Certification Guide: CRTO

Certified Red Team Operator (CRTO)

🎯 Certified Red Team Operator (CRTO)

The CRTO is a practical red teaming certification designed by Zero-Point Security. It focuses on modern corporate infrastructure threat emulation, teaching candidates how to deploy Command and Control (C2) agents (specifically Cobalt Strike), navigate complex Active Directory setups, execute lateral movements, and bypass modern security products.

📋 Exam Specifications

  • Format: 48-hour hands-on lab environment spread across a 4-day window.
  • Passing Criteria: Compromise and collect 6 flags out of 8 hidden inside host files.
  • Exam Targets: A full Windows enterprise forest containing multiple active domains, client endpoints, server resources, and defensive solutions.

🛠️ Core Skills Validated

  1. Command and Control (C2) Deployment: Designing custom Cobalt Strike beacons, configuring malleable C2 profiles to mask traffic, and managing listener communications.
  2. Domain Reconnaissance: Mapping domain structures using PowerView, AD PowerShell modules, and active LDAP queries without triggering detection.
  3. Active Directory Trust Abuse: Compromising child-parent domain trust linkages and navigating across external forests.
  4. Credential Access: Harvesting memory keys from LSASS, reading registry databases, hijacking active user tokens, and abusing DPAPI secret storage keys.
  5. Lateral Movement: Moving between hosts using WinRM, WMI, custom service deployments, and remote scheduled task setups.
  6. GPO & MS-SQL Delegation: Auditing and modifying Active Directory Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to execute commands on remote nodes, and abusing MS-SQL server links.

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