EWPTXv2 Exam Review

5 min readSep 5, 2023

Greetings everyone! I’m Tunahan Tekeoğlu, and I decided to write this article due to the overwhelmingly positive feedback I received for my previous CEH Practical article. So, let’s dive into the EWPTXv2 Exam from my perspective!

Firstly, let me briefly touch on the difficulty level of the exam, especially for those who are new to it or considering taking it.

If you are already working as a pentest expert in a company or actively engaged in bug bounty platforms, capable of performing tasks like WAF bypasses and manual SQL injections, then the advanced level vulnerabilities exploitation in this exam may not be excessively challenging for you. However, regardless of your background, adequate preparation is crucial, and underestimating the exam is not advisable.

What is Elearn Web Application Penetration Testing Extreme?

Elearn Web Application Penetration Testing eXtreme is a challenging marathon that closely mimics real-world scenarios where ethical hacking techniques are applied within a limited time frame to solve a security audit problem. The exam is designed to cover OWASP TOP 10 topics and advanced web application penetration testing techniques. It’s not a simulation; instead, it’s a real-world example of a corporate web application, emulated using live virtual machines, networks, and applications, intended to test ethical hacking skills.

EWPTXv2 Exam Information:

Exam Name: Web Application Penetration Testing Extreme
Passing Score: The expectation is that you uncover as many vulnerabilities as possible during the exam. However, they initially outline the essential criteria you must meet during the test, which you must definitely achieve.
Exam Infrastructure: Access to the target applications is typically via a VPN connection, and the application part closely resembles a real penetration test.
Test Duration: 7 Days Testing, 7 Days Reporting

EWPTXv2 Exam Details:

The exam begins with accessing our target applications via a portal provided to us in advance and establishing a VPN connection.
After obtaining the necessary information through the portal and completing the VPN access, you can easily access the target applications from your own machine.
During the exam duration, everything is allowed. You can ask questions to experienced colleagues and conduct internet research if you get stuck. Having these options is a significant advantage.
Since your machine won’t have internet access, you’ll need to use your own browser to access resources.
Keep in mind that some exploits or commands may not work on the first attempt. DON’T PANIC. Take a deep breath, restart your machine, and try again (remember, there is a daily restart limit).
Don’t forget to capture step-by-step screenshots of the discovery and exploitation stages of the vulnerabilities you find during the exam. In some cases, you might get caught up in the excitement of hacking and forget this crucial step. However, no matter how well you perform in the practical part, without writing a comprehensive and well-structured report, you won’t pass the exam!

What To Expect İn The Exam?

Encoding and Filtering
Evasion Basics
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
XSS Filter Evasion and WAF Bypassing
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
HTML 5
SQL Injections
SQLi Filter Evasion and WAF Bypassing
XML Attacks
Attacking Serialization
Server Side Attacks
Attacking Crypto
Attacking Authentication & Single Sign-On (SSO)
Pentesting APIs & Cloud Applications
Attacking LDAP-based Implementations

Without further ado (as the previous notes were too long and tiresome), let’s get to the most enjoyable part of the job, which I know you have all been waiting for :P.

How to pass the exam?

DON’T PANIC!
You can chat with your friends who have previously taken the exam to thoroughly understand the exam’s mentality (you can also be friends with me :D).
Remember that this exam is a real pentest simulation. If you haven’t done pentesting before, let me tell you that the goal is not always to find critical or high-level vulnerabilities. It’s about making the organization more secure than when you started the test :) So, even the lowest vulnerability is valuable and valid.
Make sure you have exploited all vulnerabilities in the OWASP TOP 10 in different environments and in different ways several times.
Be sure to have used the tools I will provide below before:

BurpSuite
Sqlmap
Ffuf
feroxbuster
Ysoserial
Dirbuster

I repeat, “use all of these tools before entering the exam.” Trying to learn a tool for the first time during the exam can stress you out.
Everything you need is available on the internet. If you can’t find something, don’t panic, stay calm, and look again. It should be there. Don’t waste time searching for extra things, and remember that you can ask someone if you get stuck.
There are plenty of ready-made report templates on the internet. You can choose one and use it; the important thing is the content of the report.
No matter how good you are, I still recommend solving a few challenges before the exam.

Some Resources :

“I KNOW YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR MY FANTASTIC FINAL TRICK AGAIN :D”

Use Automated Scanning Tools and AI Tools Together!

If your experience at the time you take the exam is not sufficient for a real pentest, you can use automated vulnerability scanning tools and artificial intelligences together. How? For example, you can perform a scan on the target application with Acunetix and then interpret the results with an AI application. This way, you can gain a significant understanding and easily overcome any obstacles.

Almost all friends who wrote a review have proudly added their own certifications at the end of their reviews :) I won’t do that, but if this post helped you get your certification, I would love to see it. You can send it to me via LinkedIn. Remember, I BELIEVE IN YOU.

If you find this blog worth reading then do hit that 👏🏻