TOTAL: CompTIA PenTest+ (PT0-003) Course (Udemy.com)
Michael Solomon on ethical hacking & high-level penetration testing. Hack like a pro. Study for PT0-003
Created by: Total Seminars
Last updated March 2026
What you will learn
- How to plan and scope a penetration test as a contracted pen tester for a client (as an ethical hacker, you’ll be the good guy and get paid to hack networks!)
- How to work within a virtual environment to practice your pen testing skills, including using Oracle VM manager, Kali Linux, Metasploitable, and DVWA
- Where to find vulnerabilities and how to penetrate a network in order to run exploits, then how to report those vulnerabilities to the client for remediation
- How to gather intel on a network by scanning and enumerating (finding) targets, then searching out the weak points on those targets
- Understand social engineering attacks, exploit network-based vulnerabilities, and intercept traffic via on-path (man-in-the-middle) attacks
- How to use pen testing tools like Nmap, Nessus, Nslookup, John the Ripper, Immunity Debugger, Aircrack-NG, Wireshark, and many more
How it compares
Against the other 523 rated Udemy courses in Hacking on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.3 out of 5higher than 21% of them
- Reviews2,530#82 of 524 by number of reviews
- Length13.4 hourslonger than 80% of them
- Last updatedMarch 2026more recently than 65% of them
Course Description
Mike Meyers and the Total Seminars Team, your source for best-selling cybersecurity courses, brings you this ethical hacking and penetration testing course with your instructor Michael Solomon, Ph.D., CISSP, PMP, CISM. Prepare for the CompTIA PenTest+ PT0-003 exam.
This is NOT a boring voice over PowerPoint course. Michael speaks to you and presents the material in an engaging interactive style that will keep you interested and make it easier to understand. Check out the free sample lectures and you will see the difference.
We've added a bonus Practice Test that covers the CompTIA PenTest+ certification exam. Test your readiness to pass industry ethical hacking certification exams.
With 30+ years of experience in security, privacy, blockchain, and data science, and an energetic presentation style, Michael takes his proficiency in network penetration testing and consolidates it into this informative and engaging course.
WHY SHOULD I TAKE THIS COURSE?
Did you know penetration testers' average salary is 71,929?* And this career is in one of the fastest-growing job markets.
Whether you're looking to pass the CompTIA PenTest+ certification exam, take your next step in the CompTIA Cybersecurity Pathway, or you're just looking to learn some awesome ethical hacking skills, you’re in the right place.
Keep in mind there's much more to being an ethical hacker than what's covered here, including how to secure a network, however this course focuses on how to be a pen tester. A pen tester plans and scopes a pen test engagement with a client, finds vulnerabilities, exploits them to get into a network, then reports on those findings to the client.
This course shows you how to:
Use the tools you’ll need to scan networks, crack passwords, analyze and intercept traffic, discover code vulnerabilities, and compromise resources
Recognize vulnerabilities within a system, run exploits, and suggest solutions to a client to remediate the weak points
Work within a virtual environment to practice your pen testing skills, including using Oracle VM manager, Kali Linux, Metasploitable, and DVWA
Scope, plan, and execute a pen test engagement from start to finish
WHAT'S COVERED?
PenTest+ Exam Domain - Percentage of Exam
Engagement management (13%)
Planning and scoping: defining rules of engagement, testing windows, and target selection.
Legal and ethical compliance: ensuring authorization letters, mandatory reporting, and adherence to regulations.
Collaboration and communication: aligning with stakeholders through peer reviews, escalation paths, and risk articulation.
Penetration test reports: creating reports with executive summaries, findings, and remediation recommendations.
Reconnaissance and enumeration (21%)
Active and passive reconnaissance: gathering information using open-source intelligence (OSINT), network sniffing, and protocol scanning.
Enumeration techniques: performing DNS enumeration, service discovery, and directory enumeration.
Reconnaissance tools: using tools like Nmap, Wireshark, and Shodan for information gathering.
Script modification: customizing Python, PowerShell, and Bash scripts for reconnaissance and enumeration.
Vulnerability discovery and analysis (17%)
Vulnerability scans: conducting authenticated, unauthenticated, static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST).
Result analysis: validating findings, troubleshooting configurations, and identifying false positives.
Discovery tools: using tools like Nessus, Nikto, and OpenVAS for vulnerability discovery.
Attacks and exploits (35%)
Network attacks: performing VLAN hopping, on-path attacks, and service exploitation.
Authentication attacks: executing brute-force attacks, pass-the-hash, and credential stuffing.
Host-based attacks: conducting privilege escalation, process injection, and credential dumping.
Web application attacks: performing SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and directory traversal.
Cloud-based attacks: exploiting container escapes, metadata service attacks, and identity and access management (IAM) misconfiguration.
