Top 5 Ethical Hacking Online Courses & Certifications [Updated 2022]
Ethical Hacking is the process of getting unauthorized access to a system, computer, network, or software in an authorized and legal manner. The security experts usually do it to ensure an organization's security posture. Unlike malicious hacking, Ethical Hacking is done with the consent of the organization/user and is used to identify the potential data breaches in a network. As its name depicts, it is a kind of hacking done while keeping ethics in mind. These ethics include:
- Staying Legal: Taking the permission before accessing any system
- Defining the scope: Defining the boundaries not to intrude on the privacy of an organization
- Reporting Vulnerabilities: Ethical hackers must let the organization know all the vulnerabilities found in the system and provide remediation advice to remove them.
- Respecting Data Sensitivity: Ethical hackers should sign a non-disclosure agreement before accessing a system based on data sensitivity.
What is Ethical Hacking Used for?
Ethical Hacking is done to identify the potential vulnerabilities in the security of the targeted system. It includes the techniques to access a system in an unauthentic way to determine the level of security a system has or to get access to a maliciously hacked system back. Other areas where ethical hacking is applicable include:
- Identifying the weak security system
- Understanding Hacking Techniques
- Preparing for a Hacking Attack
Top Ethical Hacking Tools:
There are tools used for ethical hacking to speed up the process like other technologies. Here are the top tools used for ethical hacking:
- Netsparker
- Intruder
- Metasploit
- NetStumbler
- SQLMap
The Need for Ethical Hacking:
As the number of networks and computers increases day by day, the need to secure the data and systems is also growing. According to Cyber Attack Statistics, almost 30,000 websites are hacked globally daily, and every 39 seconds, a new attack happens on the web. From these statistics, we can easily determine the need for ethical hacking. As mentioned earlier, it is used to assess the security of a system ethically; it helps reduce the risk of a system being hacked maliciously.
Popular Ethical Hacking Certifications:
There are numerous programs that offer ethical hacking and cybersecurity certifications. The following is a list of the most popular certifications for ethical hackers:
- Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
- GIAC Security Essentials Certification (GSEC)
- CompTIA PenTest+
- Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)
Ethical Hacking Careers:
Being an Ethical Hacker, you can work as one or many of the following professionals:
- Penetration Tester
- Information Security Analyst
- Certified Ethical Hacker
- Security Consultant
- Information Security Manager
- Security Architect/Engineer
Ethical Hacking Job Market and Salaries:
Are ethical hackers in demand? Have the same question in mind? Here is your answer:
Like any other emerging technology, ethical hacking is in demand nowadays due to increased security breaches. If we talk about the physical job market, on indeed jobs alone, there have been almost 780 remote and onsite Ethical Hacking jobs in March 2022. Similarly, if we talk about the freelance market, on Upwork, the biggest traditional freelance marketplace, there are 300+ jobs for ethical hackers. This number shows the demand for ethical hackers in the physical and freelance job market.
Furthermore, an ethical hacker also makes $113,744 per year on average, but this number may vary based on education, certification, years of experience, and other factors. Here is the breakdown of Ethical Hacker average salaries based on different roles:
- Penetration Tester: $107,081/year
- Information Security Analyst: $103,154/year
- Certified Ethical Hacker: $113,744/year
- Security Consultant: $87,213/year
- Information Security Manager: $143,712/year
- Security Architect/Engineer: $155,684/year
Get Started with Ethical Hacking:
The demand for an Ethical hacker is pretty obvious from the above information. So, who would not want to be one? If you have the long-desired passion to be an ethical hacker, you should learn it now.
There are plenty of resources available on the internet to get started with Ethical Hacking. These resources include books, audio, video lectures, online and offline courses, etc. Learning anything through any of these resources is quite easy in the case of other subjects, but when it comes to Ethical hacking, the best way to learn it is by taking an online course.
