Certified: The CompTIA PenTest+ (Plus) Audio Course

This PrepCast series is a comprehensive, audio-first preparation program designed to help learners build the judgment, terminology fluency, and decision-making skills required for modern penetration testing scenarios. Rather than focusing on tools, commands, or hands-on labs, the series emphasizes how to think like a tester under real-world constraints: interpreting scope and rules of engagement, selecting safe and defensible next steps, validating findings responsibly, and communicating risk in clear business-aligned language. Each episode is structured to reinforce engagement flow, from planning and reconnaissance through exploitation decisions, post-exploitation considerations, and professional reporting.Across the full sequence, listeners develop a repeatable mental framework for analyzing technical situations, prioritizing actions, avoiding common traps, and translating observations into meaningful outcomes. The series mirrors how security work is evaluated in practice, where correctness depends not only on technical knowledge, but also on ethics, authorization, safety, and impact. By the end of the program, learners are equipped to recognize patterns quickly, justify decisions confidently, and apply consistent reasoning that transfers directly to both certification scenarios and real penetration testing engagements.

This episode trains you to read scenario-based questions like a tester, not like a trivia quiz. You’ll learn how to identify the decision being asked for, such as best next step, most effective control, primary risk, or strongest justification, and how to separate the narrative “noise” from the few details that determine the correct answer. We’ll cover the common signal words that change what an option means in practice, how constraints like scope, safety, and timing reshape what is “best,” and how to avoid trap choices that assume access you do not have or jump ahead to exploitation without validation. You’ll also practice a quick elimination method that prioritizes answers aligned to engagement boundaries and operational impact, using short mental rehearsal scenarios that mirror what you’ll see on the test and what you’ll face in real engagements when time is limited and uncertainty is high. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode builds a mental timeline for penetration testing so every action fits the right phase and you stop losing points to phase confusion. You’ll walk through the engagement from authorization and rules through reconnaissance, enumeration, vulnerability discovery, validation, exploitation, post-exploitation, and reporting, focusing on what each phase is trying to prove and what it is explicitly not trying to do. We’ll connect typical question cues to the timeline, like when a prompt implies you should gather more evidence, confirm a suspected weakness safely, demonstrate limited impact, or shift to communication and documentation. Along the way, you’ll learn common sequencing errors, such as treating scan output as proof, attempting lateral movement before establishing a stable foothold, or skipping cleanup considerations that affect risk and ethics. By the end, you’ll be able to place any scenario detail on the timeline and choose the next action that is both defensible and aligned with engagement constraints. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode gives you a tool-purpose map that helps you answer tool-related questions without memorizing syntax or command flags. You’ll learn to group tools by outcomes, such as discovery, enumeration, validation, exploitation support, and reporting, and recognize what a tool name is signaling about intent and phase. We’ll explain how OSINT tools support passive intelligence collection, how scanning and vulnerability tools generate hypotheses that still require confirmation, and how web proxies, directory discovery tools, and identity graphing tools fit into web and enterprise testing workflows. You’ll also learn to avoid common traps, like selecting a tool that is correct in general but mismatched to the current constraint, or choosing an exploitation framework when the scenario calls for safer confirmation or documentation. Through short scenario prompts, you’ll practice choosing the right category of tool for the job and articulating why that choice is appropriate in both exam logic and real-world engagement discipline. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode focuses on boundaries and authorization, because many missed questions come from selecting an action that would be effective but not permitted. You’ll learn how to interpret scope statements, target lists, exclusions, testing windows, and stop conditions, then translate them into practical decision rules you can apply under pressure. We’ll cover rules of engagement concepts like escalation paths, permitted techniques, evidence handling expectations, and how to respond when you encounter sensitive data, production instability, or a tempting adjacent system that is not in scope. You’ll also practice recognizing “legal and ethical traps” in scenarios, where the technically correct action is wrong because it violates authorization, creates unnecessary risk, or fails to notify the right stakeholders. By the end, you’ll be able to choose answers that are both technically sound and defensible, aligning actions to explicit permission, safety constraints, and professional documentation requirements. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode teaches you to talk about risk the way security leaders and exam questions expect, by separating technical severity from business impact and likelihood. You’ll define each term in plain language, then learn how they interact when prioritizing findings and recommending remediation, including situations where a high-severity vulnerability has limited impact due to compensating controls, or a moderate technical issue creates high operational damage because it affects a critical system. We’ll cover how exposure, required privileges, and existing monitoring influence likelihood, and how poor wording can lead to the wrong answer when two options differ only in how they frame the risk. You’ll practice translating technical observations into crisp risk statements that support action, using scenario examples that require you to pick the most accurate description rather than the most dramatic one. By the end, you’ll be able to justify prioritization decisions clearly and consistently, improving both exam performance and real-world reporting quality. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode gives you a practical daily listening routine that turns short, consistent sessions into real retention and exam readiness without requiring labs or long study blocks. You’ll learn how to set a single focus goal for each session, actively listen by predicting what comes next, and use immediate recall to convert passive exposure into usable knowledge. We’ll cover spaced repetition in an audio-friendly way, rotating topics across days so you reinforce concepts like engagement phases, recon versus enumeration, vulnerability validation, and reporting language without burning out or overfitting to one domain. You’ll also learn how to self-check progress using confidence ratings and quick verbal summaries, plus how to handle low-energy days with a minimum-viable routine that still moves you forward. Through short mental rehearsal prompts, you’ll practice building “phase, asset, constraint, outcome” snapshots that match the way PenTest+ scenarios are written and the way real testers think under time pressure. