Penetration Testing

Course Summary

This course provides a practical introduction to penetration testing methodology and techniques. Learners will gain hands-on experience with each phase of a penetration test, from planning and reconnaissance through exploitation, post-exploitation, and reporting. Emphasis is placed on real-world tools, legal and ethical considerations, and developing the skills to identify vulnerabilities, assess risk, and deliver actionable findings.

Prerequisites
In order to succeed in this course, participants will need:

Basic knowledge of networking, operating systems, and security concepts

Purpose	Understand the methodology and techniques used for penetration testing
Audience	IT professionals looking to improve their offensive security skills
Role	IT Professionals \| Network Administrators \| Security practitioners
Skill level	Introduction
Style	Lecture \| Hands-on Activities \| Labs
Duration	3 days
Related technologies	Networking \| SQL

Learning objectives

Plan and scope a penetration test effectively
Conduct reconnaissance and vulnerability analysis
Execute exploitation attacks against common attack vectors
Perform post-exploitation tasks such as privilege escalation and lateral movement
Report findings clearly and provide actionable recommendations

What you'll learn:

In this Penetration Testing course, you'll learn:

Pre-Engagement Activities

Foundations of penetration testing
The penetration testing lifecycle
Legal and ethical considerations
Scoping and communication requirements

Information Gathering and Reconnaissance

Passive reconnaissance with OSINT and public sources
Active reconnaissance with host discovery and network mapping
Port and service scanning
Common tools such as Nmap, theHarvester, and Maltego

Vulnerability Analysis

Understanding vulnerabilities and common classifications
Automated scanning with open-source and commercial tools
Manual vulnerability analysis techniques
Exploitation frameworks such as Metasploit
Common attack vectors including web applications, client-side, and wireless
Web application attacks such as SQL injection, XSS, and command injection
Social engineering techniques including phishing

Post-Exploitation and Reporting

Post-exploitation methods and maintaining persistence
Privilege escalation and lateral movement
Data exfiltration considerations
Creating clear and actionable penetration test reports
Cleanup and removing testing artifacts