35+ Best Penetration Testing Courses and Certifications in 2023

Become a Penetration Testing Courses and Certifications

1. Certified Penetration Testing Professional (C|PENT)

EC-Council’s Certified Penetration Testing Professional (C|PENT) program is an expert-designed, multi-disciplinary course that builds expertise in advanced penetration testing tools, techniques, and methodologies. The curriculum is designed to be 100% hands-on with extensive practice in the live cyber range to help candidates gain industry-ready skills to combat sophisticated cyberthreats. There are over 100 labs and 8 multidisciplinary network ranges with challenges across every level of the attack spectrum. The course is mapped to the NICE framework and develops skills to meet requirements of 15+ cybersecurity job roles.
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Our expert-designed curriculum covers advanced penetration testing skills such as:

  • Advanced Windows Attacks
  • Penetration Testing in OT and ICS/SCADA Environments
  • Bypassing Filtered Networks
  • Privilege Escalation
  • Attack Automation with Scripts
  • Internet of Things (IoT) Penetration Testing
  • Exploit Writing and Advanced Binary Exploitation
  • Accessing Hidden Networks with Pivoting and Double Pivoting
  • Defense Evasion

…plus many more advanced concepts!

Course Link: Certified Penetration Testing Professional Program (C|PENT)

Duration: 40 hours

Assessments: 100% practical exam that takes 24 hours. Candidates who score over 90% on the practical exam will also attain the prestigious L|PT (Master) credential.

2. Web Application Hacking and Security (W|AHS)

EC-Council’s Web Application Hacking and Security (W|AHS) program is a specialized certification designed to help candidates master the skills to hack, test, and secure web applications from a broad spectrum of web application vulnerabilities and attack vectors. W|AHS is a course that consists of hands-on performance-based challenges. The challenges are derived from the most relevant threats faced by professional ethical hackers, penetration testers, and application security engineers. The course is designed to progress in its difficulty, which means the threat scenarios advance as candidates make progress in the course. You will encounter security misconfigurations, SQL injection vulnerabilities, directory browsing vulnerabilities, enumeration vulnerabilities, cross-site scripting, and opportunities to escalate privileges and gain access to privileged information.
wahs

Course Link: Web Application Hacking and Security (WAHS) (Get a Free Demo!)

Duration: 60 hours

Assessments: 100% practical exam that takes 6 hours. Fully online and remotely proctored.

  • Course Overview: A comprehensive look at the world of cybersecurity for beginners and intermediate learners..
  • Course Link – Introduction to Cybersecurity (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 4 hours 11 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 47
  • No. of Assessments: 33
  • What You Will Learn
    • How malicious hackers can turn your social media against you
    • How to identify phishing emails, bad links, etc.
    • How to prevent and recover from virus and ransomware attacks
  • Course Overview: Know your enemy and explore the most prolific and effective cybersecurity attacks to better defend against them.
  • Course Link – Common Cybersecurity Attacks and Defense Strategies (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 1 hour 18 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 10
  • No. of Assessments: 6
  • What You Will Learn
    • The most frequent methods adversaries use to attack networks
    • Examples of effective cybersecurity attacks and their devastating outcomes
    • Effective techniques to detect and protect against common attacks
  • Course Overview: Learn how attackers can bypass passwords and how you can prevent them from doing so.
  • Course Link – Hands-on Password Attacks and Security (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 2 hours 20 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 28
  • No. of Assessments: 25
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to bypass passwords using brute force attacks, dictionary attacks, rainbow table attacks, and keyloggers
    • Different tools to perform password attacks
    • How to prevent brute force attacks, dictionary attacks, rainbow table attacks, and sniffing via keyloggers
  • Course Overview: Learn the hands-on approach to master the ten most critical web application security risks.
  • Course Link – OWASP Top 10 Security Fundamentals (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 3 hours 50 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 37
  • No. of Assessments: 50
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to use the OWASP Top 10 to ensure your applications minimize the security risks in the list
    • How web applications are built and delivered on top of the HTTP protocol
    • Threat agents, attack vectors, and the impact of the 10 most critical web application security risks
  • Course Overview: Learn and understand various attack patterns to ensure adequate preventive measures are implemented to mitigate these risks.
  • Course Link – Session Hijacking and Prevention Techniques (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 2 hours 9 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 25
  • No. of Assessments: 18
  • What You Will Learn
    • Session hijacking (how hackers use it to attack an organization)
    • Different vulnerable scenarios such as network protocols, web applications, and wireless protocols and how hackers exploit them
    • Hands-on experience in using built-in Windows and Linux tools, as well as specialized third-party proxy solutions to detect and exploit vulnerabilities
  • Course Overview: Everything you need to know about attacking SQL injections is laid out step-by-step in this course.
  • Course Link – The Complete Guide on SQL Injections (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 2 hours 26 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 10
  • No. of Assessments: 22
  • What You Will Learn
    • A structured approach to database testing and exploitation
    • A solid understanding of SQL syntax and operation
    • How to exploit SQL injections in websites and exfiltrate data

