On Monday, September 7, I’ll be starting the Practical Network Penetration Tester (PNPT) certification exam.

This feels like a significant milestone because, in a lot of ways, it represents the culmination of what I’ve been working toward for the past year.

Over that time, I’ve spent countless hours working through penetration testing courses, labs, Hack The Box machines, Active Directory environments, and anything else that could help turn individual tools and techniques into an actual methodology.

The goal has gradually shifted from simply learning how an attack works to understanding why it works, when to use it, and how the pieces of an engagement fit together.

That process is also the original reason MidwestSec.com exists.

I wanted somewhere to document what I was learning while working toward the PNPT. The walkthroughs started as a way to force myself to slow down and explain the attack paths I was taking instead of just getting a flag and moving on.

If I couldn’t explain what I had done and why it worked, I probably didn’t understand it as well as I thought I did.

Over time, the site has grown beyond that original purpose. It has become a place for walkthroughs, technical notes, a growing knowledge base, and documentation of the other security and IT projects I’m working on.

But the PNPT was where the idea started.

I earned the PJPT last year, continued building out my practical skills, and have spent the past several months specifically preparing for the next step.

Now it’s finally time to put that work to the test.

The PNPT isn’t the end of the learning process. There are plenty of areas I still want to improve and certifications and projects I want to tackle afterward.

But it does feel like the end of the first major chapter that led to MidwestSec.

Monday, the next one starts.