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Path to become a Penetration tester

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Path to become a Penetration tester
Photo by Arget / Unsplash

There are hundreds of Cybersecurity Certifications out there that it seems very unclear which ones are worth the time and money when considering to become a Pentester. There's also a lot of people telling which path you should follow in order to become a Pentester, missing the point that everybody has a unique path because everybody starts from a different point. I have done a lot of research to build the best path to become a Pentester and I want to share it with you in case it helps to build yours. Just know that I did this path considering my background and my knowledge so it may not be the ideal for you.

Background

So far, I have finished a Computer Technologies career, where I got experience with programming, I feel pretty confident on that so there's no need to add Programming courses or certifications. A Cybersecurity specialization in the University taught me the basis of Cybersecurity and Networking so I'm not going to take beginner courses or certifications to avoid watching the same again. I also have the Cisco CyberOps certification, which is focus on the day-to-day activities in a SOC, this is a certification that is more for pepole towards a Blue Team path but it was required for my university to complete it that's why I have it; still, it's helped me with general Cybersecurity knowledge. I also completed the TryHackeMe Jr Pentester path and half of the Offensive Pentesting path. Right now I'm studying for the Security+ to strengeth my cybersecurity knowledge(I think this cert wasn't required).

The path

After doing a lot of research on learning, cybersecurity and pentesting, I came to the conclusion that the best way to learn something (especially ethical hacking), is to practice, therefore is pretty convenient to take practical certifications. I was considering taking certifications like Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), CompTIA Pentest+ and eJPT.
The eJPT is a practical certification, but CEH and Pentest+ have only theory and most of the exam are multiple-choice questions. Therefore, I decided to take certifications of TCM academy, although their certifications are new in the market, they're very practical and have very good reviews. The two main certifications that in my opinion establish a very good path towards pentesting are the Practical Junior Penetration Tester(PJPT) and the Practical Network Penetration Tester(PNPT). The PJPT is very new on the market, the PNPT has more time and it looks pretty amazing, there's a lot of good reviews about it.

Some months ago, I decided to take the Security+ certification, because I thought that it may get me a job and that it would increase my Cybersecurity knowledge but right now I think I shouldn't pay for it and start with the other certs because it is a very theoric certifications and it has 0 hands-on content(unless you have access to laboratories) but I'm halfway through it and I don't want to quit and feel like the time spend on it was not worth.

The path is the following:

  1. Security+
  2. Practical Junior Penetration Tester (PJPT)
  3. Practical Network Penetration Tester (PNPT)
  4. Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)

Getting experience

In order to become a Penetration Tester, experience is required, and sometimes is a must to get a job. In order to get it, I'm going to do two things; creating a lab, do CTFs.
Creating a lab to hack machines will not only give me experience on hacking, but also on how to configure network devices, knowledge which will eventually be useful to hack them. There are many ways to make your own lab, but in my opinion, the best way is to create a virtual one using Virtual Machines, as it is portable and cheap.
CTFs are my favorite way to get hand-on experience. If you don't know what a CTF is, long story short, it is a competition in which participants must hack machines which can be Web pages, apps, computers, etc. and it is usually gamified. Many people think that what are performed on CTFs is not similar or doesn't apply to what is done on real work, and although at some point it can be true, you still get to learn linux, the command line and exploiting some vulnerabilities in general, so I think it is a good way to get experience. Some sites to do CTFs are: CTFtime and picoCTF.

I plan to write blogs of my progress, so if you are interested in the path, I recommend you to subscribe. Hope this path works for you.