ACA-Security Retired: What Replaced It and What Carries Over

Historical ACA-Security Scope

The Alibaba Cloud Security Associate certification historically covered cloud security fundamentals, identity management, data encryption, security products, and incident response across a total of 60 questions with a maximum duration of 120 minutes. Certifying body Alibaba Cloud officially retired this exam on May 13, 2025. Its verified direct successor is CSA-C01, which is the current standard for cloud security professionals.

Who ACA-Security Was For

Cloud administrators, security engineers, and IT professionals seeking to validate their knowledge of Alibaba Cloud security controls and products. Candidates should focus their efforts on the current CSA-C01 certification path to maintain their professional credentials.

Skills You Should Be Ready to Demonstrate

• Cloud Security Fundamentals
• Identity and Access Management
• Data Encryption
• Security Products
• Incident Response

How to Reuse Your Preparation

Do not attempt to schedule or study specifically for this retired exam. Direct your preparation toward the verified successor, CSA-C01. Core security principles transfer completely, but you must align your study plan with the current official documentation and exam guides for the active credential to ensure you are ready for the new requirements.

Historical Domain Guide

Cloud Security Fundamentals: Historical Scope

This domain covers fundamental principles of cloud security architecture, shared responsibility models, and basic threat landscapes relevant to protecting enterprise cloud environments against unauthorized access and various modern digital exploits.

• Cloud security principles
• Shared responsibility model

Identity and Access Management: Historical Scope

This domain focuses on identity and access management controls, user privileges, policies, and multi-factor authentication mechanisms within the cloud environment to ensure operational security and proper authorization for all users.

• Access control policies
• User privilege management

Data Encryption: Historical Scope

This domain addresses data encryption methods, key management service concepts, and cryptographic protections applied to data at rest and data in transit across all connected cloud storage volumes and network paths.

• Key management service
• Data at rest encryption

Security Products: Historical Scope

This domain examines native security products, various tooling options, and defensive configurations available within the ecosystem to mitigate emergent risks and effectively secure the underlying cloud infrastructure for all enterprise users.

• Security product features
• Defensive configuration

Incident Response: Historical Scope

This domain outlines standard incident response procedures, proactive threat detection, log analysis, and methodical remediation steps following unexpected security events or potential breaches in the cloud environment for all active users.

• Threat detection
• Incident remediation steps