Many platforms offer hundreds of Ethical hacking courses. In the presence of so many courses, it becomes difficult to choose the best course for ethical hacking. Moreover, while selecting a course, you might think, is this ethical hacking course worth it? So, for your convenience, we have mentioned below the top 5 ethical hacking courses you should take to be a successful ethical hacker. Let's learn more about each course:
5 Best
Ethical Hacking
Courses in 2022:
This Course Includes:
- Duration: 15.5 hours of video lessons
- Contents: 25 sections • 145 lectures
- Popularity: 497,281 students enrolled
- Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 (104,366 ratings)
- Certification: Available
- Level: All Levels
One of the best ethical hacking courses on Udemy is designed specifically for beginners. Starting with the basic theory of ethical hacking, the comprehensive course will make you an ethical hacker and a security expert with the help of a practical approach. Covering 30+ ethical hacking tools, this course will teach you how to prevent, detect, and secure systems from potential attacks. This comprehensive curriculum is divided into four modules:
- Network Hacking: Covers the ways to test the security of wired and wireless networks against different attacks.
- Gaining Access: Covers different ways to gain full control over a computer or a system
- Post Exploitation: Learn how to use the systems you have hacked so far
- Website/ Web Application Hacking: Covers the various concepts regarding website hacking
Designed by Zaid Sabih, the Ethical Hacker, Computer Scientist, and CEO of zSecurity, this best hacking certification can be taken by anyone who wants to be an ethical hacker.
Things You’ll Learn:
- Introduction
- Setting up a Hacking Lab
- Linux Basics
- Network Hacking
- Pre Connection Attacks
- WEP Cracking
- WPA / WPA2 Cracking
- Security
- Post Connection Attacks
- Post-Connection Attacks - Information Gathering
- Post Connection Attacks - MITM Attacks
- Detection & Security
- Gaining Access To Computers
- Server Side Attacks
- Client Side Attacks
- Client Side Attacks - Social Engineering
- Post Exploitation
- Website Hacking
- Information Gathering
- File Upload, Code Execution & File Inclusion Vulns
- SQL Injection Vulnerabilities
- Cross Site Scripting Vulnerabilities
- Discovering Vulnerabilities Automatically
- Bonus Section
Featured Review:
“Zaid is an incredible teacher! He makes the material easy to follow, and his teaching assistants or himself will answer any questions you have within a really short period of time (always less than a day!). I learned tons and I had a lot of fun going through it. I recommend this course to anyone interested in ethical hacking!” – Patrick M.
Best Features of This Course:
Up-to-date course materials
Entirely practical course approach with essential basic theory
Pro Hacking tutorials in four distinct sections
Highly rated by the students as well as the community of Quora & Reddit
Self-paced Learning Style
Affordable Pricing: $11.99
This Course Includes:
- Duration: 8 months long course
- Contents: 8 courses in total
- Popularity: 66,263 students enrolled
- Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 (5,765 ratings)
- Certification: Available
- Level: Beginner
If you want to be a cybersecurity professional, the best place to learn ethical hacking is Coursera. Aimed to give you job-ready skills for an in-demand role in the field, this top certification for ethical hacking will help you develop the knowledge of cybersecurity analyst tools and learn about compliance and threat intelligence. It will also teach you about incident responses, forensics, and hands-on exercises.
This ethical hacking certification has 8 best courses for hacking:
- Introduction to Cybersecurity Tools and Cyber Attacks
- Cybersecurity roles, processes, and operating system security
- Cybersecurity Compliance Framework and System Administration
- Network Security and Database Vulnerabilities
- Penetration Testing, Incident Response, and Forensics
- Cyber Threat Intelligence
- Cybersecurity Capstone: Breach Response Case Studies
- IBM Cybersecurity Analyst Assessment
Offered by IBM, a global leader in business transformation. The curriculum does not require you to know the subject.
