• atulsharma.cse@gmail.com
• July 17, 2024
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When you want to step into cybersecurity, choose the one you know can help you in the long term. Stepping into cybersecurity demands a basic understanding of similar concepts. Thus, CompTIA PenTest+ certification provides you with the crucial skills required to sustain in cybersecurity.

Keep reading to get familiar with the insights of the CompTIA PenTest+ course in detail.

Why choose CompTIA PenTest+ certification in IT?

The CompTIA PenTest+ certification helps you with penetration testing and vulnerability management. It enables you to fortify all the security measures to protect data and information.

What will I learn with the CompTIA PenTest+ certification at Network Kings?

With the CompTIA PenTest+ certification at Network Kings, you will learn the following-

• Planning and Scoping

These embrace updated methodologies highlighting governance, risk management, compliance principles, and scoping aligned with organizational and client requirements. You will accumulate an ethical hacking mindset for effective penetration testing.

• Information Gathering and Vulnerability Scanning

These enhance your skills in performing vulnerability scans, passively and actively reconnaissance, and vulnerability management. You will learn to effectively analyze the outcomes of reconnaissance activities.

• Attacks and Exploits

These help you adopt advanced techniques for targeting expanded attack surfaces. You will delve into social engineering strategies, network, wireless, and application-based attacks, as well as cloud technology exploits. You will also learn to master post-exploitation methods for comprehensive security assessments.

• Reporting and Communication

You will gain a deeper understanding of the crucial role of reporting and communication in a highly regulated environment. You will learn to analyze findings and provide appropriate remediation recommendations within detailed reports during the pen testing processes.

• Tools and Code Analysis

These will help you update your knowledge of identifying and analyzing scripts across various software deployments. You will understand the use cases of diverse tools employed throughout the penetration testing phases without the necessity of scripting or coding expertise.

What exam will I have to prepare to earn the CompTIA PenTest+ certification?

https://youtu.be/stB-oUSF8nQ

To earn the CompTIA PenTest+ certification, you need to clear one exam. The details of the CompTIA PenTest+ exam are as follows-

Exam Code: PT0-002

Exam Cost: USD 404

Exam Duration: 165 minutes

Exam Format: Performance-based and multiple-choice

Total Questions: 85 Questions

Passing Score: 750 (on a scale of 100-900)

Exam Language: English, Japanese, Portuguese and Thai

Testing Center: Pearson VUE

What job opportunities are available for me after completing the CompTIA PenTest+ Course?

The job opportunities available for you after completing the CompTIA PenTest+ course are as follows-

• Penetration Tester
• Security Consultant
• Network Security Specialist
• Security Analyst
• Vulnerability Assessment Analyst
• Information Security Specialist
• IT Security Consultant
• Cybersecurity Engineer
• Ethical Hacker
• Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst

How much can I earn after earning the CompTIA PenTest+ certification program?

You can earn the following salary packages based on different countries after earning the CompTIA PenTest+ certification-

• United States: USD 80,767 to USD 107,346 per year
• United Kingdom: GBP 40,000 to GBP 60,000 per year
• Canada: CAD 70,000 to CAD 95,000 per year
• Australia: AUD 90,000 to AUD 120,000 per year
• Germany: EUR 55,000 to EUR 75,000 per year
• India: INR 800,000 to INR 1,500,000 per year
• Japan: JPY 6,000,000 to JPY 8,500,000per year
• Netherlands: EUR 50,000 to EUR 70,000 per year
• South Africa: ZAR 450,000 to ZAR 700,000 per year
• Saudi Arabia: SAR 180,000 to SAR 280,000 per year

What will I learn with the CompTIA CySA+ certification training at Network Kings?

