CompTIA PenTest Plus Exam Syllabus

PenTest+ PDF, PT0-001 Dumps, PT0-001 PDF, PenTest+ VCE, PT0-001 Questions PDF, CompTIA PT0-001 VCE, CompTIA PenTest Plus Dumps, CompTIA PenTest Plus PDFUse this quick start guide to collect all the information about CompTIA PenTest+ (PT0-001) Certification exam. This study guide provides a list of objectives and resources that will help you prepare for items on the PT0-001 CompTIA PenTest+ exam. The Sample Questions will help you identify the type and difficulty level of the questions and the Practice Exams will make you familiar with the format and environment of an exam. You should refer this guide carefully before attempting your actual CompTIA PenTest Plus certification exam.

The CompTIA PenTest+ certification is mainly targeted to those candidates who want to build their career in Cybersecurity domain. The CompTIA PenTest+ exam verifies that the candidate possesses the fundamental knowledge and proven skills in the area of CompTIA PenTest Plus.

CompTIA PenTest+ Exam Summary:

Exam Name CompTIA PenTest+
Exam Code PT0-001
Exam Price $381 (USD)
Duration 165 mins
Number of Questions 85
Passing Score 750 / 900
Books / Training CompTIA ​​PenTest+ Certification Training
Schedule Exam Pearson VUE
Sample Questions CompTIA PenTest+ Sample Questions
Practice Exam CompTIA PT0-001 Certification Practice Exam

CompTIA PT0-001 Exam Syllabus Topics:

Topic Details

Planning and Scoping - 15%

Explain the importance of planning for an engagement. 1. Understanding the target audience
2. Rules of engagement
3. Communication escalation path
4. Resources and requirements
  • Confidentiality of findings
  • Known vs. unknown

5. Budget
6. Impact analysis and remediation timelines
7. Disclaimers

  • Point-in-time assessment
  • Comprehensiveness
8. Technical constraints
9. Support resources
  • WSDL/WADL
  • SOAP project file
  • SDK documentation
  • Swagger document
  • XSD
  • Sample application requests
  • Architectural diagrams
Explain key legal concepts. 1. Contracts
  • SOW
  • MSA
  • NDA

2. Environmental differences

  • Export restrictions
  • Local and national government restrictions
  • Corporate policies
3. Written authorization
  • Obtain signature from proper signing authority
  • Third-party provider authorization when necessary
Explain the importance of scoping an engagement properly. 1. Types of assessment
  • Goals-based/objectives-based
  • Compliance-based
  • Red team

2. Special scoping considerations

  • Premerger
  • Supply chain
3. Target selection
  • Targets
    Internal
    On-site vs. off-site
    External
    First-party vs. third-party hosted
    Physical
    Users
    SSIDs
    Applications
  • Considerations
    White-listed vs. black-listed
    Security exceptions
    IPS/WAF whitelist
    NAC
    Certificate pinning
    Company’s policies
4. Strategy
  • Black box vs. white box vs. gray box
5. Risk acceptance
6. Tolerance to impact
7. Scheduling
8. Scope creep
9. Threat actors
  • Adversary tier
    APT
    Script kiddies
    Hacktivist
    Insider threat
  • Capabilities
  • Intent
  • Threat models
Explain the key aspects of compliance-based assessments.
1. Compliance-based assessments, limitations and caveats
  • Rules to complete assessment
  • Password policies
  • Data isolation
  • Key management
  • Limitations
    Limited network access
    Limited storage access
2. Clearly defined objectives based on regulations

Information Gathering and Vulnerability Identification - 22%

Given a scenario, conduct information gathering using appropriate techniques.
1. Scanning
2. Enumeration
  • Hosts
  • Networks
  • Domains
  • Users
  • Groups
  • Network shares
  • Web pages
  • Applications
  • Services
  • Tokens
  • Social networking sites
3. Packet crafting
4. Packet inspection
5. Fingerprinting
6. Cryptography
  • Certificate inspection

7. Eavesdropping

  • RF communication monitoring
  • Sniffing
    Wired
    Wireless

8. Decompilation
9. Debugging
10. Open Source Intelligence Gathering

  • Sources of research
    CERT
    NIST
    JPCERT
    CAPEC
    Full disclosure
    CVE
    CWE
Given a scenario, perform a vulnerability scan.
1. Credentialed vs. non-credentialed
2. Types of scans
  • Discovery scan
  • Full scan
  • Stealth scan
  • Compliance scan
3. Container securit
4. Application scan
  • Dynamic vs. static analysis

