Review: The Pentester Blueprint: Starting a Career as an Ethical Hacker

Brough to you by cybersecurity researcher Kim Crawley and pentester and author Phillip L. Wylie, The Pentester Blueprint gives insights into the most common hurdles encountered by aspiring penetration testers, as well as tips on how to overcome them.

The Pentester Blueprint: Starting a Career as an Ethical Hacker

The book starts by explaining what a pentester is, why they are beneficial to a company, and describes common pentesting methodologies.

A pentester needs to have certain skills, which implies profound knowledge of computer technology and cybersecurity, and he has to be able to think like a hacker. A pentester also has to constantly build on this knowledge to help him stay ahead of hackers.

The book offers recommendations on education resources (physical and online trainings, books, and labs), but also tips on how to build a pentesting lab and which popular tools to use in the process. All of this knowledge leads to gaining certifications and degrees that will help a pentester get employed.

Lack of experience is generally the biggest obstacle, but there are ways to overcome it and that includes participating in bug bounties, taking pro bono, volunteer work and internships, joining labs, and so on.

Finally, the authors give recommendations on how to use professional networking and social media to get noticed, and tips on how to write a good résumé and have a successful job interview.

Who is it for?

It’s clear that this book has a specific target audience: those who wish to start a career in pentesting. It explains in a simple yet detailed way everything a pentester would have to face while doing their job, what the requirements are and the barriers one might face. Nevertheless, it can also be a good read for anyone interested in what (and how, and why…) pentesters do, to gain a deeper understanding of the value of their contribution to an organization’s security posture.