Introduction to Penetration Testing & Ethical Hacking

• What is Penetration Testing?

• Types of Pentests (Black Box, White Box, Grey Box)

• Legal and Ethical Aspects of Hacking

Setting Up the Lab Environment

• Installing and Configuring Kali Linux

• Using VirtualBox/VMware

• Essential Tools Pre-configuration

• Introduction to Target Machines (Metasploitable, DVWA, etc.)

Reconnaissance & Information Gathering

• Active vs Passive Reconnaissance

• WHOIS, NSLOOKUP, and Google Dorking

• DNS Enumeration

• Email and Social Engineering Recon

Scanning & Enumeration

• Network Scanning with Nmap

• Port Scanning and Service Detection

• OS Fingerprinting

• SMB, SNMP, NetBIOS Enumeration

Vulnerability Assessment

• Vulnerability Scanning Tools (Nessus, OpenVAS)

• Interpreting Scan Results

• Prioritizing Vulnerabilities

• Mapping Vulnerabilities to Exploits

Exploitation Techniques

• Introduction to Exploits and Payloads

• Exploiting Services Using Metasploit

• Buffer Overflows and Privilege Escalation

• Antivirus Evasion Techniques

Web Application Penetration Testing

• OWASP Top 10 Overview

• SQL Injection, XSS, CSRF, LFI/RFI Attacks

• Web Shell Uploading and Session Hijacking

• Testing Login Mechanisms and File Uploads

Wireless Network Penetration Testing

• Wireless Security Protocols (WEP/WPA/WPA2)

• Cracking Wi-Fi Passwords Using Aircrack-ng

• Rogue Access Points and Evil Twin Attacks

• Wi-Fi Packet Sniffing and Injection

Post Exploitation & Maintaining Access

• Pivoting and Lateral Movement

• Covering Tracks and Clearing Logs

• Creating Persistent Access

• Data Exfiltration Techniques

Report Writing and Documentation

• Documenting Findings and Vulnerabilities

• Risk Ratings and Impact Analysis

• Sample Penetration Test Report Format

• Communicating Findings to Stakeholders

Capstone Project & Practice Tests

• Real-World Simulated Pentest Project

• CTF (Capture the Flag) Practice Challenges

• Preparation for CEH / OSCP Certifications

• Final Assessment & Feedback