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode teaches you how to interpret and apply engagement scope so you can choose defensible actions that remain authorized and aligned to objectives. You’ll break down scope elements such as target ranges, domains, applications, user populations, exclusions, and success criteria, then learn how those elements control what is “best” in a scenario. We’ll cover common scope pitfalls, including scope creep through adjacent systems, implicit assumptions about third-party services, and the temptation to validate findings in ways that exceed agreed methods. You’ll learn how to handle ambiguity, when to pause and seek clarification, how to document decisions, and how to select alternate paths that still achieve the objective without violating boundaries. Using short scenario examples, you’ll practice making scope-safe choices when new assets appear midstream, when constraints like change freezes limit testing, and when evidence handling requirements restrict what you can collect. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode focuses on rules of engagement as the operational playbook that turns a broad scope into specific allowed actions, timing, and escalation procedures. You’ll learn how ROE defines permitted and prohibited techniques, testing windows, communication channels, and stop conditions, and how those details change the correct decision even when multiple technical options could work. We’ll cover how ROE affects credential handling, data collection limits, and proof expectations, including when validation is sufficient and when controlled exploitation is justified. You’ll also learn how to interpret scenario cues that imply risk to production stability, sensitive systems, or monitored environments, and how to choose safer, compliant next steps that still create evidence and value. Through guided examples, you’ll practice selecting actions that prioritize safety, minimize disruption, and align to escalation paths when critical findings emerge or unexpected behavior appears during testing. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode teaches you to recognize the core engagement documents and understand what authority and responsibilities each one establishes, because exam scenarios often test whether you know what enables action and what restricts it. You’ll distinguish common documents such as statements of work, master service agreements, nondisclosure agreements, authorization letters, and terms of service considerations when third-party platforms are involved. We’ll cover how these documents relate to scope, permitted methods, evidence handling, confidentiality, liability, and client notification duties, and why relying on informal approval is a professional and legal risk. You’ll practice applying document logic to scenarios where a tester must prove authorization to a stakeholder, where an engagement plan conflicts with contractual limits, or where data retention and ownership clauses change how evidence can be collected and stored. By the end, you’ll be able to choose the safest, most defensible next step when paperwork is incomplete, mismatched, or challenged during an engagement. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode explains how different engagement types shape goals, methods, risks, and constraints, helping you choose correct actions when scenarios shift across network, web, API, wireless, cloud, mobile, physical, and social contexts. You’ll learn the typical objectives for each type, what evidence looks like, and which common pitfalls occur when you apply the wrong mental model, such as treating cloud issues as purely network problems or treating web testing as only injection hunting. We’ll cover how constraints like uptime requirements, monitoring, change control, sensitive environments, and authorization boundaries alter what is appropriate, including when you should prioritize safer validation, communication, or documentation instead of aggressive testing. Using practical examples, you’ll practice selecting the best approach for a given environment description, identifying the most relevant risk categories, and choosing the next step that increases certainty and value while respecting constraints. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode prepares you to handle high-stakes situations ethically and professionally when you encounter sensitive data, signs of active compromise, or illegal content during authorized work. You’ll learn how ethical principles translate into concrete decisions, such as collecting the minimum evidence necessary, avoiding unnecessary exposure of personal or regulated data, and stopping activity that creates undue risk. We’ll cover what “mandatory reporting” means in practical terms, how escalation paths and engagement rules determine who must be notified and when, and how to document what you observed without spreading harm. You’ll practice scenario-based judgment calls, including discovering credentials in unexpected places, encountering data outside the intended test objective, and recognizing when a finding requires immediate client action due to severity and operational impact. By the end, you’ll be able to choose responses that protect people and systems while still producing defensible findings and recommendations. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode builds the communication habits that keep an engagement safe, efficient, and credible, especially when findings affect availability or require rapid stakeholder decisions. You’ll learn how to tailor updates for different audiences, such as technical owners, leadership, legal, and operations teams, and how to communicate progress without oversharing sensitive details. We’ll cover escalation triggers, how to report critical findings quickly with clear impact language, and how to ask clarifying questions that prevent scope violations and reduce ambiguity. You’ll practice structuring messages around what happened, why it matters, what you recommend, and what you will do next, including scenarios where stakeholders disagree or where timing constraints force tradeoffs. By the end, you’ll be able to select communication actions that align with rules of engagement, protect confidentiality, and support high-quality reporting later. