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COURSE 02 · 10 WEEKS · 80 GUIDED HOURS

Ethical Hacking & Penetration Testing

Authorized assessment methodology, reconnaissance, validation, exploitation concepts and professional reporting

Duration: 10 weeks
Guided Learning: 80 guided hours
Level: Beginner to Intermediate
Suggested Capstone: 40% of Assessment
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Programme Architecture

Course Overview & Target Audience

Grounded entirely in our official academic course specifications.

What You Will Learn

This course teaches a structured and ethical approach to penetration testing. Learners progress from scoping and reconnaissance through enumeration, vulnerability validation, web application assessment, controlled exploitation concepts, internal network considerations, and professional reporting. Exercises use deliberately vulnerable systems and authorized training environments.

Summary: Learn a repeatable penetration-testing workflow, from scoping and reconnaissance through web and system security testing to evidence-based reporting. All technical testing is confined to explicitly authorized environments.

Who Should Attend & Prerequisites

Target Audience:

Undergraduate students, freshers, IT professionals transitioning to offensive security, and learners building penetration-testing foundations.

Prerequisites:

Basic computer literacy is required. Introductory networking and Linux knowledge is beneficial. All practical activity must remain within authorized labs or explicitly approved scope.

Practical Competencies

Documented Learning Outcomes

Verifiable capabilities developed through guided exercises, technical investigations, and structured reporting.

Explain penetration-testing methodology, authorization, rules of engagement and scope control.
Perform basic reconnaissance and service enumeration in controlled environments.
Use vulnerability-scanning results as hypotheses to validate rather than accepting them blindly.
Assess common web application weaknesses in intentionally vulnerable applications.
Demonstrate safe, bounded validation of vulnerabilities in approved labs.
Understand internal network and Active Directory security assessment concepts.
Document evidence, impact, reproducibility and remediation recommendations in a professional report.
Week-by-Week Syllabus

Complete Course Breakdown

Each week is planned for approximately 8 guided hours, combining concept instruction, demonstration, guided practice, and review.

Week 1 Introduction to Ethical Hacking
  • Ethics, authorization, scope and legal boundaries
  • Penetration test types, objectives and limitations
  • Rules of engagement, exclusions, testing windows and communication plans
  • Assessment lifecycle: planning, discovery, validation, reporting and retest
  • Evidence handling, risk ratings and responsible disclosure
  • Difference between vulnerability assessment and penetration testing
Hands-on Practice: Review a sample rules-of-engagement document and define permitted targets, excluded actions, evidence requirements and escalation contacts.
Expected Deliverable: Scope and rules-of-engagement worksheet.
Week 2 Networking and Linux for Penetration Testing
  • TCP/IP, routing, DNS, common ports and service protocols
  • Linux shell, files, permissions, processes and package management
  • Virtual machines, host-only/NAT lab networks and safe snapshots
  • Service banners, client-server interaction and basic troubleshooting
  • Operational safety for scanning and testing tools
  • Maintaining a clear testing log
Hands-on Practice: Prepare an isolated lab, validate connectivity and collect basic host and service information from a designated training target.
Expected Deliverable: Lab diagram, environment validation notes and command log.
Week 3 Reconnaissance and Information Gathering
  • Passive versus active reconnaissance
  • WHOIS, DNS records, certificates and publicly exposed metadata
  • Subdomains and asset discovery within explicitly approved scope
  • Organizing assets, domains, IPs and observations
  • Reducing noise and avoiding out-of-scope interaction
  • Turning observations into a prioritized testing plan
Hands-on Practice: Conduct scoped reconnaissance against an academy-provided target set or purpose-built lab and verify that discovered assets are within scope.
Expected Deliverable: Reconnaissance worksheet and validated asset inventory.
Week 4 Enumeration and Vulnerability Assessment
  • Port scanning concepts and Nmap output interpretation
  • Service and version identification; limits of banners and fingerprinting
  • Authenticated versus unauthenticated vulnerability scanning
  • Nessus/OpenVAS-style findings, CVSS context and false positives
  • Manual verification and evidence collection
  • Prioritization by exploitability, exposure and business impact
Hands-on Practice: Enumerate a deliberately vulnerable target, review scanner output and manually validate selected findings without exceeding the lab rules.
Expected Deliverable: Prioritized vulnerability register with validation status and evidence.
Week 5 Web Application Security Fundamentals
  • HTTP requests and responses, cookies, sessions and browser developer tools
  • Authentication, authorization, input handling and trust boundaries
  • OWASP Top 10 concepts and common vulnerability patterns
  • SQL injection, cross-site scripting, access-control flaws and file-handling risks
  • Secure coding and defensive control concepts
  • Using intentionally vulnerable applications safely
Hands-on Practice: Explore a training web application and map observed behaviour to relevant vulnerability classes.
Expected Deliverable: Web application attack-surface map and test checklist.
Week 6 Web Application Penetration Testing
  • Burp Suite or OWASP ZAP proxy workflow
  • Mapping application routes and user roles
  • Testing authentication, session management and access control
  • Controlled validation of input-handling flaws in training applications
  • API testing fundamentals and authorization checks
  • Capturing reproducible evidence and assessing impact
Hands-on Practice: Assess an intentionally vulnerable web app, validate selected weaknesses and collect minimal evidence to demonstrate impact.
Expected Deliverable: Web testing notes with reproduction steps, impact analysis and mitigation suggestions.
Week 7 Exploitation and System-Level Security Testing
  • How exploitability differs from a scanner finding
  • Safe exploitation concepts and proof-of-concept validation
  • Metasploit concepts in a deliberately vulnerable lab
  • Privilege, process and service context after a successful lab exploit
  • Avoiding destructive actions and unnecessary data access
  • Recording commands, outcomes and cleanup steps
Hands-on Practice: Validate a preselected vulnerability in an isolated target, demonstrate bounded impact and restore the environment from a snapshot.
Expected Deliverable: Exploit-validation record with scope, evidence, impact, cleanup and remediation.
Week 8 Post-Exploitation, Active Directory and Internal Network Security
  • Internal assessment objectives and segmentation concepts
  • Identity, domain, group policy and Active Directory fundamentals
  • Credential exposure and privilege-path concepts
  • Understanding lateral movement risks from a defensive perspective
  • Privilege boundaries, least privilege and common misconfigurations
  • Safe lab-only validation and evidence minimization
Hands-on Practice: Analyse a purpose-built internal lab or supplied attack-path dataset to identify excessive privileges and propose a defensible remediation plan.
Expected Deliverable: Internal security findings and prioritized hardening recommendations.
Week 9 Reporting, Remediation and Professional Practice
  • Executive summaries and technical findings
  • Severity ratings, likelihood, impact and business context
  • Evidence quality, reproducibility and limitations
  • Clear remediation guidance and defence-in-depth recommendations
  • Debriefing, retesting and communicating unresolved risk
  • Professional ethics, confidentiality and report handling
Hands-on Practice: Turn a set of validated lab findings into a concise professional report and peer-review another report for clarity and evidence quality.
Expected Deliverable: Draft penetration-testing report and remediation matrix.
Week 10 Final Penetration Testing Capstone
  • Confirming scope, assumptions and test objectives
  • Asset discovery and enumeration
  • Risk-based validation of selected vulnerabilities
  • Organizing evidence and tracking test coverage
  • Reporting findings, impact and remediation
  • Presenting outcomes and responding to review questions
Hands-on Practice: Perform a bounded assessment of approved lab hosts and an intentionally vulnerable web application, following a supplied scope and rules of engagement.
Expected Deliverable: Final assessment report with scope, methodology, validated findings, evidence, risk ratings, limitations and actionable remediation.
Tooling & Infrastructure

