Hi, I'm Yasir Mehmood, and I recently passed the Hack The Box CPTS (Certified Penetration Testing Specialist) exam. In this post, I'll share my honest thoughts on the exam experience, structure, preparation, and how CPTS compares to other certifications like eJPT, eCPPT, and TryHackMe PT1.

Overview

The Hack The Box CPTS certification is part of the HTB Academy training ecosystem and serves as a practical exam that validates your understanding of offensive security methodologies and real-world penetration testing concepts.

Exam Structure:

Duration: 10 days of hands-on testing, including time for report submission
Environment: VPN-based lab with multiple interconnected networks simulating a real corporate environment
Focus Areas: Web exploitation, Active Directory, privilege escalation, pivoting, and lateral movement
Reporting: Requires a professional-grade penetration testing report (PDF format)
Passing Criteria: Based on flag submissions and report quality

The CPTS is often compared to OSCP and PNPT in terms of difficulty and realism but comes with Hack The Box's trademark lab-style learning experience.

My Experience

I took the exam from August 27th, 2025, to September 4th, 2025, and I can confidently say that the CPTS exam was one of the most realistic and well-structured penetration testing exams I've attempted so far. Unlike other exams that focus on isolated machines or CTF-style challenges, CPTS requires a methodical, real-world pentest approach.

It was a 10-day engagement, and I managed to capture 12 out of 14 flags. The network design, pivoting paths, and enumeration flow felt incredibly authentic. Some challenges were quite tough - especially around the mid and late stages - but consistency and methodology paid off.

Highlights:

A fully professional engagement flow: from external recon to AD exploitation
Logical progression with no guesswork-based escalation
Stable infrastructure - no broken flags or connection drops
Report submission felt like a real client deliverable

Interestingly, I found SysReptor just days before my exam, which turned out to be a life-saver for report formatting.

Hack The Box also provides a reporting template (in the second-last module) which was clean and easy to adapt. I also used ChatGPT to enhance my wording - just make sure to review everything carefully before submission.

Overall, I completed the exam in 7 days and spent another 2 days finalizing my report. The submission was smooth - but the 26-day wait (18 business days) for results felt like an eternity!

Positive Aspects

Realistic Engagement Flow - Feels like a genuine corporate pentest, not a CTF.
Stable Lab Environment - No technical instability or missing flags.
Balanced Difficulty - Focuses more on methodology and persistence than obscure exploits.
Strong Learning Integration - Directly builds upon HTB Academy modules.
Professional Report - Encourages documentation and real-world reporting standards.

Preparation Strategy

Most of my preparation came directly from the Penetration Tester path on HTB Academy. The learning path is designed to walk you through all the techniques required for the CPTS exam.

Here are some Recommended HTB Modules:

Attacking Common Services
Attacking Web Applications
Windows Privilege Escalation
Linux Privilege Escalation
Active Directory Enumeration & Attacks
Pivoting, Tunneling, and Port Forwarding
Using CrackMapExec (extra but useful)

Here are some Additional Resources that i used:

Retired Hack The Box machines (focus on AD, enumeration, and privesc).
Previous notes from INE eJPT, INE eCPPT, and THM PT1 certifications.
Blogs and Notes on some useful tools like netexec, ligolo-ng, and sysreptor.
Unofficial CPTS Prep Playlist by IppSec - especially useful for understanding AD attack flow.

Edit (Oct 2025): HTB added a new CPTS Preparation Track that perfectly complements IppSec's playlist.

Tools and Workflow

During the exam, I relied on the following core tools and workflow:

Enumeration: nmap, gobuster, ldapsearch, smbclient, netexec
Exploitation: Burp Suite, SQLmap, msfconsole, custom scripts, netexec
Privilege Escalation: PowerView.ps1, manual enumeration, and crafted PoCs
Active Directory Attacks: BloodHound, Rubeus, Impacket, rpcclient, netexec
Reporting: Notion for note management, SysReptor for report generation

Conclusion

The Hack The Box CPTS certification stands out as one of the most well-balanced, realistic, and educational pentesting exams available today. It's challenging, immersive, and designed to reflect what real engagements look like.

If you're seeking:

A hands-on, real-world pentesting challenge
An exam emphasizing both technical skill and professional reporting
A credible step toward certifications like OSCP or PNPT

Then CPTS is absolutely worth pursuing.