5. Considerations of vulnerability scanning

  • Time to run scans
  • Protocols used
  • Network topology
  • Bandwidth limitations
  • Query throttling
  • Fragile systems/non-traditional assets
Given a scenario, analyze vulnerability scan results. 1. Asset categorization
2. Adjudication
  • False positives
3. Prioritization of vulnerabilities
4. Common themes
  • Vulnerabilities
  • Observations
  • Lack of best practices
Explain the process of leveraging information to prepare for exploitation.
1. Map vulnerabilities to potential exploits
2. Prioritize activities in preparation for penetration test
3. Describe common techniques to complete attack
  • Cross-compiling code
  • Exploit modification
  • Exploit chaining
  • Proof-of-concept development (exploit development)
  • Social engineering
  • Credential brute forcing
  • Dictionary attacks
  • Rainbow tables
  • Deception
Explain weaknesses related to specialized systems.
1. ICS
2. SCADA
3. Mobile
4. IoT
5. Embedded
6. Point-of-sale system
7. Biometrics
8. Application containers
9. RTOS

Attacks and Exploits - 30%

Compare and contrast social engineering attacks. 1. Phishing
  • Spear phishing
  • SMS phishing
  • Voice phishing
  • Whaling
2. Elicitation
  • Business email compromise
3. Interrogation
4. Impersonation
5. Shoulder surfing
6. USB key drop
7. Motivation techniques
  • Authority
  • Scarcity
  • Social proof
  • Urgency
  • Likeness
  • Fear
Given a scenario, exploit network-based vulnerabilities. 1. Name resolution exploits
  • NETBIOS name service
  • LLMNR

2. SMB exploits
3. SNMP exploits
4. SMTP exploits
5. FTP exploits
6. DNS cache poisoning
7. Pass the hash
8. Man-in-the-middle

  • ARP spoofing
  • Replay
  • Relay
  • SSL stripping
  • Downgrade

9. DoS/stress test
10. NAC bypass
11. VLAN hopping

Given a scenario, exploit wireless and RF-based vulnerabilities. 1. Evil twin
  • Karma attack
  • Downgrade attack

2. Deauthentication attacks
3. Fragmentation attacks
4. Credential harvesting
5. WPS implementation weakness
6. Bluejacking
7. Bluesnarfing
8. RFID cloning
9. Jamming
10. Repeating

Given a scenario, exploit application-based vulnerabilities. 1. Injections
  • SQL
  • HTML
  • Command
  • Code

2. Authentication

  • Credential brute forcing
  • Session hijacking
  • Redirect
  • Default credentials
  • Weak credentials
  • Kerberos exploits
3. Authorization
  • Parameter pollution
  • Insecure direct object reference

4. Cross-site scripting (XSS)

  • Stored/persistent
  • Reflected
  • DOM

5. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF/XSRF)
6. Clickjacking
7. Security misconfiguration

  • Directory traversal
  • Cookie manipulation

8. File inclusion

  • Local
  • Remote

9. Unsecure code practices

  • Comments in source code
  • Lack of error handling
  • Overly verbose error handling
  • Hard-coded credentials
  • Race conditions
  • Unauthorized use of functions/unprotected APIs
  • Hidden elements
  • Lack of code signing
Given a scenario, exploit local host vulnerabilities. 1. OS vulnerabilities
  • Windows
  • Mac OS
  • Linux
  • Android
  • iOS
2. Unsecure service and protocol configurations
3. Privilege escalation
  • Linux-specific
    SUID/SGID programs
    Unsecure SUDO
    Ret2libc
    Sticky bits
  • Windows-specific
    Cpassword
    Clear text credentials in LDAP
    Kerberoasting
    Credentials in LSASS
    Unattended installation
    SAM database
    DLL hijacking
  • Exploitable services
    Unquoted service paths
    Writable services
  • Unsecure file/folder permissions
  • Keylogger
  • Scheduled tasks
  • Kernel exploits