Things You’ll Learn:
- Information Security (INFOSEC)
- IBM New Collar
- Malware
- Cybersecurity
- Cyber Attacks
- Database vulnerabilities
- Network Security
- Sql Injection
- Networking basics
- Scripting
- Forensics
- Penetration Test
- Computer Security Incident Management
- Application Security
- Threat intelligence
- network defensive tactics
- Security analyst
- Cyber attack
- Breach (Security Exploit)
- Professional certificate
- Cybersecurity analyst
- Information security analyst
- IT security analyst
- Junior cybersecurity analyst
Featured Review:
“First, I would like to express my thanks to Coursera and IBM for giving this opportunity to learn about Cybersecurity. All the courses are good and especially the Cybersecurity assessment is really a challenging one. This specialization requires dedication, commitment and patience. It is a worth certificate. Also I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all my tutors who gave me a sound knowledge about this topic and the contents were good.” – Ashwanth B R
Best Features of This Course:
Applied concepts through industry tools and virtual labs
Real-world security breach with hands-on project
Top rated course across the internet
Self-paced Learning Style
Affordable Pricing: $39.99/Mo
This Course Includes:
- Duration: 36 hours of video lessons
- Contents: 20 courses in total
- Popularity: Many students enrolled
- Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 (128 ratings)
- Certification: Available
- Level: All Levels
Offering the best ethical hacking course for beginners, Pluralsight has brought this program to help you prepare for the EC Council CEH Certified Ethical Hacker Examination. Not being accredited by the EC council, the Pluralsight in this course will give you the foundational ethical hacking concepts. By taking this curriculum, you will understand how systems are attacked and how to make your organization more secure and avoid these attacks. Some of the topics covered in this best hacking course include:
- Reconnaissance/footprinting
- Scanning networks
- Enumeration
- Vulnerability Analysis
- System hacking
- Malware Threats and so on.
For taking this undoubtedly best course on Ethical Hacking, it is recommended that you have a deep understanding of TCP/IP Protocol and at least one year of experience in networking technologies.
Things You’ll Learn:
- Understanding Ethical Hacking
- Reconnaissance/Footprinting
- Scanning Networks
- Enumeration
- Vulnerability Analysis
- System Hacking
- Malware Threats
- Sniffing
- Denial of Service
- Session Hijacking
- Evading IDS
- Firewalls
- Honeypots
- Hacking Web Servers
- Hacking Web Applications
- SQL Injection
- Hacking Wireless Networks
- Hacking Mobile Platforms
- Hacking IoT and OT
- Cloud Computing
- Cryptography
- Exam Review and Tips
Best Features of This Course:
Complete guideline for the EC-Council® CEH® (Certified Ethical Hacker) Examination.
Included training for CEHv11 for 312-50 (ECC EXAM), 312-50 (VUE)
Beginner-friendly course with engaging lessons.
Self-paced Learning Style.
Affordable Pricing: $19/Mo
This Course Includes:
- Duration: 28 hours of video lessons
- Contents: 24 sections • 251 lectures
- Popularity: 45,460 students enrolled
- Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 (6,181 ratings)
- Certification: Available
- Level: All Levels
The ZTM Academy brings this one of the top hacking courses on the Internet. Being the most up-to-date, this amazing course claims to make you master the most modern ethical hacking tools and help you get a job as a Certified Ethical Hacker.
Starting from scratch, the curriculum gradually moves to the advanced concepts. It will also teach you Python programming from scratch so you can use it for hacking purposes. By taking this amazingly designed course, you will become a security expert from an absolute beginner. One of the most comprehensive ethical hacking curricula and the best certificate for Ethical Hacking is taught by the industry expert Aleska Tamburkovski (a penetration tester with over 5 years of experience in the field, and Andrei Neagoie (A senior software developer). The only requirement for taking this doubtlessly best hacking course is a computer with an internet connection.
