CPTE Exam Information and Outline
Certified Penetration Testing Engineer
CPTE Exam Syllabus & Study Guide
Before you start practicing with our exam simulator, it is essential to understand the official CPTE exam objectives. This course outline serves as your roadmap, breaking down exactly which technical domains and skills will be tested. By reviewing the syllabus, you can identify your strengths and focus your study time on the areas where you need the most improvement.
The information below reflects the latest 2026 course contents as defined by Mile2. We provide this detailed breakdown to help you align your preparation with the actual exam format, ensuring there are no surprises on test day. Use this outline as a checklist to track your progress as you move through our practice question banks.
Below are complete topics detail with latest syllabus and course outline, that will help you good knowledge about exam objectives and topics that you have to prepare. These contents are covered in questions and answers pool of exam.
Exam Code: C)PTE
Exam Name: Mile2 Certified Penetration Testing Professional (CPTE)
Format: The exam consists of multiple-choice questions (MCQs).
Number Mile2 C)PTE - Certified Penetration Testing Professional (CPTE)of Questions: There are typically 100 multiple-choice questions.
Time Limit: Candidates are usually given 4 hours to complete the exam.
Passing Score: A score of at least 70% is required to pass.
- Business and Technical Logistics of Pen Testing
- What is Penetration Testing?
- Today’s Threats
- Staying up to Date
- Pen Testing Methodology
- Pre-Engagement Activities
- Information Gathering Reconnaissance- Passive (External Only)
- What are we looking for?
- Keeping Track of what we find!
- Where/How do we find this Information?
- Are there tools to help?
- Countermeasures
- Detecting Live Systems – Reconnaissance (Active)
- What are we looking for?
- Reaching Out!
- Port Scanning
- Are there tools to help?
- Countermeasure
- Banner Grabbing and Enumeration
- Banner Grabbing
- Enumeration
- Automated Vulnerability Assessment
- What is a Vulnerability Assessment?
- Tools of the Trade
- Testing Internal/External Systems
- Dealing with the Results
- Hacking Operating Systems
- Key Loggers
- Password Attacks
- Rootkits & Their Friends
- Clearing Tracks
- Advanced Assessment and Exploitation Techniques
- Buffer Overflow
- Exploits
- Exploit Framework
- Evasion Techniques
- Evading Firewall
- Evading Honeypots
- Evading IDS
- Hacking with PowerShell
- PowerShell – A Few Interesting Items
- Finding Passwords with PowerShell
- Networks and Sniffing
- Sniffing Techniques
- Accessing and Hacking Web Techniques
- OWASP Top 10
- SQL Injection
- XSS
- Mobile and IoT Hacking
- What devices are we talking about?
- What is the risk?
- Potential Avenues to Attack
- Hardening Mobile/IoT Devices
- Report Writing Basics
- Report Components
- Report Results Matrix
- Recommendations
- Introduction to Pen Testing Setup
- Recording IPs and Logging into the VMs
- Joining the Domain
- Research
- Using tools for reporting
- Setup a Shared Folder
- Setting up and using Dradis CE
- Information Gathering
- Google Queries
- Searching Shodan
- Maltego
- The many tools of OSINT
- Recon-ng
- Detecting Live Systems - Scanning Techniques
- Finding a target using Ping utility
- Footprinting a Target Using nslookup Tool
- Scanning a Target Using nmap Tools
- Scanning a Target Using Zenmap Tools
- Scanning a Target Using hping3 Utility
- Make use of the telnet utility to perform banner grabbing
- Enumeration
- OS Detection with Zenmap
- Enumerating services with nmap
- DNS Zone Transfer
- Enum4linux
- AD Enumeration
- Vulnerability Assessments
- Vulnerability Assessment with Rapid7 InsightVM
- Vulnerability Assessment with OpenVAS
- System Hacking – Windows Hacking
- Scanning from the Hacked System
- Using a Keylogger
- Extracting SAM Hashes for Password cracking
- Creating Rainbow Tables
- Password Cracking with Rainbow Tables
- Password Cracking with Hashcat
- Mimikatz
- Advanced Vulnerability and Exploitation Techniques
- Metasploitable Fundamentals
- Metasploit port and vulnerability scanning
- Client-side attack with Metasploit
- Using Workspaces in Metasploit
- Remote Exploitation of Windows Server
- AntiVirus Bypass
- Bypassing AntiVirus – Not as effective
- Bypassing AntiVirus Signature Scanning
- Bypassing Windows Defender
- Cracking Passwords from a Linux System
- Cracking Linux Passwords
- Brute-force SSH Accounts
- Hacking with PowerShell
- Using PowerShell to Crack Passwords
- Using PowerShell for Enumeration
- Network Sniffing/IDS
- Sniffing Passwords with Wireshark
- Performing MitM with Cain
- Attacking Web Applications
- Injection
- Broken Authentication
- Sensitive Data Exposure
- XML External Entities
- Broken Access Control
- Security Misconfiguration
- Cross-Site Scripting
- Insecure Deserialization
- WebApp Scanning