Ethical Hacking Essentials
By Wanderson Leandro de Oliveira
Ethical hacking is a discipline defined as much by its ethics as by its technique. Before this course teaches you a single exploit, it teaches you the boundary that separates a pentester from a criminal: written authorization, defined scope, and the law. Every hands-on exercise in this course runs exclusively against DVWA (Damn Vulnerable Web Application) and OWASP Juice Shop, two applications built specifically to be attacked, running locally on your own machine via Docker. You will never be asked to point a tool at a system you do not own or lack explicit written permission to test — doing so is illegal in essentially every jurisdiction, full stop. With that foundation set, the course walks the full pentest methodology used by real security professionals: reconnaissance, scanning, vulnerability analysis, exploitation, post-exploitation, and — the skill most courses skip — writing a report a client can actually act on. Every attack you learn is immediately paired with its root cause and its fix, because a pentester who cannot explain the remediation has only done half the job. The course closes with a full assessment of Juice Shop, from first recon to a finished, real mini pentest report.
Course content
Methodology and ethics
- 🔒 Ethics and legality of pentesting text
- 🔒 Pentest methodology overview text
- 🔒 Setting up a legal practice lab text
Reconnaissance
- 🔒 Passive recon essentials text
- 🔒 Active scanning with nmap text
- 🔒 Enumerating services and versions text
Vulnerability analysis
- 🔒 Vulnerability scanning basics text
- 🔒 Interpreting scan results text
- 🔒 Prioritizing findings by risk text
Exploitation (local, authorized lab only)
- 🔒 Exploiting SQL Injection in DVWA text
- 🔒 Exploiting XSS in OWASP Juice Shop text
- 🔒 Exploiting broken access control text
Post-exploitation and reporting
- 🔒 Privilege escalation concepts text
- 🔒 Documenting findings effectively text
- 🔒 Writing a pentest report text
Practical project
- 🔒 Full assessment walkthrough on Juice Shop text
- 🔒 Remediation recommendations text
- 🔒 Practical project: a mini pentest report text