Penetration Testing Courses for Core Skill Development: Intermediate

Dive deep into core operational activities and get familiar with the most common pen testing tools.
    view: Practical vulnerability and threat assessment, insight on protecting company.
  • Course Link – Getting Started with Vulnerability Analysis and Management (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 5 hours
  • No. of Videos: 25
  • No. of Assessments: 20
  • What You Will Learn
    • Framework to be used for Vulnerability Assessment
    • Detect and identify network-based Vulnerabilities
    • Automatic and manual method to detect Vulnerability
  • Course Overview: Learn how to use penetration testing tools to protect a virtual Linux environment.
  • Course Link – Mastering Web and Infrastructure Reconnaissance (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 8 hours
  • No. of Videos: 48
  • No. of Assessments: 36
  • What You Will Learn
    • A structured approach to reconnaissance to ensure completeness and accuracy
    • How to analyze some of the typical reconnaissance results that will affect testing like hosted environments, content delivery networks, outsourced DNS, domain controllers, and print servers
  • Course Overview: Learn and understand various attack patterns to ensure adequate preventive measures are implemented to mitigate these risks.
  • Course Link – Mastering Database Reconnaissance and Exploitation (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 4 hours
  • No. of Videos: 16
  • No. of Assessments: 20
  • What You Will Learn
    • A structured approach to database testing and exploitation
    • A solid understanding of SQL and NoSQL syntax and operation
  • Course Overview: Learn how to use Kali Linux tools for vulnerability.
  • Course Link – Getting Started with Kali Linux Penetration Testing (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 5 hours 19 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 39
  • No. of Assessments: 15
  • What You Will Learn
    • Various information gathering tools and techniques
    • How to perform network and web vulnerability analysis
    • Database assessment techniques
  • Course Overview: Learn Kali Linux tools to become a professional in penetration testing.
  • Course Link – Mastering Pentesting using Kali Linux (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 4 hours 34 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 39
  • No. of Assessments: 21
  • What You Will Learn
    • Sniffing and spoofing tools and techniques
    • How to perform social engineering attacks
    • How to perform wireless attacks
  • Course Overview: Learn about open-source intelligence and how you can use it to protect a virtual Linux environment.
  • Course Link – Open Source Intelligence (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 4 hours
  • No. of Videos: 28
  • No. of Assessments: 20
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to establish a clear understanding of what open-source intelligence is and what it is not
    • How to create a safe and privacy-aware environment (lab) for conducting your OSINT investigations
    • Various tools for searching, gathering, analyzing, and documenting information which can (and will) help you in protecting yourself and your company
  • Course Overview: Learn how to write python scripts to perform pen testing on Windows and Linux machines.
  • Course Link – Black Hat Python: Python For Pentesters (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 4 hours 30 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 28
  • No. of Assessments: 14
  • What You Will Learn
    • Web application penetration testing methodology and toolkit
    • How to interact with web applications using Python and the requests library
    • How to create an HTTP bruteforcer based on requests
  • Learn to use Metasploit in this beginner-friendly, hands-on course.
  • Course Link – Metasploit Like a Pro (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 12 hours 48 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 31
  • No. of Assessments: 40
  • What You Will Learn
    • The basic purpose and use of Metasploit and its history
    • The key elements of a penetration test using Metasploit
    • How to be efficient in planning and reconnaissance
  • Course Overview: Simulate attacks through a hands-on approach within your web application with this integrated platform.
  • Course Link – Burp Suite: Web Application Penetration Testing (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 2 hours 46 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 21
  • No. of Assessments: 15
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to set up your Burp Suite environment and examine target websites using Burp 2x
    • How to scan your web application and interpret your results
    • How to simulate hybrid spidering your web application
  • Course Overview: Become a Linux power user and learn Bash Scripting.
  • Course Link – Shell Scripting with Bash (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 5 hours
  • No. of Videos: 25
  • No. of Assessments: 24
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to create a virtual lab, use the basic commands, and navigate the shell
    • How to use powerful tools such as sed, awk, grep and file globbing
    • The fundamentals of Bash Scripting and how to write your own for Linux Administration and more
  • Course Overview: Become a Linux power user and learn Bash Scripting.
  • Course Link – Shell Scripting with Bash (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 5 hours
  • No. of Videos: 25
  • No. of Assessments: 24
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to create a virtual lab, use the basic commands, and navigate the shell
    • How to use powerful tools such as sed, awk, grep and file globbing
    • The fundamentals of Bash Scripting and how to write your own for Linux Administration and more

