PJPT case studies
PJPT · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The Practical Junior Penetration Tester (PJPT) is an entry-level, hands-on certification from TCM Security that assesses whether you can perform an internal network penetration test at an associate level. Unlike a capture-the-flag event, the exam contains no flags to capture and no multiple-choice questions: you are dropped into a realistic Active Directory environment and expected to act like a consultant. The PJPT case studies are 5 cases and about 3,037 words.
1The Subdomain Outside the IP Range
Northwind Logistics has contracted you for an external penetration test. The signed statement of work authorises testing of 'the external infrastructure associated with northwind-logistics.com and the IP range 203.0.113.0/24.' During passive reconnaissance you use certificate transparency logs and find dev.northwind-logistics.com and vpn.northwind-logistics.com.
624 words, about 3 min2The Printer That Stopped the Shipping Line
An internal penetration test for a 500-user manufacturer covers 10.20.0.0/16. Your first sweep uses nmap -sS -T4 -p- against 10.20.5.0/24.
607 words, about 3 min3Kerberoasting Under a Lockout Policy
You have a foothold on a workstation in the CORP.LOCAL domain with a standard user account, j.smith, obtained from a phishing simulation. The domain has 1,200 users and a password lockout policy of five attempts in 30 minutes.
615 words, about 3 min4SQL Injection With Real Customer Data
During a web application test for an online retailer, you find a SQL injection in the 'search' parameter of https://shop.example.com/products. The backend is MySQL 8.0 running as the database user shop app.
566 words, about 3 min5The Third-Party Payroll File
Two weeks after completing an external test for a client, you review your notes and realise that during testing of a shared hosting IP you accessed an S3 bucket that was world-listable. You downloaded a single file named payroll 2024.csv to confirm the exposure.
625 words, about 3 min