Advanced Red Team Operations Certification Course
ARTOC Course Review
Who Am I & Why My Opinion Matters
I’m Jay, a student exploring the offensive security space with a focus on Red Teaming and malware development. I spend my time studying detection mechanisms, researching evasion concepts, and learning how modern security products operate under the hood.
Before sitting ARTOC course, my cert stack looked like this:
- CRTP - Altered Security (where AD attacks started making sense)
- CRTO - Zero Point Security, RTO I (first real taste of Cobalt Strike and red team tradecraft)
- CRTL - Zero Point Security, RTO II (where things got harder and more realistic)
That progression matters because it means I am not reviewing ARTOC in isolation. I have a reference point. I know what a good course feels like, what a padded course feels like, and where most certifications tend to cut corners.
I struggled through it. And I am writing this because when I was deciding whether to take ARTOC, I could not find an honest course review from someone who had actually done the courses Now i have done it. So now i am writing this review for y’all.
My Red Team Certification Journey (Before ARTOC)
As you read i have done CRTP , CRTO, CRTL So that is sure i am already good with Red Teaming part and i have explore this in a very deep manner so i was thinking this ARTOC would be very easy for me but man i was wrong because the thing you see in this course is prefect for someone who want to know how Red Teaming is Done in real engagements and how you can prepare for red team engagements. I have not seen this level of depth and quality in any of the other courses. Because they only teach you how to get access to the domain or other stuff but they don’t teach you the methodology of red teaming and preparation for red team engagements. So yaah this course is really good for someone who was looking for this kind of content.
What Is ARTOC? (And Who Is It Actually For?)
ARTOC by White Knight Labs is made for people who actually want to grow in Red Teaming instead of just collecting another certification. What I found interesting is that the course focuses more on real operational mindset, OPSEC, and handling modern defensive environments rather than only running tools. A lot of the concepts and workflows covered are things you usually do not see in regular offensive security courses. If someone already understands the basics of penetration testing and wants to move deeper into advanced Red Team operations, ARTOC is honestly a solid choice.
First Impressions: This Isn’t Your Average Offensive Security Course
To make it sure that this is an Advance Red Team Cert so they expect you some previous background knoweldge about Active Directory and some Opsec basic knowledge and Malware Development, because they will not teach you every attack of AD and not every Process Injection techquiees so if you know it before its good for you.
The Core Modules - What You’re Actually Getting Into
EDR Evasion [ Crowd Strike ]
In the lab you will get Crowd Strike EDR configured so that you can test your payloads against it and see how it works and how you can bypass it and other stuff. this where thing are starts getting interesting. because in real life you will not face Windows Defender only, because companies have Microsoft Defender for Endpoint but also other EDRs like Crowd Strike, SentinelOne, Trellix and many more, so you have to be prepared for all of them. This course gives you a reality check where more people don’t even know how to bypass EDR’s
C2 Profile
In my Opinion C2 profile is the most important part of Red Team because it is the first line of defence against SOC team and it is the most important part of OPSEC. In the course they are going to teach you about how an Real Red Team Infrastructure looks like how you need to setup your own tooling, C2 profile and redirectors in a way that it is very OPSEC friendly and harder for blue teams to identify.
Cobalt Strike & AdaptixC2 - A Deep Dive Worth Taking
They are also teaching you a C2 called Adaptix which is not that popular but very powerfull and you will not find this in any other course So that is a plus point in the course and yeah they are going to teach you about Cobalt Strike in a very practical way how you can use it in a real engagement.
Cloud Redirectors (AWS, Azure, GCP, CloudFront, Lambda) - This Alone Is Worth the Price
This is the one of the best module in the course because it is very realistic and you will not find this in any other course, because in Real life scenarios you have to use these cloud redirectors to make your C2 infrastructure OPSEC friendly and hard to detect from the SOC.
BYOVD & Kernel Exploitation - Where Most Courses Stop, ARTOC Begins
They are also teaching you Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver [BYOVD] technique which is very advanced technique to Disabling Notification Callbacks by abusing the drivers which are giving in the course and also Turning off ETW and Other Telemetry which is pretty awesome.
The Attack Path Challenge [Lab]: Where the Real Learning Happens
In the lab you will see a Windows Dev machine in which there is licensed Cobalt Strike and that is LifeTime access to the licensed so you just need to pay for the AWS Lab Costing which is good because you can practice anytime you want.
ARTOC vs. The Rest: An Honest Comparison
When i was searching about Advance Red Team Certification i came accross with other courses why this course stands out to me is because of the syllabus which i seen so detailed and realistic.
ARTOC vs. RTO I & II (Zero Point Security)
Many people i saw asking question which cert they should take CRTL or ARTOC i will say its not the perfect answer but i think you should go with CRTL first and then jump to ARTOC because there are something which is good in this ARTOC course like the Redirectors Part and Kernel modules which were really good and very less person are aware of this things. In CRTL you will learn a different way of bypassing detection which i think you should not skip it.
Which Cert Should You Take First?
If you still reading this review and have this question on your mind. This is my personal suggestion from my expirences after doing all the certs CRTP, CRTO, CRTL and now ARTOC. The Flow should go like this
1
CRTP (optional) -> CRTO -> CRTL -> ARTOC
Why CRTP (optional) : Because in CRTP, if you already have done Active Directory Attack Path and had knowledge you can directly jump to CRTO rather then CRTP because in CRTO its the cert where they teach you to be about OPSEC considerations and how you can abuse Active Directory and other stuff in a very opsec way and you will also learn about Cobalt Strike too.
Who Should Take ARTOC?
If you already have done something in Active Directory and Malware Development you can go for this cert you will learn alot of thing form this course, in short i would recommend do minimum CRTO first then jump to this course because this course expects you to be good at AD attacks and opsec basics
Final Verdict: Is ARTOC Worth It?
Yes this course is 100% worth of investment because the course content you will see here is very good and realistic and the lab is also very good and you will get lifetime access to the lab which is the best part having Cobalt Strike and commercial EDR. Thank You for reading the whole review. If you are going to do this course All The best !
~ By Jay Tiwari [PaiN05]
Linkedln : - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-tiwari-699486260/
Blog Site : - https://blog.jaytiwari.me/
Discord Username : - pain._.05