This blog post talks about CompTIA PenTest+ (PT0-003) Certification.
Introduction
The launch date for PTO-003 beta is somewhere around Aug 2024, whereas the official launch is 17 Dec 2024. Passing PenTest+ will certify that the candidate has the knowledge and skills required to plan and scope a penetration testing engagement within compliance requirements, conduct enumeration and reconnaissance activities, analyze vulnerabilities, launch attacks, exfiltrate data and produce a written report with remediation techniques. I passed the certification exam in August 2024 but only received my results in Dec 2024. It renewed my Security+ for another 3 years too, yay!
Exam details
Why did i choose this?
Personally, I felt that this was the sequel to Security+ and has some value in testing my PenTesting knowledge. At around the same time, I just passed my OSCP exam and was feeling pretty confident. Above all, the main driving factor would be that CompTia was offering the Beta exam at just $50 USD. It was an opportunity too good to miss.
Cost
Since it was a Beta exam, it costs only 50 USD. However, do note that you’re only allowed to take one Beta exam per candidate ID. So if you’re looking for a cheap deal, you can time your beta exam to a period where you think your course of interest will undergo a revamp. Likely 3-4 years after the initial release of that version. At the point of writing, the current price of the exam vouncher is $399 USD.
Study Materials
To be honest, this was one of the most impromtu exam attempts I’ve taken. I only knew about the Beta exam about 1 week before the last day to register. I bought the PenTest+ 002 exam practise book from Amazon and went through every topic. However, there is a delta between Version 2 and Version 3 of PT+. In Version 3, there are some new topics that were not found in the practise questions. I did some revision on those topics and went for it.
Exam
The Exam objectives can be found in the link provided below. In PT0-003, there are 90 questions and you are given 165 minutes to complete. The passing score is 750/1000. I took this exam online via PersonVue.
Honest Opinions
Having completed the exam, I would not advice taking this certificate if you’re very early on your cybersecurity journey. If you have an advanced (Pen Testing) certification already, you can afford to give this one a miss. The only reason why i’ll recommend taking this cert is if your job requires you to do so. Personally, at my current stage, I feel that a practical hands on cert would be best.