4. Default account settings
5. Sandbox escape

  • Shell upgrade
  • VM
  • Container

6. Physical device security

  • Cold boot attack
  • JTAG debug
  • Serial console
Summarize physical security attacks related to facilities.
1. Piggybacking/tailgating
2. Fence jumping
3. Dumpster diving
4. Lock picking
5. Lock bypass
6. Egress sensor
7. Badge cloning
Given a scenario, perform post-exploitation techniques. 1. Lateral movement
  • RPC/DCOM
    PsExec
    WMI
    Scheduled tasks
  • PS remoting/WinRM
  • SMB
  • RDP
  • Apple Remote Desktop
  • VNC
  • X-server forwarding
  • Telnet
  • SSH
  • RSH/Rlogin
2. Persistence
  • Scheduled jobs
  • Scheduled tasks
  • Daemons
  • Back doors
  • Trojan
  • New user creation
3. Covering your tracks

Penetration Testing Tools - 17%

Given a scenario, use Nmap to conduct information gathering exercises. 1. SYN scan (-sS) vs. full connect scan (-sT)
2. Port selection (-p)
3. Service identification (-sV)
4. OS fingerprinting (-O)
5. Disabling ping (-Pn)
6. Target input file (-iL)
7. Timing (-T)
8. Output parameters
  • oA
  • oN
  • oG
  • oX
Compare and contrast various use cases of tools. 1. Use cases
  • Reconnaissance
  • Enumeration
  • Vulnerability scanning
  • Credential attacks
    Offline password cracking
    Brute-forcing services
  • Persistence
  • Configuration compliance
  • Evasion
  • Decompilation
  • Forensics
  • Debugging
  • Software assurance
    Fuzzing
    SAST
    DAST
2. Tools
  • Scanners
    Nikto
    OpenVAS
    SQLmap
    Nessus
  • Credential testing tools
    Hashcat
    Medusa
    Hydra
    Cewl
    John the Ripper
    Cain and Abel
    Mimikatz
    Patator
    Dirbuster
    W3AF
  • Debuggers
    OLLYDBG
    Immunity debugger
    GDB
    WinDBG
    IDA
  • Software assurance
    Findbugs/findsecbugs
    Peach
    AFL
    SonarQube
    YASCA
  • OSINT
    Whois
    Nslookup
    Foca
    Theharvester
    Shodan
    Maltego
    Recon-NG
    Censys
  • Wireless
    Aircrack-NG
    Kismet
    WiFite
  • Web proxies
    OWASP ZAP
    Burp Suite
  • Social engineering tools
    SET
    BeEF
  • Remote access tools
    SSH
    NCAT
    NETCAT
    Proxychains
  • Networking tools
    Wireshark
    Hping
  • Mobile tools
    Drozer
    APKX
    APK studio
  • MISC
    Searchsploit
    Powersploit
    Responder
    Impacket
    Empire
    Metasploit framework
Given a scenario, analyze tool output or data related to a penetration test.
1. Password cracking
2. Pass the hash
3. Setting up a bind shell
4. Getting a reverse shell
5. Proxying a connection
6. Uploading a web shell
7. Injections
Given a scenario, analyze a basic script (limited to Bash, Python, Ruby, and PowerShell).
1. Logic
  • Looping
  • Flow control
2. I/O
  • File vs. terminal vs. network
3. Substitutions
4. Variables
5. Common operations
  • String operations
  • Comparisons
6. Error handling
7. Arrays
8. Encoding/decoding

Reporting and Communication - 16%

Given a scenario, use report writing and handling best practices.
1. Normalization of data
2. Written report of findings and remediation
  • Executive summary
  • Methodology
  • Findings and remediation
  • Metrics and measures
    Risk rating
  • Conclusion

3. Risk appetite
4. Storage time for report
5. Secure handling and disposition of reports

Explain post-report delivery activities. 1. Post-engagement cleanup
  • Removing shells
  • Removing tester-created credentials
  • Removing tools
2. Client acceptance
3. Lessons learned
4. Follow-up actions/retest
5. Attestation of findings
Given a scenario, recommend mitigation strategies for discovered vulnerabilities.
1. Solutions
  • People
  • Process
  • Technology

2. Findings

  • Shared local administrator credentials
  • Weak password complexity
  • Plain text passwords
  • No multifactor authentication
  • SQL injection
  • Unnecessary open services
3. Remediation
  • Randomize credentials/LAPS
  • Minimum password requirements/password filters
  • Encrypt the passwords
  • Implement multifactor authentication
  • Sanitize user input/parameterize queries
  • System hardening
Explain the importance of communication during the penetration testing process.
1. Communication path
2. Communication triggers
  • Critical findings
  • Stages
  • Indicators of prior compromise

3. Reasons for communication

  • Situational awareness
  • De-escalation
  • De-confliction
4. Goal reprioritization

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