You will learn the following with the CompTIA CySA+ certification training at Network Kings-

Module 1: Planning and Scoping

• Compare and contrast governance, risk and compliance concepts

1. Regulatory compliance considerations
   1. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
   2. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
2. Location restrictions
   1. Country Limitations
   2. Tool restrictions
   3. Local laws
   4. Local government requirements
      1. Privacy requirements
3. Legal concepts
   1. Service-level agreement (SLA)
   2. Confidentiality
   3. Statement of work
   4. Non-disclosure agreement (NDA)
   5. Master service agreement

• Permission to attack

1. Explain the importance of scoping and organizational/customer requirements

1. Standards and methodologies
   1. MITRE ATT&CK
   2. Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)
   3. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
   4. Open-source Security Testing Methodology Manual (OSSTMM)
   5. Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES)
   6. Information Systems Security Assessment Framework (ISSAF)
2. Rules of engagement
   1. Time of day
   2. Types of allowed/disallowed tests
   3. Other restrictions
3. Environmental considerations
   1. Network
   2. Application
   3. Cloud
4. Target list/in-scope assets
   1. Wireless networks
   2. Internet Protocol (IP) ranges
   3. Domains
   4. Application programming interfaces (APIs)
   5. Physical locations
   6. Domain name system (DNS)
   7. External vs. internal targets
   8. First-party vs. third-party hosted
5. Validate the scope of engagement
   1. Question the client/review contracts
   2. Time management
   3. Strategy
      1. Unknown-environment vs. known-environment testing

• Demonstrate an ethical hacking mindset by maintaining professionalism and integrity

1. Background checks of the penetration testing team
2. Adhere to specific scope of engagement
3. Identify criminal activity
4. Immediately report breaches/criminal activity
5. Limit the use of tools to a particular engagement
6. Limit invasiveness based on scope
7. Maintain confidentiality of data/information
8. Risks to the professional
   1. Fees/fines
   2. Criminal charges

Module 2: Information Gathering and Vulnerability Scanning

• Perform passive reconnaissance

1. DNS lookups
2. Identify technical contacts
3. Administrator contacts
4. Cloud vs. self-hosted
5. Social media scraping
   1. Key contacts/job responsibilities
   2. Job listing/technology stack
6. Cryptographic flaws
   1. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates
   2. Revocation
7. Company reputation/security posture
8. Data
   1. Password dumps
   2. File metadata
   3. Strategic search engine analysis/enumeration
   4. Website archive/caching
   5. Public source-code repositories
9. Open-source Intelligence (OSINT)
   1. Tools
      1. Shodan
      2. Recon-ng
   2. Sources
      1. Common weakness enumeration (CWE)
      2. Common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE)

• Perform active reconnaissance

1. Enumeration
   1. Hosts
   2. Services
   3. Domains
   4. Users
   5. Uniform resource locators (URLs)
2. Website reconnaissance
   1. Crawling websites
   2. Scraping websites
   3. Manual inspection of web links
      1. Robots.txt
3. Packet crafting
   1. Scapy
4. Defence detection
   1. Load balancer detection
   2. Web application firewall (WAF) detection
   3. Antivirus
   4. Firewall
5. Tokens
   1. Scoping
   2. Issuing
   3. Revocation
6. Wardriving
7. Network traffic
   1. Capture API requests and responses
   2. Sniffing
8. Cloud asset discovery
9. Third-party hosted services
10. Detection avoidance

• Analyze the results of a reconnaissance exercise

1. Fingerprinting
   1. Operating systems (OSs)
   2. Networks
   3. Network devices
   4. Software
2. Analyze output from:
   1. DNS lookups
   2. Crawling websites
   3. Network traffic
   4. Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) traffic
   5. Nmap scans
   6. Web logs

• Perform vulnerability scanning

1. Considerations of Vulnerability Scanning
   1. Time to run scans
   2. Protocols
   3. Network topology
   4. Bandwidth limitations
   5. Query throttling
   6. Fragile systems
   7. Non-traditional assets
2. Scan identified targets for vulnerabilities
3. Set scan settings to avoid detection
4. Scanning methods
   1. Stealth scan
   2. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connect scan
   3. Credentialed vs. non-credentialed
5. Nmap
   1. Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) scripts
   2. Common options
      1. A
      2. sV
      3. sT
      4. Pn
      5. O
      6. sU
      7. sS
      8. T 1-5
      9. script=vuln
      10. P
6. Vulnerability testing tools that facilitate automation

