Web Application Penetration Testing
A practical, hands-on path from HTTP fundamentals to real vulnerability classes.
Course overview
Learn to find and report real web application vulnerabilities the way working pentesters do: understand the protocol, map the attack surface, then work systematically through the vulnerability classes that show up in almost every engagement, injection, broken authentication, broken access control, SSRF, insecure file handling, API-specific flaws, and the modern client-side attack surface (CSRF, CORS, JWT). Every lesson pairs the underlying concept with the request/response detail you actually need to exploit and explain it, and every attack class gets a hands-on lab.
What you'll learn
- Map a web application's full attack surface from HTTP fundamentals up
- Find and exploit SQL injection, XSS, and command injection end to end
- Break weak authentication and session handling, including MFA bypass techniques
- Identify and exploit broken access control, including IDOR and business logic flaws
- Exploit SSRF to reach internal services and abuse cloud metadata endpoints
- Exploit insecure file upload and deserialization vulnerabilities for remote code execution
- Test REST and GraphQL APIs for broken object-level authorization and other API-specific flaws
- Exploit CSRF, CORS misconfigurations, and JWT vulnerabilities
- Write a web application pentest report a development team can actually act on
Who this course is for
Developers, IT staff, and aspiring pentesters who want a practical, hands-on introduction to finding and exploiting real web application vulnerabilities.
Curriculum
Module 1: HTTP Fundamentals & Recon
- Anatomy of an HTTP Request
- Mapping the Attack Surface
- HTTP Methods, Status Codes, and Headers That Matter
- Lab: Recon a Target Application Like a Pro
Module 2: Core Injection Vulnerabilities
- SQL Injection: From Detection to Extraction
- Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) in Practice
- Command Injection Fundamentals
- XML External Entity (XXE) Injection
- Lab: Exploit a Blind SQL Injection
Module 3: Authentication & Session Attacks
On completion of every module, enrolled students receive a verifiable certificate of completion. Full curriculum, hands-on labs, and instructor support are available at pentestnotes.tech/courses/web-application-penetration-testing.