Penetration Testing Courses for Mastery: Upgrade Skills

Learn to approach today’s threats at a more complex level and defend high-security networks.
  • Course Overview: In this beginner-friendly course, you will learn to effectively manage vulnerabilities with Qualys Cloud Platform.
  • Course Link – Hands-on Vulnerability Management with QualysGuard (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 3 hours 21 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 17
  • No. of Assessments: 35
  • What You Will Learn
    • The six phases of a vulnerability management lifecycle: discover assets, prioritize assets, conduct a vulnerability assessment, generate reports, remediate vulnerabilities, and verify remediation
    • How to create and manage your asset inventory on Qualys cloud platform
    • How to assess vulnerabilities in specific environments
  • Course Overview: Expand your open-source intelligence skill set and toolbelt to be more efficient and better at conducting your OSINT investigations. This is an advanced approach to open-source intelligence with privacy in mind.
  • Course Link – Advanced Open Source Intelligence and Privacy (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Advanced
  • Duration: 5 hours 16 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 18
  • No. of Assessments: 29
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to find information you would expect to be confidential
    • How to create a safe and privacy-aware environment (lab) for conducting your OSINT investigations by creating custom operating systems with a clean investigation environment
    • How to conduct advanced search queries across dozens of resources simultaneously
  • Course Overview: Learn Nmap tips, tricks, and secrets every hacker should know!
  • Course Link – Ethical Hacking with Nmap (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • No. of Videos: 44
  • No. of Videos: 16
  • No. of Assessments: 30
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to explore network theory with a pragmatic approach and how to weave this knowledge into your Nmap usage
    • How to tune Nmap for timing and performance, operating system detection, service detection, and version detection
    • How to examine advanced enumeration techniques for DNS, HTTP, MySQL, SMB, FTP, SSH, and much more
  • Course Overview: Learn Wireshark how to analyze and interpret network protocols. Use Wireshark for its original purpose: Deep Packet Inspection and network analysis.
  • Course Link – Wireshark for Ethical Hackers (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 5 hours 30 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 31
  • No. of Assessments: 16
  • What You Will Learn
    • The key features of Wireshark
    • The essential components of network communication
    • The different methods of setting up a packet capture
  • Course Overview: Learn hands-on web security training for enterprises from scratch.
  • Course Link – Web Security for Enterprises (Practical Training) – Part 1 (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 4 hours
  • No. of Videos: 36
  • No. of Assessments: 35
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to perform web analysis for various vulnerabilities
    • How to use of web security automated tools
    • Manual techniques to find vulnerabilities in websites
  • Course Overview: Learn hands-on web security training for enterprises from scratch.
  • Course Link – Web Security for Enterprises (Practical Training) – Part 2 (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 3 hours 34 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 29
  • No. of Assessments: 35
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to perform web analysis for various vulnerabilities
    • How to use of web security automated tools
    • Manual techniques to find vulnerabilities in websites
  • Course Overview: Learn to hunt for high impact vulnerabilities and become a bug hunting pro, mastering bug bounties from recon to report.
  • Course Link – Practical Bug Bounty Hunting for Hackers and Pentesters (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 4 hours 30 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 33
  • No. of Assessments: 30
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to find bugs in high target Bug Bounty programs
    • How to develop a methodology for effectively finding bugs
    • Various vulnerability types ranging from web to mobile and IoT systems
  • Course Overview: Learn the low-level details of the system and get the knowledge you need to gain technical mastery of binary analysis, from static analysis through symbolic execution.
  • Course Link – Hands-on Binary Analysis in Linux- Part 1 (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 4 hours 16 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 11
  • No. of Assessments: 10
  • What You Will Learn
    • How to trace Linux process and learning how an ELF file gets loaded and executed
    • Malware protection techniques and how to defeat them
    • How to automate and emulate difficult tasks with python
  • Course Overview: Learn the practical techniques used in static/dynamic analyzing software along with the Linux Kernel module and Rootkit analysis.
  • Course Link – Hands-on Binary Analysis in Linux – Part 2 (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 4 hours
  • No. of Videos: 13
  • No. of Assessments: 15