Module 3: Attacks and Exploits

• Research attack vectors and perform network attacks

1. Stress testing for availability
2. Exploit resources
   1. Exploit database (DB)
   2. Packet storm
3. Attacks
   1. ARP poisoming
   2. Exploit chaining
   3. Password attacks
      1. Password spraying
      2. Hash cracking
      3. Brute force
      4. Dictionary
   4. On-path (man-in-the-middle)
   5. Kerberoasting
   6. DNS cache poisoning
   7. Virtual local area network (VLAN) hopping
   8. Network access control (NAC) bypass
   9. Media access control (MAC) spoofing
   10. Link-Local Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR)/NetBIOS- Name Service (NBT-NS) poisoning
   11. New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM) relay attacks
4. Tools
   1. Metaspoilt
   2. Netcat
   3. Nmap

• Research attack vectors and perform wireless attacks

1. Attack methods
   1. Eavesdropping
   2. Data modification
   3. Data corruption
   4. Relay attacks
   5. Spoofing
   6. Deauthentication
   7. Jamming
   8. Capture handshakes
   9. On-path
2. Attacks
   1. Evil twin
   2. Captive portal
   3. Bluejacking
   4. Bluesnarfing
   5. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) cloning
   6. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) attack
   7. Amplification attacks [Near-field communication (NFC)]
   8. WiFi-protected setup (WPS) PIN attack
3. Tools
   1. Aircrack-ng suite
   2. Amplified antenna

• Research attack vectors and perform application-based attacks

1. OWASP Top 10
2. Server-side request forgery
3. Business logic flaws
4. Injection attacks
   1. Structured Query Language (SQL) injection
      1. Blind SQL
      2. Boolean SQL
      3. Stacked queries
   2. Command injection
   3. Cross-site scripting
      1. Persistent
      2. Reflected
   4. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) injection
5. Application vulnerabilities
   1. Race conditions
   2. Lack of error handling
   3. Lack of code signing
   4. Insecure data transmission
   5. Session attacks
      1. Session hijacking
      2. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)
      3. Privilege escalation
      4. Session replay
      5. Session fixation
6. API attacks
   1. Restful
   2. Extensible Markup Language-Remote Procedure Call (XML-RPC)
   3. Soap
7. Tools
   1. Web proxies
   2. OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP)
   3. Burp Suite Community edition
   4. SQLmap
   5. DirBuster
8. Resources
   1. Word lists

• Research attack vectors and perform attacks on cloud technologies

1. Attacks
   1. Credential harvesting
   2. Privilege escalation
   3. Account takeover
   4. Metadata service attack
   5. Misconfigured cloud assets
      1. Identity and access management (IAM)
      2. Federation misconfigurations
      3. Object storage
      4. Containerization technologies
   6. Resource exhaustion
   7. Cloud malware injection attacks
   8. Denial-of-service attacks
   9. Side-channel attacks
   10. Direct-to-origin attacks
2. Tools
   1. Software development kit (SDK)

• Explain common attacks and vulnerabilities against specialized systems

1. Mobile
   1. Attacks
      1. Reverse engineering
      2. Sandbox analysis
      3. Spamming
   2. Vulnerabilities
      1. Insecure storage
      2. Passcode vulnerabilities
      3. Certificate pinning
      4. Using known vulnerable components
      5. Dependency vulnerabilities
      6. Patching fragmentation
      7. Execution of activities using root
      8. Over-reach of permissions
      9. Biometrics integrations
      10. Business logic vulnerabilities
   3. Tools
      1. Burp Suite
      2. Drozer
      3. Needle
      4. Mobile Security Framework (MobSF)
      5. Postman
      6. Ettercap
      7. Frida
      8. Objection
      9. Android SDK tools
      10. Androzer
      11. ApkX
      12. APK Studio
2. Internet of Things (IoT) devices
   1. BLE attacks
   2. Special considerations
      1. Fragile environment
      2. Availability concerns
      3. Data corruption
      4. Data exfiltration
   3. Vulnerabilities
      1. Insecure defaults
      2. Cleartext communication
      3. Hard-coded configurations
      4. Outdated firmware/hardware
      5. Data leakage
      6. Use of insecure or outdated components
3. Data storage system vulnerabilities
   1. Misconfigurations—on-premises and cloud-based
   2. Default/blank username/password
   3. Network Exposure
   4. Lack of user input sanitization
   5. Underlying software vulnerabilities
   6. Error messages and debug handling
   7. Injection vulnerabilities
   8. Single quote method
4. Management interface vulnerabilities
   1. Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)
5. Vulnerabilities related to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)/ Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)/ industrial control system (ICS)
6. Vulnerabilities related to virtual environments
   1. Virtual machine (VM) escape
   2. Hypervisor vulnerabilities
   3. VM repository vulnerabilities
7. Vulnerabilities related to containerized workloads

