC (SANS) measures — each one written out.
4domains
12objectives
102concepts
119free pages
The domains, and what sits inside them
Every objective below is a page you can open and practise now, without an account.
The official GIAC (SANS) exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
1Cloud Monitoring Foundations116 questions
2Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring210 questions
3Cloud Threat Detection and Response146 questions
4Cloud Provider Investigations103 questions
Not a table of contents
Every line on this map already opens
In front of every objective the practice pages are already there, free and without an account. This is one objective, opened.
Cloud Monitoring Fundamentals6 pagesOpen →
Free in front of it
30 questions on this objective, five to a page. Every range above is a real page, open now, with no account.
Reading the map is not the same as knowing the ground
The curriculum tells you what is on the exam. Proving you know it is a different job — and it is the one the closed-book run does.
Free questions
575 questions. No account, no card.
The whole bank is open. 5 questions to a page, every answer explained, and a discussion thread on each one.
575questions
119pages
12objectives
Freealways
Browse by domain
Every objective, and every page range, is a link — so you can pick up exactly where you left off.
1Cloud Monitoring Foundations116 questions
2Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring210 questions
3Cloud Threat Detection and Response146 questions
What a practice page gives you
1Five to a page
Short enough to finish, long enough to matter.
2Every answer explained
Not only which one is right — why the others are wrong.
3A discussion on each
Ask, answer, and vote. Every question has its own thread.
A question, and the idea behind it
Every question comes from a concept
These are not trivia. Each one is written against a concept in the book, so when you get one wrong there is somewhere to go and find out why.
The visual book
See it once. Carry it into the exam.
The pages shown here come from our AI-900 book — an example of how each concept is written in plain language and, where the idea needs one, drawn as a full page you can take in at a glance.
102concepts
575free questions
Why a picture, and not another paragraph
Three reasons, and each one is a real finding rather than a slogan.
You can see it againThe whole idea at onceWhere it starts, what happens in the middle, what comes out, and the mistake to avoid.
Multimedia principle · MayerThe look-alikes sit togetherThe pairs the exam tests are drawn side by side, so the difference is seen, not told.
Dual coding · PaivioWhat one page is made of
You are never asked to read a poster here — only to see how one is built. After that, every other page is legible at a glance.
1A numbered strip on top
The idea as a sequence, followed with a finger before a word is read.
2Panels for the parts
What it is, how the machine learns it, when it is the right tool.
3The trap, framed
The distinction the exam tests, given its own box instead of buried in prose.
4One line at the bottom
The sentence to carry into the exam room.
Open book, on purpose
Answer it with the picture beside you
This is the part that teaches. The illustration and the written explanation stay where they are while you work, so a scenario stops being a memory test and becomes something you can simply look at.
It teaches · it does not count
A smartphone uses AI to unlock when the owner looks at the camera. Which AI capability is being used?
AImage classification
BFacial recognition
COptical character recognition
DObject detection
Look at the five steps. Detect finds a face, align straightens it, encode turns it into numbers, search compares it with a stored face, and decide answers one question: is this the same person? Classification would only say “a face”. Detection would only draw a box. Neither decides whose.
Then the page shuts, and it starts counting
The same questions come back with the book closed — that run is the one that counts. After it, your coach picks one thing for tonight, sized to the time you have, and brings pages back before you lose them.
Testing effect · Roediger & Karpicke 2006 · spacing effect · Cepeda et al. 2006
Official resources
Straight from GIAC (SANS)
Where the exam is defined, scheduled and scored.
3official links
102concepts mapped
The source
GIAC (SANS)’s own pages
We link to them rather than repeat them, so nothing here goes stale behind them.
Checked against the source
Every objective on the official GIAC (SANS) outline already has questions here
We build from the official skills outline, not from a summary of it — 12 objectives, 102 concepts written under them, and free questions against every one. When GIAC (SANS) changes the outline, this page changes with it.
12objectives on the outline→102concepts written→575free questions
An official page tells you what will be asked. It cannot tell you what you will get right.
That is the only question worth answering the night before, and no link answers it. You answer it by taking the questions with the book closed, and seeing what comes back.