  • What You Will Learn
    • Malware protection techniques and how to defeat them
    • Rootkits and hunting them in infected system
    • Dynamic Binary Analysis frameworks
  • Course Overview: Understanding the basics of assembly language, OS internals, and legal protection software.
  • Course Link – Reverse Engineering – Part 1 (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 3 hours 50 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 16
  • No. of Assessments: 10
  • What You Will Learn
    • Concepts and techniques of reverse engineering
    • How to reverse-engineer binaries
    • How to use reverse-engineering tools
  • Course Overview: Learn about protected binaries, non-executables and basics of malware analysis.
  • Course Link – Reverse Engineering – Part 2 (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 3 hours 41 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 18
  • No. of Assessments: 15
  • What You Will Learn
    • Reverse-engineering, modifying software protection, and licenses
    • The purpose of Bypass Mechanism (packing, used to prevent reverse-engineering)
    • Elementary malware analysis
  • Course Overview: Learn pen testing with this complete practical course.
  • Course Link – Penetration Testing with OWASP ZAP (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Advanced
  • Duration: 4 hours
  • No. of Videos: 24
  • No. of Assessments: 20
  • What You Will Learn
    • OWASP ZAP with practical examples
    • Why OWASP ZAP is important for web security professionals
    • The complete layout of OWASP ZAP
  • Course Overview: Detect, contain, and eliminate any breaches in your network and minimize the cost of remediation.
  • Course Link – Hands-on Zero Day Exploit (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 5 hours 7 minutes
  • No. of Videos: 32
  • No. of Assessments: 45
  • What You Will Learn
    • Fuzzing
    • Buffer overflow attacks
    • How to pivot from one compromised windows machine to another box using RPivot
  • Course Overview: Learn how to hack websites and web applications and how to secure them from them from hackers.
  • Course Link – Practical Web Application Penetration Testing (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 5 hours
  • No. of Videos: 93
  • No. of Assessments: 20
  • What You Will Learn
    • The basics of Kali Linux
    • File upload, code execution, local file inclusion, and remote file inclusion vulnerabilities and how to tackle them
    • SQL Injection, Advanced SQLI, XXS, BeEF Framework, and CSRF
  • Course Overview: Monitor network traffic and detect intrusions using Zeek network analysis tools.
  • Course Link – Ensuring Network Security with Zeek (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Beginner
  • Duration: 4 hours
  • No. of Videos: 19
  • No. of Assessments: 20
  • What You Will Learn
    • The fundamentals of traditional network segmentation
    • Virtualization technologies
    • The fundamentals of network function virtualization
  • Course Overview: Monitor network traffic and detect intrusions using Zeek network analysis tools.
  • Course Link – Deep Dive into Network Assessments (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 4 hours
  • No. of Videos: 27
  • No. of Assessments: 20
  • What You Will Learn
    • The importance and benefits of performing network assessments.
    • Types of network assessments and how they differ
    • How to create a methodology on performing assessments
  • Course Overview: Discover how network virtualization techniques can improve the security of your organization.
  • Course Link – Implementing Secure Network Virtualization (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 4 hours
  • No. of Videos: 17
  • No. of Assessments: 15
  • What You Will Learn
    • The fundamentals of traditional network segmentation
    • Virtualization technologies
    • The fundamentals of network function virtualization
  • Course Overview: Learn how to hack and exploit hardware from its foundations and become a hardware pen testing expert.
  • Course Link – Practical Hardware Pentesting (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 4 hours
  • No. of Videos: 21
  • No. of Assessments: 35
  • What You Will Learn
    • Skill set to defeat hardware security measures and exploit physical vulnerabilities
    • The most useful and foundational concepts to understand every hardware attack
    • How to identify weak spots in any kind of hardware device or protocol
  • Course Overview: Learn how to hack and exploit hardware from its foundations and become a hardware pen testing expert.
  • Course Link – Advanced Cryptography Engineering (eccouncil.org)
  • Course Level: Advanced
  • Duration: 8 hours
  • No. of Videos: 39
  • No. of Assessments: 55
  • What You Will Learn
    • Systematic overview of the available cryptography tools, including the most recent progress in the field
    • How to select the appropriate cryptography tools for specific scenarios
    • How to use cryptography tools to solve real problems, step by step

Avoiding Pitfalls in Choosing a Penetration Testing Course or Certification

Selecting a penetration testing course or certification is not a decision that anyone should take lightly. Naturally, before you attempt to specialize in penetration testing, you ought to have gained sufficient skills in Ethical Hacking with the industry’s gold standard, the Certified Ethical Hacker program.