• Perform a social engineering or physical attack

1. Protect for an approach
2. Social engineering attacks
   1. Email phishing
      1. Whaling
      2. Spear phishing
   2. Vishing
   3. Short message service (SMS) phishing
   4. Universal Serial Bus (USB) drop key
   5. Watering hole attack
3. Physical attacks
   1. Tailgating
   2. Dumpster diving
   3. Shoulder surfing
   4. Badge cloning
4. Impersonation
5. Tools
   1. Browser exploitation framework (BeEF)
   2. Social engineering toolkit
   3. Call spoofing tools
6. Methods of influence
   1. Authority
   2. Scarcity
   3. Social proof
   4. Urgency
   5. Likeness
   6. Fear

• Perform post-exploitation techniques

1. Post-exploitation tools
   1. Empire
   2. Mimikatz
   3. BloodHound
2. Lateral movement
   1. Pass the hash
3. Network segmentation testing
4. Privilege escalation
   1. Horizontal
   2. Vertical
5. Upgrading a restrictive shell
6. Creating a foothold/persistence
   1. Trojan
   2. Backdoor
      1. Bind shell
      2. Reverse shell
   3. Daemons
   4. Scheduled tasks
7. Detection avoidance
   1. Living-off-the-land techniques/fileless malware
      1. psExec
      2. Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
      3. PowerShell (PS) remoting/Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
   2. Data exfiltration
   3. Covering your tracks
   4. Steganography
   5. Establishing a covert channel
8. Enumeration
   1. Users
   2. Groups
   3. Forests
   4. Sensitive data
   5. Unencrypted files

Module 4: Reporting and Communication

• Compare and contrast important components of written reports

1. Report audience
   1. C-suite
   2. Third-party stakeholders
   3. Technical staff
   4. Developers
2. Report contents
   1. Executive summary
   2. Scope details
   3. Methodology
      1. Attack Narrative
   4. Findings
      1. Risk rating (reference framework)
      2. Risk prioritization
      3. Business impact analysis
   5. Metrics and measures
   6. Remediation
   7. Conclusion
   8. Appendix
3. Storage time for report
4. Secure distribution
5. Note-taking
   1. Ongoing documentation during the test
   2. Screenshots
6. Common themes/root causes
   1. Vulnerabilities 
   2. Observations
   3. Lack of best practices

• Analyze the findings and recommend the appropriate remediation within a report

1. Technical controls
   1. System hardening
   2. Sanitize user input/ parameterize queries
   3. Implemented multifactor authentication
   4. Encrypt passwords
   5. Process-level remediation
   6. Patch management
   7. Key rotation
   8. Certificate management
   9. Secrets management solution
   10. Network segmentation
2. Administrative controls
   1. Role-based access control
   2. Secure software development life cycle
   3. Minimum password requirements
   4. Policies and procedures
3. Operational controls
   1. Job rotation
   2. Time-of-day restrictions
   3. Mandatory vacations
   4. User training
4. Physical controls
   1. Access control vestibule
   2. Biometric controls
   3. Video surveillance

