Best Ethical Hacking Courses for Beginners

The mystery surrounding ethical hacking has attracted many and might be something that made your head turn too.

Whatever the reason might be, courses are a good place to start and learn ethical hacking online. Ethical hacking courses can help you become an ethical hacker and might even help you gain an ethical hacking certification.

Although there are many courses that will help you learn ethical hacking online, we’ve compiled a list of our own.

Each course in our list is handpicked and is worthy of being called “the best ethical hacking course online.”

But first, you need to understand that ethical hacking cannot be taught in a short period of time. It is a vast field and thus it will take you time to become an ethical hacker.

In addition to the above statement, don’t expect to become a coding master at the end of any of these ethical hacking courses.

That takes constant efforts as well as a stream of curiosity from your end.

Nonetheless, these courses are an amazing way to start with, so let’s start.

A Quick Intro to Ethical Hacking

So what is ethical hacking and likewise, what is an ethical hacker?

Ethical hacking is the art of finding vulnerabilities and loopholes in a system or network. Furthermore, ethical hackers report these vulnerabilities to the authorities so that they can be then improved upon.

But why is ethical hacking important?

As mentioned earlier, ethical hackers use the means of hacking to find vulnerabilities without any malicious intentions.

Imagine if the same vulnerabilities were found by a cybercriminal or hacker. They can exploit them to fulfill their malicious intentions like deleting or stealing data.

And as a result, an ethical hacker’s job is also to predict and prevent possible breaches.

The Complete Ethical Hacking Course Bundle by StationX

The first in our list of the best ethical hacking courses is the complete ethical hacking bundle by Station X.

You could call it the gold mine to learn ethical hacking online.

The course starts by teaching ethical hacking from a complete scratch. It teaches you the basics of ethical hacking and hence building a solid foundation for your hacking skills.

In addition, the course also helps you learn about securing systems against attacks. Moreover, It teaches you about installing important software and at the same time set up a penetration testing lab.

Once you’ve built a solid foundation, you will be moving towards a bit more advanced level. Topics like network hacking, client and server site attack, social engineering, website hacking, and more will be covered here in-depth

Your instructor throughout the course will be Zaid Al-Quraishi. The lessons from this ethical hacker and computer scientist are a good start to become an ethical hacker.

Courses in the bundle:

Ethical hacking from scratch
Website hacking from scratch
Network hacking from scratch
Social engineering from scratch
Hacking using Android

Top Ethical Hacking Courses in Udemy

When it comes to learning anything, you just simply cannot forget about Udemy. These are Udemy’s three of the best ethical hacking courses. They can help you learn and even gain an ethical hacking certification.

Both courses have the same instructor, Zaid Al-Quraishi and we suggest taking both the courses.

Learn Ethical Hacking From Scratch

The first is a comprehensive ethical hacking course.

This course is made for people with no prior knowledge or experience. It starts by teaching you the basics and then answers, “how to set up your own penetration testing lab.”

The course focuses on being highly practical but all the while keeping the theories close by.

If you choose to enroll in this course, get ready to get your hands dirty right away. You’ll first analyze and then learn to exploit different systems such as networks, servers, clients, websites, and more.

Also, this course is a part of the Station X’s bundle, so save some money while you can

The course is divided into four sections:

Network Hacking
Gaining Access
Post Exploitation
Website / Web Application Hacking

Learn Website Hacking / Penetration Testing From Scratch

This ethical hacking course dives deep into the subject of website hacking and penetration testing.

Just like the previous course, this one is also a highly practical one. It consists of 90+ videos that will take you from being a beginner to advanced in website hacking.

The course helps you learn ethical hacking online by dividing the course into three parts:

Information Gathering
Discovery, Exploitation & Mitigation
Post Exploitation

The Complete Cyber Security & Hacking Course – EH Academy

This is one of the best ethical hacking courses online for building your foundation. As the name suggests, this course takes on the topic of cybersecurity and shows you the art of discovering vulnerabilities.