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode teaches you how to recognize and apply penetration testing methodologies conceptually, so you can map scenario cues to the right structure without turning it into memorization. You’ll learn how PTES provides a practical sequence from planning and intelligence gathering through execution and reporting, and how OSSTMM emphasizes measurement, completeness, and operationally grounded testing. We’ll cover how methodology references often appear indirectly, such as through wording that implies documentation requirements, phased decision-making, or measured coverage rather than ad hoc probing. You’ll practice identifying what phase a scenario describes, what methodology-aligned next step looks like under constraints, and how to avoid common errors like treating a methodology name as a tool or assuming one framework mandates a specific technique. By the end, you’ll be able to justify actions using structured reasoning that holds up in both test questions and real-world engagement reviews. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode gives you the OWASP vocabulary and mental models that repeatedly show up in application-focused scenarios, including web and mobile contexts. You’ll learn how the OWASP Top 10 groups common web risks into categories like broken access control, injection, insecure design, security misconfiguration, and identification and authentication failures, and why those labels matter when selecting the best explanation or remediation. We’ll also introduce OWASP MASVS as a mobile security benchmark, emphasizing areas such as secure storage, network communication protections, platform interaction, and permission use. Through short scenarios, you’ll practice recognizing category cues from behavior descriptions, selecting safe validation approaches, and choosing remediation guidance that addresses root cause rather than symptoms. By the end, you’ll be able to interpret OWASP references as practical guidance for what to test, how to describe findings, and what fixes actually reduce risk. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode explains how to use MITRE ATT&CK as a shared language for describing adversary behaviors without turning your thinking into taxonomy memorization. You’ll learn the difference between tactics, which describe high-level goals, and techniques, which describe the methods used to achieve them, and how mapping observed actions to behaviors improves reporting clarity and remediation planning. We’ll cover common behaviors across discovery, credential access, privilege escalation, lateral movement, persistence, command and control, and exfiltration, focusing on how scenario clues imply one behavior over another. You’ll practice translating a sequence of actions into a concise behavior narrative, and you’ll learn how defenders use the same language to prioritize detections and control improvements beyond patching. By the end, you’ll be able to choose answers that align with behavior-driven reasoning and communicate findings in a way stakeholders can tie directly to mitigations. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode teaches you how to structure a penetration test report so it is usable, credible, and actionable for both leadership and technical teams. You’ll learn what belongs in the executive summary, methodology, detailed findings, and remediation sections, and how to write each part in clear language that ties technical conditions to business outcomes. We’ll cover what makes a finding strong, including a precise description of the issue, evidence that supports it, the likely impact, the relevant constraints or assumptions, and remediation guidance that a team can implement. You’ll also learn how to handle sensitive evidence responsibly through minimal collection, secure storage, and careful redaction, and how to avoid common report failures like contradicting yourself or overexplaining tools instead of outcomes. By the end, you’ll be able to outline a report that tells a coherent story, supports prioritization, and stands up to review. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode focuses on turning findings into recommendations that actually reduce risk, rather than generic advice that sounds correct but fails in practice. You’ll learn how to identify root causes, select control types that match the problem, and propose remediation steps that are realistic for the environment and constraints described. We’ll cover technical controls like hardening, patching, segmentation, and stronger authentication, as well as administrative and operational controls such as access governance, secure development practices, monitoring, and procedure updates. You’ll practice choosing between short-term compensating controls and long-term corrective actions, and you’ll learn how to prioritize recommendations based on impact, likelihood, effort, and dependency order. By the end, you’ll be able to write recommendations that are specific, testable, and aligned to the way organizations implement change. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode clarifies a common source of confusion by separating reconnaissance from enumeration and showing how each phase changes what the “best next step” looks like. You’ll learn that reconnaissance is broad information gathering used to form hypotheses and narrow focus, while enumeration is deeper, targeted detail collection used to confirm specific services, users, routes, and access boundaries. We’ll cover passive versus active approaches, how constraints like scope and safety influence which is appropriate, and how to recognize the transition point where you have enough recon to start enumerating. You’ll practice scenario interpretation where the wrong choice comes from staying too broad too long or diving deep too early, and you’ll learn how to select actions that increase certainty efficiently without creating unnecessary noise. By the end, you’ll be able to tag a scenario as recon or enumeration and pick answers that match the correct phase and intent. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.

This episode teaches you how passive reconnaissance builds a reliable starting picture of an organization’s exposure without directly interacting with target systems. You’ll learn what kinds of public information tend to be useful, including organizational structure clues, technology fingerprints from internet-facing artifacts, domain and certificate signals, and common leakage sources such as code repositories, documents, and mispublished configurations. We’ll cover how to convert passive clues into testable hypotheses, prioritize what to validate later, and document findings with appropriate confidence levels, distinguishing what is confirmed from what is inferred. You’ll practice scenario reasoning around credential exposure, inadvertent data disclosure, and third-party relationships, focusing on ethical handling and boundaries even when the information is publicly accessible. By the end, you’ll be able to use passive recon logic to guide safer, more efficient next steps in the engagement flow. Produced by BareMetalCyber.com, where you’ll find more cyber audio courses, books, and information to strengthen your educational path. Also, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news, visit DailyCyber.News for a newsletter you can use, and a daily podcast you can commute with.