Ethical Hacking & Penetration Testing Certification
Test systems the way an attacker would — legally, ethically and to make them stronger
Key facts
- Level: Professional
- Field: Cybersecurity & Information Security
- Estimated study time: about 32 hours
- Credential price: $149
- Exam: 60 questions · 100 minutes · pass mark 75%
About the Ethical Hacking & Penetration Testing certification
The Ethical Hacking & Penetration Testing certification validates that you can plan and execute an authorized security assessment end to end and, crucially, turn findings into defenses. It is built around one non-negotiable principle: every action a professional tester takes must be backed by written authorization, a defined scope and a clear rules of engagement agreement. Hacking without permission is a crime; what separates an ethical hacker from a criminal is consent, scope and intent. You will work through the full penetration-testing lifecycle — reconnaissance, scanning, enumeration, exploitation, post-exploitation and reporting — at a methodological level, mapping adversary behaviour to the MITRE ATT&CK framework and understanding the OWASP Top 10 web risks together with their remediation. The exam covers the difference between a vulnerability assessment and a penetration test, host and network enumeration concepts, password attacks and the defenses that defeat them (strong hashing, salting, MFA), privilege-escalation concepts and hardening, social engineering and security awareness, wireless and web-application testing concepts, CVSS scoring and risk-based reporting, and how red, blue and purple teams collaborate to improve security. The emphasis throughout is defensive and professional: you learn how techniques work so you can find, prioritize and fix weaknesses — never to cause harm. This certification is tool-agnostic; it teaches tool categories and methodology rather than commands. Candidates should already hold the Network Security & Defense credential or equivalent hands-on networking and security knowledge.
What you will learn
The official Ethical Hacking & Penetration Testing study course covers:
- Authorization, Scope & Ethics — The legal and ethical foundation: written permission, rules of engagement, and the duty to do no harm — what makes hacking ethical.
- The Penetration-Testing Lifecycle — The six phases from reconnaissance to reporting, and how each feeds the next.
- MITRE ATT&CK & the Kill Chain — Mapping adversary behaviour to tactics and techniques, and why behaviour-based detection endures.
- OWASP Top 10 & Web Application Defense — The major web risks explained conceptually, each paired with its remediation.
- Passwords, Privilege Escalation & Social Engineering — Credential attacks and the defenses that beat them, escalation hardening, and the human layer.
- CVSS, Vulnerability Management & Reporting — Scoring severity with CVSS, running the vulnerability-management loop, and writing reports that drive fixes.
- Hands-on Lab — Scope, Map, Score & Report — An ethical-hacking capstone in Google Colab: enforce authorization and scope, map activity to MITRE ATT&CK and the kill chain, crack weak hashes you…
Prerequisites
Frequently asked questions
- Is the Ethical Hacking & Penetration Testing certificate verifiable?
- Yes. Every issued Hootix Academy certificate carries a unique credential code that anyone can verify online.
- How is the Ethical Hacking & Penetration Testing exam structured?
- It is a 100-minute proctored multiple-choice exam of 60 questions; you need 75% to pass.
- Do I need to buy the course to take the exam?
- You can purchase the certification exam on its own, or bundle it with the full study course at a reduced price.
- How long does the Ethical Hacking & Penetration Testing course take?
- About 32 hours of self-paced study.