Pen testing methodologies

Rules of engagement

Scoping and compliance

Report writing and documentation

Client requirements and limitations

Defining scope (black box, gray box, white box)

Setting up the environment

Pre-engagement interactions

People and organizational footprinting

Subdomain enumeration

Breach data collection (HaveIBeenPwned, Pastebin)

Metadata analysis

Phishing attacks and payload delivery

Email spoofing

Credential harvesting

Client-side attacks (malicious documents/scripts)

Network scanning and service enumeration

Firewall/IDS/IPS evasion

Exploiting external services (FTP, SMB, RDP, VPN)

Web app initial access

Lateral movement

Privilege escalation (Linux/Windows)

Password dumping and cracking

Pivoting and tunneling (ProxyChains, SSH tunneling, chisel)

Attacks against WPA/WPA2

Evil twin and rogue APs

Captive portal bypass

Wi-Fi cracking tools (Aircrack-ng, Wifite, etc.)

OWASP Top 10

Authentication bypass

SQLi, XSS, SSRF, CSRF, RCE

File upload and directory traversal

Web shell deployment

Stack-based buffer overflows

Fuzzing and exploit writing

Shellcode injection

Exploiting Windows and Linux binaries (manual and automated)

Reverse engineering basics

IoT reconnaissance

Firmware extraction and analysis

UART and JTAG attacks

OT protocol exploitation (Modbus, DNP3)

AWS, Azure, GCP recon and enumeration

IAM misconfigurations

Exploiting cloud services (S3 buckets, Lambda functions, etc.)

Post-exploitation in cloud environments

Technical vs executive reports

Remediation recommendations

Risk scoring (CVSS)

Debriefing and handover

Live range exam (24-hour)

Earn LPT Master if you score over 90%

Hands-on focus — no multiple-choice questions

Requires deep understanding of tools and techniques across platforms