• Explain the importance of communication during the penetration testing process

1. Communication path
   1. Primary contact
   2. Technical contact
   3. Emergency Contact
2. Communication triggers
   1. Critical findings
   2. Status reports
   3. Indicators of Prior Compromise
3. Reasons for communication
   1. Situational awareness
   2. De-escalation
   3. Deconfliction
   4. Identifying false positives
   5. Criminal activity
4. Goal reprioritization
5. Presentation of findings

• Explain post-report delivery activities

1. Post-engagement cleanup
   1. Removing shells
   2. Removing tester-created credentials
   3. Removing tools
2. Client acceptance
3. Lessons learned
4. Follow-up actions/retest
5. Attestation of findings
6. Data destruction process

Module 5: Tools and Code Analysis

• Explain the basic concepts of scripting and software development

1. Logic constructs
   1. Loops
   2. Conditionals
   3. Boolean operator
   4. String operator
   5. Arithmetic operator
2. Data structures
   1. JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
   2. Key value
   3. Arrays
   4. Dictionaries
   5. Comma-separated values (CSV)
   6. Lists
   7. Trees
3. Libraries
4. Classes
5. Procedures
6. Functions

• Analyze a script or code sample for use in a penetration test

1. Shells
   1. Bash
   2. PS
2. Programming languages
   1. Python
   2. Ruby
   3. Perl
   4. javaScript
3. Analyze exploit code to:
   1. Download files
   2. Launch remote access
   3. Enumerate users
   4. Enumerate assets
4. Opportunities for automation
   1. Automate the penetration testing process
      1. Perform a port scan and then automate the next steps based on the results
      2. Check configurations and produce a report
   2. Scripting to modify IP addresses during a test
   3. Nmap scripting to enumerate cyphers and produce reports

• Explain the use cases of the following tools during the phases of a penetration test

1. Scanners
   1. Nikto
   2. Open vulnerability assessment scanner (Open VAS)
   3. SQLmap
   4. Nessus
   5. Open Security ContentAutomation Protocol (SCAP)
   6. Wapiti
   7. WPScan
   8. Brakeman
   9. Scout Suite
2. Credential testing tools
   1. Hashcat
   2. Medusa
   3. Hydra
   4. CeWL
   5. John the Ripper
   6. Cain
   7. Mimikatz
   8. Patator
   9. DirBuster
   10. W3af
3. Debuggers
   1. OllyDbg
   2. Immunity Debugger
   3. GNU Debugger (GDB)
   4. WinDbg
   5. Interactive Disassembler (IDA)
   6. Covenant
   7. SearchSploit
4. OSINIT
   1. WHOIS
   2. Nslookup
   3. Fingerprinting Organization with Collected Archives (FOCA)
   4. theHarvester
   5. Shodan
   6. Maltego
   7. Recon-ng
   8. Censys
5. Wireless
   1. Aircrack-ng suite
   2. Kismet
   3. Wifite
   4. Rogue access point
   5. EAPHammer
   6. mdk4
   7. Spooftooph
   8. Reaver
   9. Wireless Geographic Logging Engine (WiGLE)
   10. Fern
6. Web application tools
   1. OWASP ZAP
   2. Burp Suite
   3. Gobuster
7. Social engineering tools
   1. Social Engineering Toolkit (SET)
   2. BeEF
8. Remote access tools
   1. Secure Shel (SSH)
   2. Ncat
   3. Netcat
   4. proxyChains
9. Networking tools
   1. Wireshark
   2. Hping
10. Misc.
    1. SearchSploit
    2. PowerSploit
    3. Responder
    4. Impacket tools
    5. Empire
    6. Metasploit
    7. mitm6
    8. CrackMapExec
    9. TruffleHog
    10. Censys
11. Steganography tools
    1. Open steg
    2. Steghide
    3. Snow
    4. Coagula
    5. Sonic Visualiser
    6. TinEye
    7. Metagoofil
    8. Online SSL checkers
12. Cloud tools
    1. Scout Suite
    2. CloudBrute
    3. Pacu
    4. Cloud Custodian

Wrapping Up!

Since now you are familiar with why to choose the CompTIA PenTest+ certification course at Network Kings, you know how it will benefit you in the long term. For further help, feel free to contact us anytime.

HAPPY LEARNING!