CompTIA PenTest+ PT0-003 (V3) Performance-Based Questions (PBQs)

PenTest+ (V3) exam objectives summary

Engagement management (13%)

• Planning and scoping: defining rules of engagement, testing windows, and target selection.
• Legal and ethical compliance: ensuring authorization letters, mandatory reporting, and adherence to regulations.
• Collaboration and communication: aligning with stakeholders through peer reviews, escalation paths, and risk articulation.
• Penetration test reports: creating reports with executive summaries, findings, and remediation recommendations.

Reconnaissance and enumeration (21%) 

• Active and passive reconnaissance: gathering information using open-source intelligence (OSINT), network sniffing, and protocol scanning.
• Enumeration techniques: performing DNS enumeration, service discovery, and directory enumeration.
• Reconnaissance tools: using tools like Nmap, Wireshark, and Shodan for information gathering.
• Script modification: customizing Python, PowerShell, and Bash scripts for reconnaissance and enumeration.

Vulnerability discovery and analysis (17%) 

• Vulnerability scans: conducting authenticated, unauthenticated, static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST).
• Result analysis: validating findings, troubleshooting configurations, and identifying false positives.
• Discovery tools: using tools like Nessus, Nikto, and OpenVAS for vulnerability discovery.

Attacks and exploits (35%) 

• Network attacks: performing VLAN hopping, on-path attacks, and service exploitation.
• Authentication attacks: executing brute-force attacks, pass-the-hash, and credential stuffing.
• Host-based attacks: conducting privilege escalation, process injection, and credential dumping.
• Web application attacks: performing SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and directory traversal.
• Cloud-based attacks: exploiting container escapes, metadata service attacks, and identity and access management (IAM) misconfiguration.
• AI attacks: explaining prompt injection and model manipulation against artificial intelligence systems.

Post-exploitation and lateral movement (14%) 

• Post-exploitation activities: establishing persistence, performing lateral movement, and cleaning up artifacts.
• Documentation: creating attack narratives and providing remediation recommendations.