Offsec Web Expert ( OSWE ) Review 2025

Hello hackers hope all of you are happy and doing well , Today I'll talk about my Review about OSWE and How I approached to it , This is my Personal and Honest Review for one of a highly demanded and reputational Certificate 

What is OSWE ?

The Offensive Security web Expert (OSWE) is formerly known as AWAE ( WEB-300 ) it's part of OSCE3 by OFFSEC including (OSEP + OSED + OSWE).  this certificate for Web attacks and advanced exploitation you will learn how to make source code review in White Box , How you will make your custom exploitation to exploit critical vulnerabilities , how to analyze the code and implementing chained attacks using multiple vulnerabilities together.

Prerequisites

• Let's talk if you are a bug bounty hunter or an App Sec Pentetser that you want to sharpen your skills up In my opinion I'd like to recommend taking PortSwigger  Academy Labs first , you could solve it to understand every Vulnerability and How to exploit it as soon as you detect it , and there are a lot of people solving these labs - we will get back to this point - it will be better if you dive into the Damn Vulnerable apps in github with different languages such as java - PHP - NodeJs- Python.
• Try to get into python libraries for web applications such requests , beautiful soup , sessions etc..
• Get familiar with regex 
• Practice Code Reviews  in Vulnerable Apps such DVWA  (PHP) , mutillidae (Java) , XVWA ... 
• read about deserialization for different Programming Languages ASP , Java , PHP 

Course Content

• Tools & Methodologies  :  Web Traffic Inspection and how you interact with Web Listeners using python , How you recover the source code using JD-GUI for Java or DNspy for ASP and the methodology for Source Code analysis. 

• Debugging and remote debugging : This module was really awesome and helpful specially for the core of the course as whitebox Web App Pentest, I learned a lot in this module as it focuses in different programming languages and as it will help you if you are stuck during your analysis and you wanna figure out where this function is executed for example as well as you will check the logs or the database statements for errors.

• Source code methodology : to be honest I didn't like this module as it can be more helpful and improved specially for people who doing this course and have no idea about what functions you should look at or where to look inside the multiple line of codes.

•  Insecure Deserialization : if you don't have any idea about deserialization , you may like this module as it's interesting and you gonna love what you will learn from the material specially in DNN Cookie RCE.

•  Authentication Bypass and RCE (java) : this module you will get your hands dirty from remote debugging to analyzing the code to figure out how you will get RCE so I do find this module good .

• Server Side Template Injection : this module I think it's new added but generally it was fantastic as it is fit for modern web apps in 2025.

• BlackBox Testing to RCE : this module is one of the best modules as you will use every single detail related to web app pentesting that you could figure out to chain multiple vulnerabilities to gain RCE , you will get to use some JavaScript to collect some info to get into the application.

• SQL Injection and WAF Bypass :  this module was good as it gives you advanced techniques to exploit and how you turn it into RCE depend on the DBMS such as POSTGRESQL also will help you how to look for an error in the logs of the database and how you can turned it to your own to achieve  SQL Injection attack and how you could bypass the WAF Filters to turn into Remote Code Execution and get your Revere shell , we will talk about the labs later on .

Labs Content

I really enjoyed the labs , there were archived labs which it is helpful for practicing for white , black box web pentesting as well as scripting with vulnerability chains, the labs in the course were really good and the videos teaches you what functions you should look for if you are looking for example for SQL queries to test SQL Injection , a  dangerous functions in some programming languages to achieve RCE.

In my opinion I recommend get your hands dirty and exploit chain for those vulnerabilities fully automated with python. There are a lot of people who discovered a lot of zero days when black box pentesting or White box , a big shout out for one of my friends Mohamed Askar (@Mohamed Askar)  his repo is full of exploits and chaining vulnerabilities.

while you are working in the course material labs and the challenging labs as well try to interact with web apps and read more about important libraries from python and how you merge them together to execute a function that you want to achieve.

Resources I used to prepare

This exam wasn't easy 100% it was hard , I didn't pass on the first time , I only achieved 35 Points and I was trapped by some rabbit holes and time consuming as well , so you have to set a Time management in the exam to prevent wasting time , get rest as you could.

after first attempt I knew that it all about methodology and just  BRING IT !! and you have to get attention for every single detail that you given to analyze, I gone to complete the labs 

•  try to  solve portswigger Web Security Labs with automation even for an easy challenges a Big Shoutout for some repos  Ahmed Qal3awy that was too helpful for automation with python and you could edit it as you wish with your own way like I did .
•   I really recommend purchasing Pentester Lab pro it as it is very easy and useful for who wants to MASTER code review , there are badges specially in Code Review with different languages ex. Java, PHP , Python   with the solutions with simple way and you may not to spoil it whatever you want to test your knowledge even your solutions is correct or not.
• write your own scripts for multiple exploitations ex. SQL Injection , XXE , XSS , CSRF and SSTI like (DVWA - bWAPP - XVWA - webgoat - mutillidae ..... etc ) 
• Interact with how to deal with python when you make http request , how to deal with the session and how to parse it and exfiltrate data.
• Keep documenting everything , I'm using notion some people like Obsidian , do whatever you want but you should document what you have learned because you will get back to it .
• if you got stuck in the labs you may connect to Offsec Security Server and ask people who solve the labs and also there are support , they will help you figuring out what error you have a big advantage for Offsec.

Final Thoughts

Totally I like the course and the content but it may be updated in the upcoming days as there is some modules out of date , but I chose OSWE because it's tough and challenging , this course get me out from my comfort Zone , it is sick by the way !!! generally speaking it's about a journey that will teach you a lot of things to make you grow and have knowledge , it wasn't easy for me  to study everyday because I'm a full time employee , so it takes a module for a day to study in the week end it is not an actual excuse xD but stay positive and focus for what you want to achieve.  finally after you get this , you forget everything and you remember your efforts   

The Journey is yourself !!

I hope everyone has benefited well from this post

Happy Hacking ! 

./bye