Associate JFrog Security Certification

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The Associate JFrog Security Certification assesses your ability to implement and manage security across the entire software development lifecycle — from Shift Left (developer security) to runtime. It covers Xray, Curation, JFrog Advanced Security (JAS), SAST, SCA, SBOM, and runtime security.

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Exam Details

Property	Value
Format	50 Multiple Choice (Theory) + Hands-on Lab (Practical)
Theory Time	65 minutes
Lab Time	60 minutes
Passing Score	80% (theory) + Successful task completion (lab)
Attempts	Up to 2 attempts (theoretical exam)
Language	English
Price	$200
Certificate	LinkedIn-shareable digital certificate
Official Link	academy.jfrog.com

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Learning Objectives

Upon passing this certification, you will be able to:

1. Implement Curation & Catalog Management — Block risky packages before they enter your organization
2. Utilize Frogbot for Automation — Automate security scanning in pull requests via Git integration
3. Apply JFrog Advanced Security (JAS) — Use SAST, secrets detection, and contextual analysis
4. Conduct SAST & SCA — Identify code vulnerabilities and vulnerable dependencies
5. Generate and Manage SBOM — Produce and share Software Bill of Materials
6. Configure and Use Xray — Set up indexing, policies, watches, and act on violations
7. Manage Runtime Security — Detect threats in deployed containers and services

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Exam Topic Breakdown & Study Resources

1. JFrog Xray — Core Security Scanning

What to study: - Xray architecture: indexing, policies, watches, violations - Policy types: Security (CVE), License compliance, Operational Risk - Watches: connecting repositories to policies - Actions: fail-build, block download, notify - CLI: jf rt build-scan

Key Concepts:

Concept	Description
SCA	Scan package dependencies for known CVEs
Policy	Rules defining what constitutes a violation
Watch	Connects repositories to policies for continuous scanning
Violation	A policy breach triggered when a scan matches a rule
Fail Build	Policy action that fails CI if violations exceed threshold
Block Download	Policy action that prevents an artifact from being pulled

DevOpsPilot Resources: - 📄 AI/ML Security with Xray

Official Resources: - 🔗 JFrog Xray Documentation - 🔗 Xray Policies and Watches

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2. JFrog Curation

What to study: - How Curation blocks packages at ingestion (before caching in Artifactory) - Curation vs Xray — when each acts, how they complement each other - Creating Curation policies: malicious, CVE threshold, license, operational risk - Assigning policies to Remote repositories - Audit logs and allow-lists

DevOpsPilot Resources: - 📄 Curating AI/ML Packages

Official Resources: - 🔗 JFrog Curation Documentation

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3. JFrog Advanced Security (JAS)

Capability	Description
SAST	Scan source code for vulnerabilities (SQL injection, path traversal, etc.)
Secrets Detection	Find hard-coded credentials, API keys, tokens in code
Contextual Analysis	Determine if a CVE is actually exploitable in your code
IaC Analysis	Scan Terraform/K8s manifests for misconfigurations

What to study: - Difference between SCA (dependencies) and SAST (source code) - What Contextual Analysis does to reduce false positives - Types of secrets detected and remediation workflow

Official Resources: - 🔗 JFrog Advanced Security Docs - 🔗 SAST Scanner - 🔗 Secrets Detection

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4. Frogbot

What to study: - What Frogbot is: a Git bot that runs Xray/JAS scans on PRs - Supported Git providers: GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure Repos - What Frogbot reports in a PR: CVEs in new dependencies, SAST, secrets - How to set up Frogbot in GitHub Actions

Example Frogbot Setup:

name: Frogbot Scan
on:
  pull_request:
jobs:
  scan-pr:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: jfrog/frogbot@v2
        env:
          JF_URL: ${{ secrets.JF_URL }}
          JF_ACCESS_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.JF_ACCESS_TOKEN }}
          JF_GIT_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Official Resources: - 🔗 Frogbot Documentation

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5. SBOM (Software Bill of Materials)

What to study: - What SBOM is and why it matters (compliance, EO 14028) - SBOM formats: SPDX, CycloneDX - How to generate SBOM from JFrog Xray - Use cases: regulatory compliance, customer requirements

# Generate SBOM for a build
jf rt build-scan my-app 42 --format SPDX

Official Resources: - 🔗 Generating SBOM with Xray

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6. Runtime Security

What to study: - JFrog Runtime Security monitors deployed containers for threats - Runtime agent integration with Kubernetes - Correlation between runtime findings and Xray scan results

Official Resources: - 🔗 JFrog Runtime Security

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Preparation Tips

Lab Focus Areas

The hands-on lab likely covers: creating Xray policies, creating watches, scanning a build, and reviewing violations. Practice these in your JFrog SaaS free trial.

Understand the Full Security Pipeline

Know the flow: Curation (block at ingestion) → Xray (scan indexed artifacts) → JAS (code + secrets) → Frogbot (PR scanning) → Runtime (production monitoring).

Know the Three Policy Types

Security (CVE), License, and Operational Risk policies each have different rule criteria. A common exam mistake is mixing up which criteria belong to which policy type.

Recommended Prerequisite

Complete the Associate JFrog Artifactory Certification first — the Security cert assumes Artifactory fundamentals.

Official Program

JFrog Security Training & Certification Program bundles courses + certification.

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🧠 Practice Questions

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At what point in the artifact lifecycle does JFrog Curation act to block a package?

When the artifact is promoted to production

At ingestion — before the package is cached in Artifactory

When a developer downloads it from a Local repository

After Xray finishes scanning it

Curation acts as a gate at the Remote repository level. When a package is first requested, Curation evaluates it against policies before allowing it to be fetched and cached. Xray, by contrast, scans packages that are already present in Artifactory.

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Which JFrog product performs SAST scanning on your application source code?

Xray SCA

JFrog Curation

JFrog Advanced Security (JAS)

Frogbot only

JFrog Advanced Security (JAS) provides SAST capabilities — scanning your source code for vulnerabilities like SQL injection, path traversal, and insecure deserialization. Xray focuses on dependency SCA, not source code.

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You need to ensure every pull request gets automatically scanned for new CVEs introduced by the developer's dependency changes. Which JFrog tool automates this?

Xray Watch

Frogbot

JFrog CLI build-scan

Curation policies

Frogbot is a Git-integrated bot that runs JFrog security scans on pull requests — surfacing new CVEs, SAST findings, and secrets detected in the code change, directly in the PR comments.

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What is the key difference between JFrog Curation and JFrog Xray in terms of when they act?

Curation is for on-prem only; Xray is for SaaS

Curation blocks packages before they enter Artifactory; Xray scans packages already present

Curation only works with Python packages; Xray works with all types

They are the same product with different names

Curation is a pre-ingestion gate — it prevents risky packages from ever entering your Artifactory repository. Xray continuously monitors artifacts that are already present. Both should be used together for maximum coverage.

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Which SBOM format is supported by JFrog Xray for generating Software Bills of Materials?

SWID only

JSON-LD only

SPDX and CycloneDX

XML and CSV

JFrog Xray supports both SPDX and CycloneDX — the two industry-standard SBOM formats — allowing organizations to meet various regulatory and customer requirements.

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Next Steps

👉 Associate Artifactory Certification 👉 Associate HA & DR Certification 🔗 Buy the Certification ($200)

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