A common pitfall that you should avoid is to pick a certification that does not teach you any real-world pentesting skills. Common things that the certification course must teach you include:

  • Pen Testing IoT and Operational Technology (OT) Systems
  • Writing Advanced Binary Exploits
  • Evade Defense Mechanisms & Weaponize Exploits
  • Accessing through Pivoting & Double Pivoting
  • Advanced Windows Attack
  • Weaponizing Your Exploits
  • Privilege Escalation
  • Attacking Automation with Scripts
  • Writing Professional Reports
  • Bypassing a Filtered Network
  • Evading Defense Mechanisms
  • Accessing Hidden Networks with Pivoting

Make sure you are trained to apply the skills you learn in a multidisciplinary network. Carefully examine the course curriculum and the skills covered. A penetration testing course should be multi-disciplinary and hands-on with extensive practice. It should also cover the latest tools, attack methods, vulnerabilities, and attack surfaces. A key requirement is that the challenges you practice should be on real-world network environments.

Any certification should provide comprehensive and structured learning on a range of penetration testing skills, while a deep-dive course will give you the required expertise. You can choose a certification based on your job requirements as well as your continuous skill-development needs. Certificates should be industry recognized so you can share them with employers and your community.

If you’re interested in learning how to conduct penetration tests, we offer affordable online learning through industry-recognized certifications as well as continuing education courses on the CodeRed platform by EC-Council.

With EC-Council courses on penetration testing, you can expect:

  • Advanced curricula, designed by experts
  • Mastery of best-in-class tools, techniques, and methodologies
  • Penetration testing scenarios in real-world enterprise environments
  • Extensive practice on live Cyber Range
  • The latest threat scenarios and attack surfaces
  • A deep dive into skill-focused learning
  • Industry-recognized credentials
  • Content mapped to industry job roles

Penetration Testing Career Outlook

Because of the growing demand in this field, there’s never been a better time to gain expertise in penetration testing and start on the path to a more rewarding cybersecurity career.
market-fluctuation

Market Predictions:

The penetration testing market size is projected to reach USD 3.1 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 12%. [1]

Source:

https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5448291/global-penetration-testing-market-by-offering-by

Average-Salary

Average Salary:

USD 119,972 in the United States [2] Source: https://www.indeed.com/career/penetration-tester/salaries

Information Security Jobs That Require Penetration Testing Skills [3]

  • Penetration Tester
  • Ethical Hacker
  • Information Security Analyst
  • Security Software Developer
  • Security Architect
  • Chief Information Security Officer
  • Information Security Consultant
  • Security Engineer
  • Security Manager
  • Computer Forensics Analyst
  • Incident Responder

Top-Paying Industries [4]

  • Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses
  • Other Information Services
  • Semiconductor and Other Electronic Component Manufacturing
  • Automotive Repair and Maintenance
  • Legal Services

Industries with Highest Employment [4]

  • Computer Systems Design and Related Services
  • Management of Companies and Enterprises
  • Credit Intermediation and Related Activities (5221 and 5223 only)
  • Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services
  • Insurance Carriers

What Is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing is one of the tools that cybersecurity professionals use to identify, test, and highlight vulnerabilities in an enterprise’s networks, information, and systems. Penetration testers simulate cyberattacks so they can detect any weaknesses in an existing security system before malicious actors can exploit them. Once a penetration test is completed, the assessment results are comprehensively documented for executive management and the technical audience of the organization.

Penetration testing helps determine the efficacy of the security policies, strategies, and controls in an organization. Effective penetration testing is a vital capability for organizations and an increasingly critical cyber practice across industries to ensure business continuity, prevent loss of sensitive data and protect against resulting financial damages.

References

[1] https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5448291/global-penetration-testing-market-by-offering-by

[2] https://www.indeed.com/career/penetration-tester/salaries

[3] https://www.cyberdegrees.org/jobs/penetration-tester/

[4] https://www.cyberdegrees.org/careers/penetration-tester/career-and-salary/