An Active Directory Pentesting course teaches techniques and tools used to test Active Directory (AD) environments for security. It would cover everything from privilege escalation, domain enumeration to user exploitation, lateral movement, and AD misconfigurations. Students learn how to identify vulnerabilities in AD setups, and how to gather an authorization jump and garner unauthorized access in the network of the organization. The course typically features hands on labs, real world scenarios and penetration testing tools including BloodHound, Mimikatz and PowerShell.

An Active Directory Pentesting course lasts for how long depends on the provider and the course structure. Basic courses will involve 10-20 hours, spending 1-2 weeks to get acquainted with basic concepts, while more advanced or comprehensive training can go from 3-4 weeks (more for courses of some in-depth subjects, where you’d spend more time learning by heart). Instructor led courses are usually 2-5 days long, but self paced online courses can be completed when it suits you.

To take an Active Directory Pentesting class you should know about networking, Windows operating systems, and general cybersecurity principles. Penetration testing tool experience, such as Nmap and Metasploit is a plus. It’s important to have basic understanding of Active Directory, authentication methods, network protocols LDAP and SMB. You'll also want a computer for hands on practice and virtual environments; Kali linux, or even, a Windows Server.

Offensive Security’s Active Directory Exploitation course is one of the best courses for Active Directory pentesting. PentesterLab’s active directory exploitation course is real world scenarios and another excellent option. Another well regarded course is SANS SEC660 which trains students on practical AD security testing. Depending on the courses you choose, these courses present structured, in-depth learning with hands on labs and expert led content.

An Active Directory Pentesting course can be completed in 1 month, and self paced training options allow you to do it. It is possible to complete basic courses in 2 weeks with lots of effort. If you spend consistent hours in the lab practice and study, a month is good enough to complete training for at least more in depth courses or certification tracks.

The best Active Directory Pentesting courses include Offensive Security's Active Directory Exploitation (part of OSCP training), PentesterLab’s Active Directory Exploitation, and SANS SEC660: Penetration Testing, Exploits and Ethical Hacking practical course. All of these are comprehensive courses — the majority of them are a handful of theory followed by hands on labs, and they include a wide range of areas like privilege escalation, lateral movement, and AD exploitation

The Active Directory Pentesting training will lead to job roles such as a Penetration Tester, Red Team Specialist, Cybersecurity Consultant, Security Engineer, etc. Critical in highly internal network security focused roles, this will help organizations find their vulnerabilities in their AD infrastructure, and help mitigate risks of privilege escalation and unauthorized access.

Indeed, PentesterLab, HITB, TryHackMe and other similar resources out there provide labs and tutorials to help you learn Active Directory Pentesting. Books, blogs, and forums all of them helped but self learning requires regular practice and a good grasp over AD, networking and exploitation techniques.

PentesterLab’s Active Directory Exploitation is a great first start to working through exploitation, especially for beginners. It's hands on exploitation and learn attack techniques in a beginner friendly way. More Obtainable Foundation Certifications include CompTIA Security + or CERTIFIED ETHICAL HACKER (CEH), each of which is useful to obtain prior to more specialized AD pentesting courses. If you want to train for a course that covers Active Directory Pentesting what do you need to train before you can get into the topics given above in this article?

If you know a basic thing or two about networking, system admin and Windows, you are good to go with enrolling in an Active Directory Pentesting course. Knowledge of penetration testing tools such as Metasploit, Nmap and BloodHound will be held at advantage. You should also know about Active Directory in terms of users, groups and permissions and domain controllers. Success demands a solid security principles foundation: privilege escalation and exploitation techniques.

Active Directory Pentesting course is not the best for OSCP training. Active Directory Pentesting courses are more specific and apply toward testing and exploitation on all aspects of Active Directory environments, while OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional) is a general penetration testing course on all environments. Active Directory Pentesting is more focused than OSCP which includes other vectors than Evil Windows OS Admin.

PentesterLab, Offensive Security, and SANS offer active directory courses. All of these platforms also provide structured training with hands-on labs. Alongside this, Udemy, Pluralsight and TryHackMe/Hack The Box also offer many resources (as well as practical exercises and simulated AD environments) to learn.

Offensive Security’s Active Directory Exploitation and PentesterLab’s Active Directory Exploitation course should be the best courses on Active Directory Pentesting. They are known for their hands-on approach and cover a wide range of exploitation techniques, tools and real world scenarios. Along with this you can provide in depth training in advanced penetration testing and AD exploitation in SANS SEC660.