If you have a powerful enough computer, you can run this lab using VMWare Workstation: https://github.com/Orange-Cyberdefense/GOAD It's not the same thing as the labs that you will get from taking the courses, but you can learn a lot from it. There is a full guide on how to do all of the challenges linked in the repository. I was able to run this whole lab plus a kali VM with an i9 9900k and 64gb RAM + at least 100gb of SSD storage space for all of it. If you want a challenge for some cloud stuff that is so cheap it might as well be free (I ran AzureGoat for 2 weeks and incurred a $0.03 charge), you will need to set up your Azure or AWS environment, but you can check these projects out: https://github.com/RhinoSecurityLabs/cloudgoat https://github.com/ine-labs/AzureGoat https://github.com/ine-labs/AWSGoat https://github.com/ine-labs/GCPGoat You will get the most value out of trying to take the idea of these projects and building on it. Try to find the syllabus (table of contents, list of sections, etc) for the courses you are targeting and see how you can build it yourself to test the same type of attack. Finally, we're back to your own machine with some vulnerable VM images: https://www.vulnhub.com/ You mentioned HackTheBox already, I'm sure you are aware of TryHackMe as well. As another user mentioned, TCM made free content including the tutorial on how to build the lab yourself, which is a pretty good course. Answer from Classic-Shake6517 on reddit.com
TCM Security Academy
academy.tcm-sec.com › home › free resources
Learn Penetration Testing for FREE
December 6, 2025 - We launched the free tier in the TCM Security Academy at the end of 2024 to help students acquire foundational knowledge in IT, security, programming, and Linux. The free tier represents our commitment to breaking down the barriers to learning cybersecurity. No credit card required.
Class Central
classcentral.com › subjects › information security (infosec) › penetration testing
2200+ Penetration Testing Online Courses for 2026 | Explore Free Courses & Certifications | Class Central
Learn Ethical Web Hacking, Bug Bounty, Web Penetration, Penetration Testing and prevent vulnerabilities with this course ... Ethical Hacking, Penetration Testing (Pentest+), Bug Bounty, Metasploit , Free Hacking Tools as Nmap for ethical hacker
How can I learn pentesting for 100% free without any payment ?
If you have a powerful enough computer, you can run this lab using VMWare Workstation: https://github.com/Orange-Cyberdefense/GOAD It's not the same thing as the labs that you will get from taking the courses, but you can learn a lot from it. There is a full guide on how to do all of the challenges linked in the repository. I was able to run this whole lab plus a kali VM with an i9 9900k and 64gb RAM + at least 100gb of SSD storage space for all of it. If you want a challenge for some cloud stuff that is so cheap it might as well be free (I ran AzureGoat for 2 weeks and incurred a $0.03 charge), you will need to set up your Azure or AWS environment, but you can check these projects out: https://github.com/RhinoSecurityLabs/cloudgoat https://github.com/ine-labs/AzureGoat https://github.com/ine-labs/AWSGoat https://github.com/ine-labs/GCPGoat You will get the most value out of trying to take the idea of these projects and building on it. Try to find the syllabus (table of contents, list of sections, etc) for the courses you are targeting and see how you can build it yourself to test the same type of attack. Finally, we're back to your own machine with some vulnerable VM images: https://www.vulnhub.com/ You mentioned HackTheBox already, I'm sure you are aware of TryHackMe as well. As another user mentioned, TCM made free content including the tutorial on how to build the lab yourself, which is a pretty good course. More on reddit.com
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October 3, 2025What Courses Do You Recommend to Start Pentesting From Zero?
Well yeah man of course you're overwhelmed. This stuff is built on a ton of IT foundation. Do you already have an IT/development background? Most of us got here through one of the following: Bachelor of Science - Computer Science -> IT, development, sometimes direct to security -> more security specialization (this is where pentesting will be) Certifications: A+ -> Sec+ (this is debatable) -> Other vendor certs -> Helpdesk or junior sysadmin -> promote in IT -> move to information security -> specialize into offensive security My personal path was Military IT -> Certs -> Military infosec -> civilian infosec (engineering) -> civilian infosec (offsec) More on reddit.com
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July 2, 2025Good resources for learning Pentesting manually?
