Since 1971, when the US Air Force outsourced James P. Anderson’s private firm to study the security of their time-shared systems at the Pentagon, right up till now, the same practice has evolved to be termed as penetration (or pen) testing. Modern-day pen testing has expanded itself from the limited coverage of system or device-based pen testing to the specialization involving an application, operating system, network, and host side pen testing. The industrial idea of pen testing involves many hands-on experiences on advanced tools and techniques with mastering all its concepts.
Lucrative Career Opportunity Awaits You – Waiting for You to Acquire Right Knowledge and Skills
As already indicated, it is meaningful to have a person with hands-on experience on board than someone with mere book-knowledge. In penetration testing, it isn’t just theory or utilizing tools; you really need to become an expert of all the concepts and make adjustments during your engagement in handling the real-world scenarios. That’s what makes the career rewarding, challenging, and in deserving times, helps you earn a higher salary. With that, this specific role allows you to be creative with precise technical control; it’s almost an art.
To attain these skills, your easy way out can be “certifications.” Certifications are believed to be an attestation to one’s current skillset within the concerned domain. They serve as a reputable tool to augment your learning experience; however, it should not be the only source of your learning. Beginners looking for junior level vacancies in pen testing specialization need to have solid fundamentals. Cybersecurity aspirants should understand that cybersecurity, as a whole, is a general umbrella comprised of multiple specialties, including penetration testing. That will be the first step of your learning.
There are penetration testers who have successfully transformed themselves from a novice to an expert. It generally starts with mastering IT fundamentals, which includes systems engineering, networking, and desktop experience before entering the cybersecurity generalist role. Even when deciding to specialize as a junior tester, a critical path towards gaining the skills needed is independent learning. Certification bodies help guide that path; but ultimately, the professional needs to seek additional resources, reading, and practice within certification objectives.
EC-Council – The Game Changer!
Many professionals who victoriously establish themselves as experts, usually rely on a couple of dozens of credible certifications. One such game changer is EC-Council. All its training programs are designed with cybersecurity in mind. The training content of EC-Council programs gets regularly updated so that the attendees stay ahead of new threats. Moreover, almost all
attendees of EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker (C|EH) have accepted that the program encourages them to master the concepts of not only how to use thousands of hacking tools but also to grasp various complex methodologies and tactics of ethical hacking. The C|EH program pays fair attention to the objectives of threats and fundamental principles of common attack surface types. For a newcomer with aspirations to land in cybersecurity, this certification can lead you to new heights.
But for a specialized career, particularly in penetration testing, it demands your strategic and tactical skills. By now, you must be knowing, a primary objective of a pen tester is to identify vulnerabilities and to eliminate those discovered loopholes to strengthen the security of a firm. The EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA) takes your C|EH learning to the next level. ECSA efficiently combines the methods of attacks and tools from the C|EH as an extension into hands-on tactical utilization of the tools and techniques described. There is a splash of defense and a point of view from a defender perspective on how these attacks can be detected or countered. Both certs lead to the Licensed Penetration Tester (Master), which is the gold-standard in penetration testing credentials!
Why an L|PT (Master) Certified Member Would be Hired Over A Non-Certified Professional?
If you are someone who followed the above two training programs, you should be ready to face the real challenge – Licensed Penetration Tester (L|PT) Master. You’ll notice, once the training wheels come off, that you have limited information along with administrative tasks as if you were a pen tester engaging a customer. You are expected to utilize all that you have learned from previous course tracks and apply it in a limited time frame following through with proper reporting. Everything in the L|PT is ‘capture the flag’ style. It claims all your developed skills and obtained knowledge. It demands all your efforts, but eventually, it paid off well. It is the endeavors of the individual, which makes L|PT (Master) a high-valued credential.
EC-Council programs introduce their attendees to numerous tools that can be directly put to use once he/she gets employed. Learning how to use various alternative tools will help the cred. The programs will work in a controlled environment. These programs help you to learn red team tactics to lure the insider threat into entering a honeynet and token trap and be able to utilize payloads mentioned in all three training mentioned above programs. For blue team DFIR and extracting enough evidence for the internal investigations team. That’s how you’ll be able to use your red team skills to add value to blue team defenders tremendously.
Go ahead and mold your future with right career path!
