How to become a penetration tester

Introduction

If you are the type of person who likes a challenge and has a nose for trouble, you should think about becoming a penetration tester. With penetration testers commanding an average salary of almost $118,000 in the U.S., this is a job that is both interesting and lucrative.

So what sort of things does a pentester do and how do you become one?

What is penetration testing?

Many aspects of cybersecurity intelligence demand human input. Cybersecurity, after all, is a human-centric problem and depends on having human resources that can understand how the bad guys think. In the world of cybersecurity, the penetration tester is sometimes equated to an ethical hacker because certain aspects of the job require replication of what a malicious hacker would do.

Penetration testing, as a discipline, is extremely important in the general security strategy of an organization. It is used to spot issues and vulnerabilities in IT systems, including web applications. Generally, automated tools are used to help with the process to find security gaps in an organization’s IT infrastructure.

However, many pentesters (especially experienced ones) will use manual methods to augment and extend the reach of automated tests. Pentesting essentially simulates how a cybercriminal would use security flaws to attack an infrastructure in order to obtain access to data and assets.

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How to become a penetration tester

The role of penetration tester is one that requires great responsibility. You will be relied upon to have a wide knowledge of cybersecurity techniques, threat types and vectors. As the cybersecurity landscape is one of the most fluid and ever-changing industries on the planet, you will have to be prepared to be continuously updating your knowledge of the area. This means you will need to be very interested in cybersecurity and prepared to (Read more...)