How to Test Your Hacking/Pentesting Skills Legally?

As a beginner in penetration testing, getting comfortable with your testing skills requires a lot of hands-on practice. Practice makes one perfect in whatever skills we set out to improve upon. That is why this article offers resources to help you test your technical skills in ethical hacking legally whether you are a developer seeking to expand your skills in cybersecurity or a beginner looking to get into the field of pentesting. To begin, let’s delve into what penetration testing is and the benefits of using these platforms to test your hacking skills.

Penetration Testing

A pentest is a simulated attack on a system to discover how hackers can exploit exposed vulnerabilities. It is also known as ethical hacking because the penetration testers perform similar techniques used by the illegal hackers with legal permission. 

 This activity helps uncover the vulnerabilities that cybercriminals use to break the cybersecurity system, network or web applications. Through penetration testing, a company can further improve its security measures by focusing on the vulnerabilities dependent on associated risks. 

Benefits of using online penetration testing platforms

 It can be hard to test your hacking skills without getting into trouble with the law, that is why many online pentesting platforms have been designed to be vulnerable and provide a secure environment in which to test your pentesting skills. 

These online platforms can assist beginner hackers learn by detecting vulnerabilities and expanding their knowledge. 

 In addition, online pentesting platforms are not difficult to set up and they give a better comprehension of the attack techniques and tools used by these illegal hackers. 

These testing platforms enable companies and individuals to improve their penetration testing skills and develop robust cybersecurity measures. Basically, they are cybersecurity training platforms that provides hands-on training to learn from beginner to advanced penetration skills. Its advanced training labs simulate real-world situations to give you the opportunity to penetrate and access an IT infrastructure network. 

The following suggestions come from the most popular testing platform options. 3 online platforms have been shortlisted, in no particular order of importance. Try each of them out to see how you can rate each platform. 

Hack the Box

Hack the Box offers free and paid online cybersecurity training courses from basic to professional levels. It has constantly updated labs with varying levels of difficulty, operating systems and attack routes. Hack the Box provides access to over 100 challenges and machines. It is a platform that covers areas such as privilege escalation, network scanning, network reconnaissance, web application vulnerabilities and so on.

Try Hack Me

Tryhackme is an online platform designed to learn cybersecurity through hand-on exercises,  structured pathways, offensive and defensive competitive games just using your browser. It also runs a range of Capture the Flag competitions aimed at those who want to improve their hacking skills. There are additionally modules on Linux, network security, web hacking, shells and many others.

PortSwigger’s Web Security Academy Labs

PortSwigger hosts interactive labs capturing most of the vulnerabilities found in web application. It is a platform where you learn to be a bug bounty hunter or a pentester. The developers of burp suite, the leading software tool for penetration testing on web applications, provide free training on this Web Security Academy platform to learn and practice web security in a safe and legal environment.

Conclusion

As cybercrime continues to grow rapidly with the use of sophisticated tools and techniques, penetration testing and cybersecurity are skills in high demand. Businesses, organizations, and governments are employing ethical hackers to exploit vulnerabilities in their systems, networks and web applications in order to secure and protect them from these cyberattacks. Practicing your hacking skills using any of these online pentesting platforms mentioned above can assist you improve your pentesting skills. Simply start with the beginner challenges and work your way up to the harder labs and CTFs (Capture the Flags), in no time you will become a professional pentester.

Thank you for reading this article. you can find more interesting articles on cybersecurity on our website.

Chelsy Aryeetey

HackHouse.net Author