SANS Institute - Offering various courses, webcasts and learning materials covering the fundamentals of pen testing. Node Security Project’s Pentest Bookshelf – Free downloadable PDFs detailing the principles behind a range of security methodologies and tools. Pentester Academy - Various video courses on topics like network pentesting, web applications, wireless penetration testing, malware analysis, ethical hacking and more. Hackers-Arise – A blog featuring tutorials on technical as well as practical aspects of pentesting with detailed instructions for setting up labs using virtual machines or cloud services. IppSec’s YouTube Channel – Hundreds of videos detailing hacker scenarios so you can watch the entire process from start to finish for a better understanding of how results were achieved in each case study presented by IppSec! More on reddit.com
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March 31, 2023Is there any good free ethical hacking course?
The cyber mentor just dropped a 20+ hour course. Probably would be one of the first results if you googled. More on reddit.com
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December 26, 2022What skills do I need to become a pentester?
In-demand penetration testers have a unique combination of skills that allow them always to be one step ahead of ‘black hat hackers’ who want to steal funds out of bank accounts, steal confidential information, hold systems to ransom and cause chaos and humiliation by revealing private photographs or messages.
If this is a career that appeals to you, then you should:
Study as many operating systems as possible
Learn as many software programs as possible
Be able to script or code
Understand network programming
Know about information security
Understand malware
Continually update yourself about
alison.com
alison.com › tag › penetration-testing
Free Online Penetration Testing Courses | Alison
What are the best Pen Testing courses online?
Some of the best online pen testing courses focus on practical skills and real-world applications. Look for programs that cover topics like ethical hacking, vulnerability assessment, and security testing methodologies. Courses such as the Software Quality Assurance and Testing Specialization can provide a strong foundation in testing principles that are applicable to pen testing.
coursera.org
coursera.org › courses
Best Pen Testing Courses & Certificates [2026] | Coursera
What is penetration testing?
Penetration testing (often shortened to pentesting) is a legal and authorised simulated cyber attack on a computer system to see if it can be breached or ‘penetrated’. It is crucial to setting up a new system as it quickly highlights any weaknesses that genuine hackers could exploit with criminal intent.
Pentesters use the same techniques and tools as criminal hackers, but because their attack is authorised, this is known as ‘ethical hacking’ or ‘white hat’ hacking.
alison.com
alison.com › tag › penetration-testing
Free Online Penetration Testing Courses | Alison
Videos
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Penetration Testing Full Course 2025 | Penetration Testing Tutorial ...
Coursera
coursera.org › courses
Best Pen Testing Courses & Certificates [2026] | Coursera
Courses such as the Software Quality Assurance and Testing Specialization can provide a strong foundation in testing principles that are applicable to pen testing. · Yes. You can start learning pen testing on Coursera for free in two ways:
Alison
alison.com › tag › penetration-testing
Free Online Penetration Testing Courses | Alison
6000 free courses · 50 million+ learners · 15 million+ graduates · 195 countries · What are the best free online pentesting courses? Penetration Testing Engineer · This comprehensive course will familiarise you with actions like ‘sniffing’ and ‘banner grabbing’ and show you techniques for ethically hacking mobile and IoT devices.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/pentesting › how can i learn pentesting for 100% free without any payment ?
r/Pentesting on Reddit: How can I learn pentesting for 100% free without any payment ?
October 3, 2025 -
I am looking for free labs to solve but most are with paid subscription
I need labs curated and tailored for certs like eJPTv2 or CRTP or HTB CPTS
Top answer 1 of 19
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If you have a powerful enough computer, you can run this lab using VMWare Workstation: https://github.com/Orange-Cyberdefense/GOAD It's not the same thing as the labs that you will get from taking the courses, but you can learn a lot from it. There is a full guide on how to do all of the challenges linked in the repository. I was able to run this whole lab plus a kali VM with an i9 9900k and 64gb RAM + at least 100gb of SSD storage space for all of it. If you want a challenge for some cloud stuff that is so cheap it might as well be free (I ran AzureGoat for 2 weeks and incurred a $0.03 charge), you will need to set up your Azure or AWS environment, but you can check these projects out: https://github.com/RhinoSecurityLabs/cloudgoat https://github.com/ine-labs/AzureGoat https://github.com/ine-labs/AWSGoat https://github.com/ine-labs/GCPGoat You will get the most value out of trying to take the idea of these projects and building on it. Try to find the syllabus (table of contents, list of sections, etc) for the courses you are targeting and see how you can build it yourself to test the same type of attack. Finally, we're back to your own machine with some vulnerable VM images: https://www.vulnhub.com/ You mentioned HackTheBox already, I'm sure you are aware of TryHackMe as well. As another user mentioned, TCM made free content including the tutorial on how to build the lab yourself, which is a pretty good course.
