Overview

This foundational course gives IT and security professionals a vendor-neutral grounding in ethical hacking, with no hosted lab required. It starts with authorization, scope, and the phases of a professional testing engagement.

Learners then work through reconnaissance, scanning and enumeration, vulnerability analysis, exploitation concepts, and common web application weaknesses. The course closes with writing findings that non-technical stakeholders can act on, preparing learners for hands-on penetration testing training.

Syllabus

Module 1: Ethical Hacking Foundations: Law, Ethics, and Authorization

Lessons:
- What Ethical Hacking Is and Is Not
- Authorization, Scope, and Rules of Engagement
- Relevant Laws and Professional Codes of Conduct
Applied activity: Learners draft a one-page mock authorization and scope memo for a fictional engagement, using a provided template, and check it against a provided checklist of required elements.

Module 2: The Penetration Testing Lifecycle and Methodologies

Lessons:
- Overview of the Testing Lifecycle: Planning Through Reporting
- Comparing Testing Methodologies and Frameworks
- Choosing an Approach for a Given Engagement
Applied activity: Learners map a short case study engagement description onto the lifecycle phases and identify which methodology best fits, using a provided worksheet.

Module 3: Reconnaissance and Open Source Intelligence

Lessons:
- Passive versus Active Reconnaissance
- Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Techniques and Tools
- Documenting Reconnaissance Findings
Applied activity: Learners perform an OSINT exercise on a provided fictional company profile using publicly available search techniques on their own machine, and record findings in a provided worksheet.

Module 4: Scanning and Enumeration Techniques

Lessons:
- Network and Port Scanning Fundamentals
- Service and Vulnerability Enumeration
- Interpreting Scan Output
Applied activity: Learners review an annotated sample scan report and identify which findings warrant further investigation, checking their answers against a provided key.

Module 5: Vulnerability Identification and Analysis

Lessons:
- Vulnerability Categories and Common Weakness Types
- Using Vulnerability Databases and Scoring
- Prioritizing Findings for Risk
Applied activity: Learners score three sample vulnerabilities using a public scoring reference and rank them by priority, comparing their ranking to a provided answer key.

Module 6: Exploitation Concepts and Common Attack Techniques

Lessons:
- How Exploitation Turns a Vulnerability Into Access
- Common Attack Technique Categories
- Limits of Safe, Authorized Testing
Applied activity: Learners review a narrated, screenshot-based walkthrough of a sample exploitation scenario against a test system and answer reflection questions about what made the exploit possible.

Module 7: Web Application Attack Fundamentals

Lessons:
- The Web Application Attack Surface
- Common Web Application Weaknesses
- Recognizing Findings in a Web Application Report
Applied activity: Learners review a sample, redacted web application finding report and match each finding to its weakness category, using a provided vendor-neutral weakness reference.

Module 8: Post-Exploitation, Reporting, and Remediation

Lessons:
- Post-Exploitation Goals and Boundaries
- Writing Findings for a Non-Technical Audience
- Remediation and Retesting
Applied activity: Learners rewrite a technical finding excerpt into a plain-language summary for a business stakeholder, using a provided before-and-after example as a model.