Test Your Pentesting Instincts with the Free Operation Helios Game

“Am I suited to pentesting?” We hear that question almost as often as “how do I become a hacker?” Finding the answer normally takes months of study. We shortened the first check to six minutes by building Operation Helios, a free educational game in which you make 10 realistic decisions from an authorised penetration test and immediately see how closely your judgement matches professional practice.

👉 Play Operation Helios in Polish — no login or installation; it runs in your browser.

What the game is about

You receive an order from the fictitious forwarding company Helios and conduct the test from the first e-mail from the client to the report on the management desk. Along the way - 10 phases that in practice coincide with the order of the real pentest:

1. Authorization - Do you start with the scanner or with the Rules of Engagement?
2. Reconnaissance - Which source is truly passive?
3. Scanning - What does a port marked as “filtered” really mean?
4. Service Enumeration - What do you do before launching an SMB exploit?
5. Vulnerability Assessment - Do you trust the red “CRITICAL” from the scanner or validate it?
6. Password attacks - how to test login without blocking the company for the whole day?
7. Gaining access — will a bind shell or a reverse shell work behind NAT?
8. Pivoting - How to reach the internal network from a host in the DMZ?
9. Evidence - how to confirm SQL injection without downloading the entire customer database?
10. Report - How to set priorities so that management understands the risks?

Every answer, correct or incorrect, explains why the decision works or why it could cost you an engagement in the real world. A correct choice links directly to the relevant Pentester Path module, where the topic is explained step by step through worked examples, remediation and detection.

Why this isn’t a trivia quiz

We deliberately avoid questions such as “what does Nmap do?” or “how many layers are in the OSI model?” Those questions test memory, not judgement. Operation Helios tests judgement in context: whether a decision is safe for the client, consistent with authorisation and protective of your credibility as a tester. The same philosophy guides real engagements: a professional penetration test starts with scope and rules, not with the first packet.

That’s why the game rewards, among others:

• Authorization before action - without a written scope there is no test, it is a crime.
• Validation instead of blindly trusting the scanner - CVSS 9.8 is a signal, not a verdict.
• Minimum evidence instead of maximum damage - PoC is supposed to confirm the vulnerability, not destroy the production.
• Business risk prioritization - a good report is decisions for the management board, not an alphabetical list of CVEs.

Rank at the end - and what it actually means

After the tenth decision, the game awards a rank from the same ladder used by BreachRoad Academy: Initiate, Scout, Operator, Infiltrator, Hunter, Cipher, Phantom, Adversary, Architect and Zero Day. The game result is only a quick indicator; real course XP comes from completed sections and passed knowledge checks. Treat the result as a starting point that shows where your judgement is already strong and where you should add knowledge.

You can boast about the result immediately - the “Share” button generates a ready-made text with your rank.

What to do next if you did well (or badly)

Whatever your result, the next step is the same: the Pentester Path in BreachRoad Academy. It is a free, 30-module knowledge path from the fundamentals upward. Lessons explain mechanisms, decisions, tools, remediation and detection through safe worked examples, and every module ends with a knowledge check. No lab downloads or external training accounts are required.

If you are just considering this career path, read also what the full path from zero to the first job looks like and how much a pentester actually earns in Poland.

👉 Play Operation Helios in Polish and then start the Pentester Path for free.

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The scenario and the company “Helios” are fictitious. Only perform security testing — in the game and in real life — on systems for which you have written authorisation.