Things You’ll Learn:
- Introduction
- Setting Up Our Hacking Lab
- Linux Operating System
- Reconnaissance
- Information Gathering
- Scanning
- Python Coding Project #1 - Portscanner
- Vulnerability Analysis
- Exploitation & Gaining Access
- Windows 10 Manual Exploitation
- Gaining Access (Viruses, Trojans, Payloads)
- Post Exploitation
- Elevating Privileges
- Extracting Data
- Running Keyloggers
- Python Coding Project #2 - Backdoor
- Website Application Penetration Testing
- Python Coding Project #3 - Login Bruteforce, DirectoryDiscovery
- Man In The Middle - MITM
- Wireless Access Point Cracking
- Gaining Access To An Android Device
- Introduction To Anonymity
- Learn Python Basics
- Learn Python Intermediate
- Learn Python 3: Error Handling
- Learn Python 4: File I/O
Featured Review:
“Best Course if you have no experience in hacking. .Covers a lot of topics. The instructor explains the concepts very clearly. The doubts are answered within a few hours and the discord community is very active.” – Chakradhar R.
Best Features of This Course:
Highly organized course with tons of information & massive discord community
Learn Ethical Hacking from scratch with 5 phases of Penetration Testing
Self-paced Learning Style.
Affordable Pricing: $39/Mo
This Course Includes:
- Duration: 30 hours of video lessons
- Contents: 19 courses • 300+ lectures
- Popularity: 716,326 students started learning
- Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 (2,538 ratings)
- Certification: Available
- Level: All Levels
As you might already know, LinkedIn Learning is the best platform to acquire technical skills. Offering many other courses, LinkedIn Learning has brought the Ethical hacking course for you to become a security expert. In this best hacking course, you will be taught about the emerging threats to the systems with the help of tools used to test networks and identify risks and techniques to prevent cybersecurity attacks.
Taught by various industry experts, this best Ethical Hacking course on LinkedIn Learning will give you an Ethical Hacking certificate after you have completed the 19 courses included in the curriculum.
Things You’ll Learn:
- Introduction to Ethical Hacking
- Footprinting and Reconnaissance
- Scanning Networks
- Enumeration (2019)
- Vulnerability Analysis
- System Hacking
- The Complete Malware Analysis Process
- Sniffers
- Social Engineering
- Denial of Service
- Session Hijacking
- Evading IDS, Firewalls, and Honeypots
- Hacking Web Servers and Web Applications
- Wireless Networks
- Mobile Devices and Platforms
- Hacking IoT Devices
- Cryptography
- Cloud Computing
- SQL Injection
Featured Review:
“This course is amazing , very detailed and very easy to understand . And explained very very nicely. I would do all of the courses of Lisa Bock. She really knows what concept to explain , and how a person can understand and grasp the fastest way. Just amazing.” – Dhruv Ashar
Best Features of This Course:
Endorsement of the certificate of completion accredited by CompTIA®
A comprehensive guideline for the Certified Ethical Hacker (312-50) Exam.
Self-paced Learning Style.
Affordable Pricing: $29.99/Mo
Final Notes:
Thank you for reading this article regarding the top 5 ethical hacking courses. We hope you will like our recommendations. It would be highly appreciable if you share this article with others which may help any aspiring ethical hacker in his learning path. If you are wondering which ethical hacking course is best, here are our suggestions:
- If you are a beginner with zero ideas regarding ethical hacking and seek an organized curriculum, the best course to learn hacking for you would be the one offered by Zaid (CEO of zSecurity), i.e., Learn Ethical Hacking From Scratch.
- If you want to be a cybersecurity professional with the most comprehensive and hands-on learning environments that feel like your university classes, you can go with the IBM Cybersecurity Analyst Professional Certificate.
- If you have some experience in networking technologies and have a strong understanding of TCP/IP protocol, the Ethical Hacking (C|EH v11 Prep) offered by Pluralsight would be best suited for you.
However, if you are interested in learning programming in C++ and looking for a course to start with, please look at our top 5 C++ courses for beginners in 2022. This will help you in finding the best Udemy courses, to begin with. Thank you, and best of luck!
Let's COMPARE ALL Five COURSES⚖️
Courses
1. Learn Ethical Hacking From Scratch – Udemy
2. IBM Cybersecurity Analyst Professional Certificate – Coursera
3. Ethical Hacking (C|EH v11 Prep) – Pluralsight
4. Complete Ethical Hacking Bootcamp 2022 – ZTM Academy
5. Become an Ethical Hacker – LinkedIn Learning
platforms
Course Ratings
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