The HTB Certified Active Directory Pentesting Expert (HTB CAPE) was a long-term Active Directory certification project. I spent roughly one year building depth in Windows tradecraft, AD exploitation, lateral movement, privilege escalation, evasion-aware methodology, and reporting before passing the exam on 26 January 2026.

Focus areas: Active Directory attack paths, Kerberos, Windows internals, domain privilege escalation, lateral movement, and enterprise-style reporting.