Name: Ethical Hacking and Offensive Security Essentials Course (Self-Paced)
Price: 1049.0 USD
Availability: InStock

This course includes

10 hours of project-based training from experts
Answers from real instructors
Retake for free within 1 year
Verified digital certificate of completion
Learn at an accredited institution
Credits: 1 CEU

This course is self-paced. For live online or in-person instruction, take Ethical Hacking and Offensive Security Essentials Course.

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.

Tuition

Full Tuition

$1,049
Due before the class starts

This course includes

10 hours of project-based training from experts
Answers from real instructors
Retake for free within 1 year
Verified digital certificate of completion
Learn at an accredited institution
Credits: 1 CEU

Learning Experience Highlights

Training from government‑experienced instructors

Receive instruction from subject‑matter experts who bring proven government experience.

Specialized for government & DoD

Courses that are regularly updated based on feedback and industry developments, ensuring versions are mapped to federal competencies.

The instructor was wonderful and so knowledgeable. The course materials were extremely relevant to what my job is. I feel like I can be better because of this class.
— 2025 student

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Hands-on quizzes and mini projects to test and reinforce concepts.

Earn a Certificate of Completion

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Ethical Hacking and Offensive Security Essentials Course (Self-Paced) Curriculum

What You'll Learn at a Glance

Distinguish ethical hacking from unauthorized access and identify what authorization and scope must cover before testing begins.
Sequence the phases of the penetration testing lifecycle from planning through reporting.
Compare established testing methodologies and select one appropriate to a given engagement.
Apply open source intelligence techniques to gather information about a target within an authorized scope.
Interpret network scan and enumeration output to identify points that warrant further investigation.
Classify vulnerabilities by category and evaluate their severity using a standard scoring approach.
Prioritize vulnerability findings by risk when time or resources are limited.
Explain how an exploit converts a vulnerability into unauthorized access.
Recognize common categories of attack techniques used in offensive security testing.
Identify common web application weaknesses and match them to a vendor-neutral weakness reference.
Describe common post-exploitation objectives and the scope boundaries that keep them authorized.
Write a findings summary that a non-technical stakeholder can act on.
Explain how remediation and retesting close the testing lifecycle.

Course Syllabus

Download Syllabus PDF

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.

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