Tools, Software & Lab Environments

Transparent breakdown of course tools, target scenarios, and environment boundaries.

Course Tools & Software

Documented software and utilities utilized across weekly exercises:

Kali LinuxNmapWHOIS and DNS toolsAmass or Subfinder within authorized scopeNessus or OpenVASBurp SuiteOWASP ZAPOWASP Juice Shop or DVWAMetasploit in isolated training labsWiresharkVirtualBox, VMware or UTM

Target Environments

Authorized training networks, deliberately vulnerable web applications (OWASP Juice Shop, DVWA), and isolated local virtual machines (VirtualBox / VMware / UTM).

All offensive testing and evidence parsing are strictly confined to authorized training systems.

Environment Boundaries

The academy utilizes open-source and free community tools. We do not provide commercial software licenses (such as Burp Suite Professional) or live enterprise systems.

Cloud security exercises run in learner-provisioned subscriptions or prepared telemetry datasets.

Evaluation Framework

Suggested Assessment Structure

Assessment components documented in the official course syllabus.

10%
Knowledge checks and quizzes

Part of the suggested assessment structure in the official syllabus.

30%
Guided practical labs

Part of the suggested assessment structure in the official syllabus.

20%
Written findings and report assignments

Part of the suggested assessment structure in the official syllabus.

40%
Final capstone assessment

Part of the suggested assessment structure in the official syllabus.

Proposed Passing Threshold (Awaiting Final Client Confirmation)

The course specifications suggest a 70% overall minimum score, including satisfactory completion and submission of the final capstone project. Note: This passing threshold is a proposal and requires final client confirmation before formal cohort enrolment begins.

Course Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Grounded in documented course specifications and operational policies.

What are the ethical and legal boundaries of this penetration testing course?
All technical offensive testing is strictly confined to explicitly authorized local lab targets, deliberately vulnerable applications (OWASP Juice Shop, DVWA), and sample training networks. No third-party or unauthorized external systems are ever scanned or accessed.
Is Burp Suite Professional included with this course?
No. The course utilizes Burp Suite and OWASP ZAP. Commercial licenses are neither required nor provided by the academy, and exercises are designed around freely accessible tools and community workflows.
What hardware and operating systems do I need to run the labs?
General Operational Recommendation: While the official course specifications do not mandate specific hardware floors, running local virtualization software (such as VirtualBox, VMware, or UTM) to host Kali Linux and target VMs typically requires a modern 64-bit multi-core system, with 8 to 16 GB of RAM recommended for comfortable multi-VM execution.
What is the assessment standard for graduation?
The suggested assessment structure includes quizzes (10%), guided practical labs (30%), written assessment findings (20%), and a final penetration testing capstone assessment (40%). The proposed completion threshold is 70% overall, awaiting final client confirmation.
Have questions about enrolment schedules or payment arrangements? Specific cohort dates and digital payment methods are currently unconfirmed.
Next Steps

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