AI attacks: explaining prompt injection and model manipulation against artificial intelligence systems.
Post-exploitation and lateral movement (14%)
Post-exploitation activities: establishing persistence, performing lateral movement, and cleaning up artifacts.
Documentation: creating attack narratives and providing remediation recommendations.
EXAM INFO
Exam code: PT0-003
Max. 90 questions (performance-based and multiple choice)
Length of exam: 165 minutes
Passing score: 750 (on a scale of 100-900)
Recommended experience: Network+, Security+ or equivalent knowledge. Minimum of 3-4 years of hands-on information security or related experience. While there is no required prerequisite, PenTest+ is intended to follow CompTIA Security+ or equivalent experience and has a technical, hands-on focus.
HOW DO I TAKE THE COMPTIA PENTEST+ EXAM?
Buy an exam voucher (get your discount voucher at Total Seminars' website), schedule your exam on the Pearson VUE website, then take the exam at a qualifying Pearson VUE testing center.
WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT THE COMPTIA PENTEST+, ANYWAY?
CompTIA's PenTest+ is the only penetration testing exam taken at a Pearson VUE testing center or online, with both hands-on, performance-based questions and multiple-choice, to ensure each candidate possesses the skills, knowledge, and ability to perform tasks on systems.
Penetration testing and information security is one of the fastest-growing job categories according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It predicts that roles requiring these skills will see 28 percent overall growth by 2026.
Instructor Details
- 4.3 Rating
2,530 Reviews
Total Seminars
Total Seminars provides certification training services and training materials to thousands of schools, corporations, and government agencies including the United Nations, the FBI and all branches of the Department of Defense. Total Seminars produces the #1 selling CompTIA A+ and Network+ Certification books with over 1 million books in print.
Total Seminars has created a number of “Best-Selling” Udemy video courses by Mike Meyers and our team of Instructors. They also develop supplemental materials such as the TotalTester certification practice tests and TotalSims lab simulations to support your certification preparation. These are available on the Total Seminars web site.
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Reviews
By Fernando Ramirez on 5/13/2026
I obtained the Pentest+ certification a day ago, and I wanted to give some feedback to students who are considering to choose this course as their primary learning material. I will say that the domains are well explained. I used this course to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. I do recommend more training on reading syntax/scripts for the actual exam. But overall great course!
By Kay Ruth Lawman on 10/28/2025
Man kann ihm sehr gut folgen. Ich bin es bei CompTia gewohnt, das die im Amerikanischem englisch sprechen und die verstehe ich immer sehr schlecht. Ihn hingegen kann ich gut verstehen, er spricht sauber und nicht so schnelles englisch. Ich nutze diesen Kurs, um nächsten Monat meine CompTia Pentest+ Prüfung zu bestehen. Ich hoffe der Rest ist genau so gut wie bis jetzt.
By Mahmoud Gimie on 10/26/2025
There is no support for the Labs. The instructor simply says read the instructions and do the lab. The lessons in the course are useful, but the lab instructions are useless. I suggest the instructor provide at least some examples to follow instead of saying open the labtainers and follow the instructions.
By Dominic smith on 12/6/2023
Constant annoyance popups to write reviews is not the way to get quality results. stop freezing paid content to harass about reviews.
By Paul Diouf on 11/6/2021
I recommend this course to anyone wishing to embark on a Pen Test career, because the explanations are super clear and precise, you learn the basics, the how? the why? and more. this is the best course when it comes to learning.and if we could put 10 stars for the note, I would not hesitate to do so thank you teacher
By Willem Wait on 11/1/2020
Michael takes the Pentest+ course to a whole new level and teaches with so much passion showing vast experience and sharing plenty of real-world scenarios with his class. I really learned a lot and most importantly enjoyed his lectures plenty. Thank you, Michael, much appreciated.
By Felipe Gabriel Renzi on 10/26/2020
Very good!
By Dustin Frazer on 10/17/2020
I listened to this course more than I watched it if I'm being honest. I am doing my CEH along side my Pentest+. This course has a lot of great information and was substantially beneficial to my overall learning.
By Hamzeh Al-Khateeb on 10/4/2020
The instruction is very very very professional
By Ralph Restituyo on 9/16/2020
Course is great the instructor is energetic and the course is engaging
By Marc Pascual on 9/14/2020
Your lab environment has so many errors. You don't show how to download DVWA and when you show to install the VM you jump around in your installation. So, when you say "click here" and "put this name" in the next second it will be edited to a different file location with different information. Furthermore, your VM, OS, etc. are all outdated. So, rather hard to follow along and get a lot of errors.
By Jeremy Fisher on 9/10/2020
gud stuf kep goin
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 86 / 100












