A structured lesson workspace with readable content, hands-on examples, and a clean path to completion.
72% of organizations surveyed by Barracuda in 2021 reported at least one breach caused by an application vulnerability. Not a network misconfiguration. Not a phishing email. An application.
As organizations harden their external perimeter and limit exposed services, web applications become the path of least resistance. Companies transition to remote work, expose internal tools to the internet, and forget about that demo Splunk instance from three years ago.
Commercial, open-source, and custom applications all suffer from the same vulnerability classes: SQL injection, XSS, RCE, local file read, unrestricted file upload. The OWASP Top 10 applies universally. But here's what most junior testers miss: you don't always need a CVE. Built-in functionality gets you RCE just as often.
A Nexus Repository OSS instance with default credentials admin:admin123 gave an assessor RCE through the API. Same app, different engagement, the Tasks functionality was enabled instead—Groovy script execution, same result. No CVE required.
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Web CMS | WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, DotNetNuke |
| App Servers | Apache Tomcat, WebLogic, WebSphere |
| SIEM / Monitoring | Splunk, PRTG, Nagios, Zabbix |
| CI/CD & Dev Tools | Jenkins, GitLab, Confluence, phpMyAdmin |
| Support / Ticketing | osTicket, Zendesk, JIRA |
WordPress alone accounts for nearly 70% of the CMS market share. Splunk holds 30% of the SIEM space. These aren't exotic targets. You will see them repeatedly throughout your career.
The mindset for this entire course: learn how applications work and why specific vulnerabilities exist. Don't just reproduce exploits. That understanding is what lets you walk up to an application you've never seen before and find a way in.
Over 3.7 million companies run WordPress. 22,174 surveyed companies run Splunk. The attack surface is enormous, and most of it is poorly maintained.
Finish the lesson once you have worked through the material. This awards ★ 10 XP.