You’ll begin by getting introduced to Nmap and Metasploit tools and then likewise, you’ll be learning the basics of Linux and windows too.

The EH Academy covers topics that are essential in gaining an ethical hacking certification. These topics include:

Computer basics and introduction
Setting up your lab,
Information gathering,
System hacking
Web server (site) hacking.

And the best part… It’s free!

Metasploit Unleashed by Offensive Security

Ever heard about Metasploit? It is one of the most common hacking tools used by hackers around the globe.

Metasploit Unleashed made into our list of best ethical courses online as it covers the tool in-depth. It is a must to put in your syllabus to learn ethical hacking online.

However, you’ll need to have some basic knowledge of ethical hacking to fully grasp the course.

Apart from being an awesome course, Metasploit Unleashed was also built to increase awareness regarding underprivileged children in East Africa.

If you find the course to be valuable then we encourage you to donate.

The course covers a wide variety of Metasploit topics such as:

Introduction to Metasploit
Metasploit Fundamentals
Information Gathering
Vulnerability Scanning
Writing A Simple Fuzzer
Web App Exploit Dev
Client Side Attacks
ASF Post Exploitation
Meterpreter Scripting
Maintaining Access
MSF Extended Usage
Metasploit Guis
Post Module Reference
Auxiliary Module Reference
Recent Changes to Metasploit Unleashed

Cryptography on Coursera

Jonathan Katz helps you learn ethical hacking online through this free course provided by the university of Maryland on Coursera.

At the end of it, you’ll gain skills like cryptography, number theory, and public-eye cryptography.

This course starts by introducing you to the foundations of modern cryptography, hence, making it beginner-friendly. However, having a strong grip over mathematics will definitely help you understand the concepts better.

The course takes a span of 7 weeks following a variety of topics such as:

1st week – Introduction to Classical Cryptography
2nd week – Computational Secrecy and Principles of Modern Cryptography
3rd week – Private-Key Encryption
4th week – Message Authentication Codes
5th week – Number Theory
6th week – Key Exchange and Public-Key Encryption
7th week – Digital Signatures

Live Ethical Hacking Workshop by My Captain

Finally, the last in our list of best ethical hacking courses online is one by MyCaptain.

Taking this online workshop, you get mentored by some of the best cybersecurity experts and ethical hackers in the country.

Furthermore, you get to interact with them personally.

The four-week-long workshop covers the basics of ethical hacking, the process, and moves towards topics like phishing, DDoS attacks, network architecture and much more.

Moreover, it is designed to build a community. Meaning that you will be part of group discussions and get the chance to network with fellow hackers.

Not to mention that you will have a live sessions with your mentors to help you understand the concepts better.

The workshop helps you become an ethical hacker by dividing the field into 4 different milestones:

Introduction: Internet and virtualization

How Hacking Works, And The Need For Security
Introduction To Google Dorking For Security Researchers
Introduction To Social Engineering, Phishing, Vishing, and Related Terminologies
Virtualization, Setting Up A Kali/Parrot OS, Windows 7 & Metasploitable 2 Virtual Machine

Anonymity and Privacy

Setup Of Proxychains On Kali/Parrot OS
Setup Of Anonsurf And VPN On Kali
The Complete DNS Guide, Manipulating Your DNS
Understanding the OSI Model

Network fundamentals and phases of hacking

Physical, Logical Addresses, CP/UDP Protocol, TCP 3-Way Handshake
The First Phase Of Hacking: Reconnaissance
The Second Phase: Scanning & Enumeration
The Third Phase: Gaining Access Of The Machine

Hacker toolkit essentials

The Fourth Phase: Maintaining Access, Post Exploitation
Rootkits, RATs And Covering Your Tracks
Wifi Hacking, Debugging And Basics Of Assembly Language
Buffer Overflow Exploit
Careers In Ethical Hacking And Network Security

Explore the this tech world with young mentors. Sign up for the MyCaptain Ethical Hacking Workshop!