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Labs cost money. TCM put one of their main pentesting courses on their YouTube channel, but you're not going to be able to do the labs, at least not all of them, without paying something.
Quora
quora.com › What-are-some-good-and-effective-free-courses-to-learn-penetration-testing-step-by-step
What are some good and effective free courses to learn penetration testing step by step? - Quora
Answer (1 of 5): As Ethan Lucy said Hack This Site is good. But I am not sure why so many people now want “courses” for this sort of thing. If you want courses someone will provide them for you, as is the nature of the internet, but is that what you really need?
Security Blue Team
securityblue.team › courses › introduction-to-penetration-testing
Free Course | Introduction To Penetration Testing
This free Introduction to Penetration Testing taster course offers a beginner-friendly overview of ethical hacking and its role in cybersecurity. You'll learn what penetration testing is, its goals, and the different types and scopes of tests.
edX
edx.org › learn › penetration-testing
Best Online Penetration Testing Courses and Programs | edX
Discover how penetration testing strengthens cybersecurity. Find courses and professional certificate programs on edX.
Medium
medium.com › @stackzero › the-ultimate-guide-to-free-pentesting-learning-resources-ca64ff4328d2
I’m Showing You My Collection of free Pentesting Learning Resources! | by StackZero | Medium
October 5, 2022 - I’m Showing You My Collection of free Pentesting Learning Resources! If you’re just getting started in the world of cybersecurity, there are a lot of different learning resources out there to …
Medium
medium.com › javarevisited › 10-free-courses-to-learn-ethical-hacking-and-penetration-testing-for-beginners-84e40104aa6c
10 Free Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Courses for Beginners | by javinpaul | Javarevisited | Medium
August 17, 2025 - 10 Free Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Courses for Beginners My favorite free resources to learn about Ethical Hacking and Pen Testing online from Udemy, edX, Coursera, and other …
freeCodeCamp
freecodecamp.org › news › full-penetration-testing-course
Become an ethical hacker with this free 15-hour penetration testing course
July 29, 2019 - This course teaches everything you need to know to get started with ethical hacking and penetration testing. You will learn the practical skills necessary to work in the field. Throughout this comprehensive free course for beginners, you will develop an Active Directory lab in Windows, make it vulnerable, hack it, and patch it.
DSDT
dsdt.edu › free-pentesting-course
How to Become a Pentester Without Breaking the Bank - DSDT College
1 week ago - If you want to focus specifically on websites and APIs, the Web Security Academy from PortSwigger is arguably the best resource on the planet. PortSwigger makes Burp Suite, the industry-standard tool for web pentesting.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/pentesting › what courses do you recommend to start pentesting from zero?
r/Pentesting on Reddit: What Courses Do You Recommend to Start Pentesting From Zero?
July 2, 2025 -
Hi everyone! I hope you're doing well.
I'm completely new to the world of pentesting and cybersecurity, and I'm looking to get started from scratch. I've spent a lot of time searching online and found platforms like TryHackMe and Hack The Box, which seem great for practice. But honestly, I feel like I need more structure — maybe a course, bootcamp, or step-by-step guide to really understand the basics and build a solid foundation.
So I'm asking those of you who are already in the field: What courses, bootcamps, or learning paths would you recommend for someone starting from zero?
I’m highly motivated and ready to learn, just a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information out there.
Thanks in advance for your advice!
