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Course 27 - Hacking Web Applications, Penetration Testing, CTF | Episode 6: Penetration Testing Lifecycle: From Scoping to Reporting
Published 2 months, 2 weeks ago
Description
In this lesson, you’ll learn about:
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- The structured penetration testing lifecycle, a professional methodology that simulates real-world attacks while delivering measurable value to an organization.
- Pre-engagement interactions, including:
- Defining scope and boundaries
- Establishing timelines
- Securing written authorization
- Formalizing the Rules of Engagement (ROE) and Statement of Work (SOW) to ensure legal and operational clarity
- Intelligence gathering and reconnaissance, leveraging Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and both passive and active footprinting techniques to map infrastructure and identify external exposure.
- Threat modeling, analyzing high-value assets, identifying potential internal and external threat actors, and prioritizing the most likely and impactful attack paths.
- Vulnerability analysis, combining automated scanning and manual validation to identify weaknesses, correlate findings, and map realistic exploitation paths.
- Controlled exploitation, focusing on precision-driven access attempts rather than disruptive tactics, often requiring carefully selected or customized techniques to bypass layered defenses.
- Post-exploitation activities, including:
- Assessing the value of compromised systems
- Demonstrating potential impact through controlled data access
- Pivoting within the network (if in scope)
- Performing full cleanup to remove tools, accounts, and artifacts created during testing
- Professional reporting, often the most critical deliverable:
- An Executive Summary translating technical risk into business impact
- A Technical Report detailing vulnerabilities, proof of concept, risk ratings, and clear remediation guidance
You can listen and download our episodes for free on more than 10 different platforms:
https://linktr.ee/cybercode_academy