How to Learn Penetration Testing: Best Courses to Eliminate Cyber Security Vulnerabilities

As cool as it sounds, penetration testing, also known as “pen testing” or “ethical hacking,” is not an easy skill to learn. To become a pen tester you’ll face a demanding path with no available shortcuts. For your education, you’ll need to go much further than an introduction to computer science course. 

But if you are determined, then you will find this career incredibly rewarding. To help you on your journey, we have compiled a guide that contains all the information needed to start your career as a pen tester.

What Is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing is the practice of simulating a cyberattack against a computer system, network, or web application in order to perform vulnerability scans and identify security weaknesses. These openings could otherwise be exploited by a hacker. The whole idea of penetration testing is to improve the cybersecurity of a company or a system.

Several penetration-testing tools are used to perform these operations. Although these tools aren’t always used for good and can also help nefarious actors leak sensitive data.

What Is Penetration Testing Used For?

Penetration testing has multiple uses. Below are some of its major goals.

• Security. Most financial institutions like banks and stock exchanges depend upon pen testers to keep their systems safe.
• Vulnerability assessment. Tech giants hire testers to find vulnerabilities in their systems, closing the door on hackers.
• Bug bounty. Penetration testing has become a multimillion-dollar industry, providing jobs to tens of thousands of people. Companies often provide bug bounties to testers around the world.  
• Security posture. Ethical hacking also allows companies to predict and prevent future cyber threats. A security posture is a company’s overall rating in terms of cybersecurity. And pen testers can help companies increase their posture.

Types of Penetration Testing

Penetration testing is a vast field but can be classified into three major categories.

Black-Box Penetration Testing

Black-box penetration testing is also called external testing. It’s a simulation of a real-time cyber attack where the tester assumes the role of a hacker.

This is the most involved type of pen testing and takes a large amount of planning,

coordination, and effort. It’s also usually the most expensive.

White Box Penetration Testing

White-box penetration testing is also called internal penetration testing. Here, the tester has full access, knowledge, and control over the company’s source code and platform.

The white-box method is more in-depth and thorough as the user has access to schema, operating system details, and IP addresses. It can cover more areas than even standard black-box testing.

Grey-box Penetration Testing

In grey-box penetration testing, the tester is provided partial or no information about the system, application, or platform. But legitimate access is provided to the tester to find out what they can accomplish.

This is a faster process than the others as the security team partially provides important information.

Learning Penetration Testing

Learning pen testing is not an easy task. It requires months of training, a lot of patience, and a considerable amount of hard work and practice. But like most things, this career can be achieved with enough determination.

There are certain prerequisites for studying this field, all of which will be discussed below. A complete list of courses and resources will also be provided for your reference.

How Long Does It Take to Learn Penetration Testing?

Like any subject, the time it takes to learn pen testing will depend on the person. But if you are a beginner, then it will likely take you eight to nine months to start running successful security tests.

How to Learn Penetration Testing: Step-by-Step

Let’s break down your plan of learning penetration testing into five parts. 

1. CS101. First, you should understand computer basics and core concepts of computer science.
2. Programming language. Next, you’ll need to learn how to code. The majority of operations you’ll perform as a pen tester require coding after all. 
3. Virtual machine. Virtual machines will play a key role in your learning process. Learning pen testing requires you to continuously use software that a regular computer might not be able to host. Hence, you must create a virtual machine before you can get started. 
4. Enroll in an online course or a training program. There are plenty of courses and training programs that can teach you all about pen testing. You can find a detailed list below.
5. Practice. Pen testing requires a lot of practice. You must constantly be learning and applying new concepts to be the best.

The Best Penetration Testing Courses and Training

In-Person Penetration Testing Classes

There are many in-person training courses available. The courses with the best reviews are listed below. 

Penetration Testing 8 Week Boot Camp

• Length: 8 weeks
• Prerequisites: None
• Cost: $2000

In this highly-rated course, Infosec promises to teach you the basics and get you on the pen testing fast track. This course is available throughout the U.S. but is only conducting webinars due to COVID.

A Graduate Certificate Program In Penetration Testing And Ethical Hacking

• Length: 8 weeks
• Prerequisites: None
• Cost: $1500

SANS Ethical Hacking training courses teach the methodologies, techniques, and tactical tools of modern hackers. They are essential for those interested in information security. Knowing how to attack a system gives keen insight into preparing a proper cyber defense, assessing vulnerability, and applying forensic or incident response processes. 