Top answer 1 of 15
7
Well yeah man of course you're overwhelmed. This stuff is built on a ton of IT foundation. Do you already have an IT/development background? Most of us got here through one of the following: Bachelor of Science - Computer Science -> IT, development, sometimes direct to security -> more security specialization (this is where pentesting will be) Certifications: A+ -> Sec+ (this is debatable) -> Other vendor certs -> Helpdesk or junior sysadmin -> promote in IT -> move to information security -> specialize into offensive security My personal path was Military IT -> Certs -> Military infosec -> civilian infosec (engineering) -> civilian infosec (offsec)
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CPTS
Udemy
udemy.com › topic › penetration-testing
Top Penetration Testing Courses Online - Updated [April 2026]
Bestseller · Think of penetration testing as a way to use hacking skills for good. By conducting a pen test, you are effectively simulating a cyber attack on your own applications in order to identify weaknesses in firewalls or servers. View free Penetration Testing courses ·
INE
ine.com › dive
Skill Dive | INE Internetwork Expert | INE Internetwork Expert
Gain real-world experience through VM simulated environments. Practice data sensitive labs in a risk-free setting. Relevant Pentester Academy cybersecurity labs have been updated and released in Skill Dive.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/cybersecurity › good resources for learning pentesting manually?
r/cybersecurity on Reddit: Good resources for learning Pentesting manually?
March 31, 2023 -
It’s nice to know how to use vulnerability scanners, automated tools, and privilege escalation scripts, but are there good resources for learning how do these things on your own?
Obviously networking fundamentals and the ability to crawl a site with inspector, Burp, sending CURL requests and so on are important. But as for the enumeration process on your own, whether its scanning for open ports, privilege escalation, or whatever else. I want to know how to do these things on my own without other people’s tools, which can be a tall order but it’s because I want to understand this stuff on a deeper level.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Top answer 1 of 5
11
SANS Institute - Offering various courses, webcasts and learning materials covering the fundamentals of pen testing. Node Security Project’s Pentest Bookshelf – Free downloadable PDFs detailing the principles behind a range of security methodologies and tools. Pentester Academy - Various video courses on topics like network pentesting, web applications, wireless penetration testing, malware analysis, ethical hacking and more. Hackers-Arise – A blog featuring tutorials on technical as well as practical aspects of pentesting with detailed instructions for setting up labs using virtual machines or cloud services. IppSec’s YouTube Channel – Hundreds of videos detailing hacker scenarios so you can watch the entire process from start to finish for a better understanding of how results were achieved in each case study presented by IppSec!
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There are literally TONS of resources. People on Linked In are constantly dumping resources to such things. Visit Hack The Box or Try Hack Me Portswigger has a bunch of resources Snyk has an entire library of free courses on Pen Testing Cybrary also I could go on. Gotta do your homework and research what works for you.
Alison
alison.com › course › penetration-testing-engineer
Penetration Testing Engineer | Free Online Course | Alison
Penetration testing, also known as a ‘pen test’ or ‘ethical hacking’, is a cybersecurity approach that aims to identify and access the security loopholes in an organisation. This free online course will teach you the methodologies, tools and rules of engagement to become a certified penetration testing engineer.
Udemy
udemy.com › it & software › network & security › ethical hacking
Free Hacking Tools for Penetration Testing & Ethical Hacking | Udemy
Welcome to my "Free Hacking Tools for Penetration Testing & Ethical Hacking" course Learn hackers`Web Hacking, Network Scanning and Password Cracking tools such as Wireshark, Nmap, Metasploit, Maltego · My name is Muharrem Aydin ( white-hat Hacker ), creator of the three best-selling Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing courses on Udemy
Pentesterlab
pentesterlab.com › exercises › web-for-pentester
Web for Pentester Free Exercise!
At PentesterLab, we offer practical exercises, videos, and comprehensive courses to help you master both manual testing and automated testing, including insights into developing your own automated tools. You'll also learn how to combine these tools with hands-on techniques to uncover issues that automated solutions often overlook. This exercise is available as an ISO that you can boot in virtualization software to access the free labs.
Udemy
udemy.com › it & software
Free Ethical Hacking Course: Penetration Testing & Attacks
June 15, 2025 - Are you curious about ethical hacking? Want to explore the world of cybersecurity and penetration testing, but don’t know where to start? This course is for you — and best of all, it's completely free. Whether you're aiming to become an ethical hacker, penetration tester, SOC analyst, or ...