Renewal process for Altered Security Certifications

UPDATED - 9th June 2026

If you are reading this, I assume that you already hold one of our red team training certifications - CRTP®, CRTE®, CETP, CRTM®, CESP - ADCS, ACPT, CARTP® or CARTE®.

Just like our labs, we want the renewal process to be:

- Affordable

- Easy to Access

- Stable and provide great user experience

- Fun to Solve

We do not want you to spend any money on the renewal. We also want that you spend considerable less time on it!

Do Altered Security certifications have an expiry?

Yes, all of our certifications carry an expiry date of 3 years. This is to maintain the quality of the certifications. We want a certification holder to be hands-on and capable of doing what the certification claims.

From June 2026, we are introducing a change to make it easier to maintain our certifications. We are capping the certificate expiry to 6 years. That is, if you renew a certification beyond 6 years, it will never expire and you will have it for perpetuity.

Why? We assumed that you will advance to higher skill set or may even your career path and therefore, would not need to renew your certification.

How to renew certifications - Renewal Exam

Certificate renewal is free before expiry of a certificate (including the first attempt to renewal exam). Subsequent attempts are charged $29.

You can start the renewal exam any time from the lab portal - https://enterprisesecurity.io/

Let me explain this by an example. Let's say you got CRTP in January 2020, and you took a renewal exam in July 2023, the new expiry is now July 2026. You can appear for a second free renewal exam before July 2026 and your CRTP will remain valid forever.

How to renew certifications - Earn a higher level certification

You can also renew certificates by earning certification of a higher difficulty level in that learning path.

There are four levels of certifications offered by us:

Elementary -> Beginner -> Intermediate/Advanced -> Master

Learning Path	Elementary	Beginner	Intermediate or Advanced	Master
On-Prem Red Team	ACPT	CRTP CESP - ADCS	CRTE CETP	CRTM
Azure Red Team		CARTP	CARTE

Each higher level certification adds 3 years to expiry to a lower level.

For example, if you got CRTP in January 2026, the expiry date would be January 2029.

If you earn CRTE in February 2027, the new expiry of CRTP would now be January 2032 (3 years added) and CRTE will expire in February 2030.

Assume you earn CRTM in July 2027, your CRTP will become perpetual (because 6 more years added to expiry) and new expiry for CRTE will be February 2033 (3 years added to expiry).

We have created a handy calculator. Use it to find out the renewal process for your Altered Security certification.

Open Renewal Calculator

How to prepare for renewal?

You have lifetime access to the videos courses! If you do not have access to the course material, reach out to the lab team or contact[at]alteredsecurity.com to get the access.

But I need access to the labs for preparation!

You can purchase a "Renewal Extension" at 40% discount on the list price on respective lab page. The Renewal Extension is only available for one month of lab access.

What about other options like no expiry for certificates or CPEs?

Both of the options were extensively discussed with existing certificate holders and infosec professionals. We got a lot of valuable suggestions.

Majority of our existing certificate holders were in favor of a renewal exam. Some had apprehensions too but we really liked that our certificate holders share our view of keeping the certifications updated and respected. We understand that even for an 8 hours exam, a lot of time goes into preparation. However, that is what keeps our certifications recognized and well respected in the information security community.

As above, if you renew a certificate for a period of more than 6 years, it is your forever. No expiry!

Some from the information security community suggested using CPEs. We believe that it might bring a lot of 'paperwork' to validate and keep track of CPEs.

Therefore, we concluded that it would be best to have a free renewal exam with a shorter duration. We are providing lifetime access to the course material and 40% discount on one month lab for practice!

Thanks for reading this!

Nikhil