SANS offers intensive training on exploitation development, Metasploit Kung Fu, wireless and mobile-device hacking, and coding custom payloads in Python. 

Best Online Penetration Testing Courses

Keep reading to discover the massive amount of online courses able to teach you about penetration testing.

The EC Council

• Course: EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA v10) training
• Length: 1 week
• Prerequisites: None
• Cost: $1000

The EC-Council Certified Security Analyst training and certification course includes a curriculum that matches the industry’s progress. These courses cover various pen-testing requirements. Don’t forget to get your credentials and prove that you are industry-ready.

Texas University

• Course: Cyber Security: Immediate Immersion
• Length: 6 weeks
• Prerequisites: None
• Cost: $1000

In this course, you will learn basic pen testing skills. The instructor will teach you about alerts, packet capture files, kit attacks, and much more.  

Best Free Online Penetration Testing Courses

Knowledge is free and so are the following courses about pen testing.

New York University

• Course: Penetration Testing Exploitation
• Length: 5 weeks
• Prerequisites: None
• Cost: Free

This is a self-paced course that helps you develop ethical hacking skills. The class material provides an introduction to penetration testing. Meanwhile, the topics covered include foundations of explorations, applications of debugging, reverse engineering, development of exploitation, and website exploitation. 

In this course, students learn the third phase of pen testing: exploitation. In this phase, penetration testers exploit security weaknesses as actively as possible. 

Coursera

• Course: Pen Testing Basics
• Length: 8 weeks
• Prerequisites: None
• Cost: Free

This course explores the foundations of software security. You will learn important software vulnerabilities and exploit them, such as buffer overflows, SQL injection, and session hijacking. You will also study defensive measures that prevent or eliminate these attacks, including advanced testing and program analysis techniques. 

Importantly, you’ll learn a “build-in security” mentality, considering tools at each phase of the developing cycle that could be used to strengthen system software security.

Successful executors of this course usually have completed undergraduate work in technical fields and have some knowledge of programming, ideally in C and some other “managed” programming language such as Java. It will also help to have worked with algorithms. Students unfamiliar with these topics can improve their skills through online web tutorials first.

Best Penetration Testing Books

Books can provide great general information about penetration testing. The following well-rated books can help you troubleshoot your penetration testing problems.

Penetration Testing: A Hands-On Introduction to Hacking

This book by George Weidman is one of the most highly rated on penetration testing. It provides in-depth answers to the most common problems every pen tester faces. It also provides a brief introduction to ethical hacking.

The Hackers Playbook 3: Practical Guide to Penetration Testing

This book quickly gained popularity among students as it contains exclusive tricks and tips to increase any pen tester’s efficiency. The text contains excellent information and will surely provide you with new and critical insights on the topic.

Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking 

This book deals with an essential aspect of penetration testing: social engineering. Sometimes gaining access to a computer requires us earning a user’s trust. That technique is called social engineering. The text also contains widely-popular interviews on this interesting topic. 

Penetration Testing Certifications

Certain courses provide a certificate upon completion. And those can look very good on your resume. Keep reading to learn about these certification options.

CEH-Certified Ethical Hacking Certificate

This is considered the world-standard certificate for ethical hackers. To get this, you must complete an exam of four hours (125 questions) and a six-hour practical exam.

CPT-Certified Penetration Tester

This is a two-hour exam with 50 questions conducted by the Information Assurance Certification Review Board. Test your general knowledge about pen testing with this service.

Best Online Penetration Testing Resources

There are ample resources available on the internet for those wanting to learn and practice penetration testing.

Pentest-Tools.co

Pentest-tools is a very powerful online platform that lets you test various pen testing tools. 

Youtube.com

Youtube has a vast array of resources for pen testing which include some solutions to problems you might see during a testing operation. It also has complete pen-testing tutorials that can be very useful in your quest to become a successful pen tester.

Should You Study Penetration Testing?

The information technology sector is evolving quickly. So are hacker’s attempts to steal data. That’s why companies are hiring pen testers constantly to check for vulnerabilities in their systems. 

The job sector including penetration testers is estimated to grow by 32 percent, which is the highest-growth estimation of any occupation. This is the only career that recorded an unemployment rate of zero in 2016. The average salary of a pen tester is around $103,597 per year and looks to be growing. 

If you are a coding geek and have the patience to learn this highly rewarding skill, then take our provided steps to make penetration testing your career.