eWPTX Exam Review: My First Certification Experience

Hello folks,

In this article, I will write about my very first cybersecurity certification and give you my review of it. I am not sure to what extent I can talk and write about it, but I will try my best to make it as useful as possible. The exam is considered highly practical and scary, but hear me out, it is not as scary as it looks. So, if you come from a bug bounty background like me, it would be a piece of cake.

Why I Chased eWPTX?

The company I work for (Roshan Telecom) has a business plan with INE, so I had access to all the resources. The eWPTX seemed interesting because it was all about Web Security. However, 90% of the content was repetitive, so I binge-watched it at 2x speed to make sure I did not miss any points. It took me a week to go through it, and I watched all 90 hours of tutorials.

Yesterday, I was bought a voucher, and today I clicked on "Start Exam" button while I was at work, and it took me 5 hours to solve all the labs and pass it.

How was the exam?

Let me say it was easy. It may be because I come from a bug bounty background and have 3 years of experience, or simply because I know the web related vulnerabilities. The exam has 45 questions, and you have 18 hours to get at least 70% in order to pass. I was lucky enough to finish it in 5 hours, got 82%, and successfully passed it.

The exam is still an exam, so it definitely had its frustrations and difficulties. There were times when I was looking for a weird behavior or any indication to go deeper and find something. That being said, some questions were very straightforward, and it only took me running a public PoC.

Some tips I can give?

• Have some experience with Nmap and service enumeration.

• Take notes while you test each application (I did not take notes, though, and it made the exam confusing haha).

• Don’t underestimate the exam.

What will the exam teach you?

• Authentication Attacks Learn how to identify weaknesses in login, session management, and account recovery mechanisms.

• Injection Vulnerabilities Gain hands-on experience finding and exploiting vulnerabilities such as SQL Injection and command injection.

• API Penetration Testing Learn how to assess APIs for authorization flaws, insecure endpoints, and data exposure issues.

• Server-Side Attacks Understand how backend vulnerabilities can lead to unauthorized access, data disclosure, or code execution.

• WAF Bypass Learn techniques to bypass Web Application Firewalls using payload obfuscation and alternative attack methods.

Closing Thoughts

If you want to take this exam, I highly suggest that you get some hands-on experience with web application testing first. While the course material is helpful, having practical experience will make the exam much easier and more enjoyable.

Overall, I found the exam fair, practical, and well-designed. It focuses on real-world web security concepts rather than theory, which is something I really liked. If you already have a background in bug bounty hunting, web penetration testing, or solving labs on platforms like PortSwigger Web Security Academy, you should feel comfortable taking it.

I hope this short review gives you a better idea of what to expect. Good luck, and happy hacking!

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