Hack The Box Academy: AI Red Teamer path

What the path is

Hack The Box is a well-known training platform for security work. Its Academy organises courses into job-role paths, and the AI Red Teamer path is its path for AI security testing. Hack The Box says it was developed in collaboration with Google and aligned with Google's Secure AI Framework (SAIF).

The path has 12 modules, rated medium to hard:

• Fundamentals of AI, and Applications of AI in InfoSec
• Introduction to Red Teaming AI
• Prompt Injection Attacks, and LLM Output Attacks
• AI Data Attacks
• Attacking AI: Application and System
• AI Evasion: Foundations, First-Order Attacks and Sparsity Attacks
• AI Privacy
• AI Defense

The modules run in Hack The Box's own lab environments, which are built for this practice, so you are testing targets you are allowed to test.

The certification

The path leads to the HTB Certified Offensive AI Expert (HTB COAE), launched on 2 April 2026. It is a practical exam: Hack The Box describes seven days in a simulated corporate environment carrying out a full AI offensive assessment, rather than a multiple-choice test.

Is it worth your time?

For the red-teaming side of AI security, it is one of the few structured, hands-on options that goes beyond prompt tricks into data attacks, evasion and privacy. But be honest about timing. It is rated hard, it assumes security and ML basics, and it is paid. Do the free work first: build your own LLM app, threat model it, test it with promptfoo and garak, and write a report. If you still want more depth and a practical credential, this path is a reasonable next step.

As with every AI security certificate in 2026, hiring managers still weigh real project work and a solid security foundation above the credential itself.

How to use it well

• Keep notes per module in your own words and link each one to an OWASP LLM risk or a MITRE ATLAS technique.
• Apply the AI Defense module to your own app, so the course feeds a portfolio piece and not only a certificate.

Free or paid?

Paid. Hack The Box says access is included in an Academy subscription tier; prices vary by plan and region, so check the official pages before you buy, and buy only from Hack The Box directly.