VX-Underground - Pentester Lab Scholarship
Women in Security and Privacy (WISP) is thrilled to announce a new partnership for 2025 with VX Underground, one of the world’s largest collections of malware source code, samples, and threat intelligence. Through this collaboration, earlier this year, five scholarships were awarded to members of the WISP community —providing them with six months of full access to PentesterLab, an immersive hands-on platform designed to teach web hacking and cybersecurity skills.
This initiative supports WISP’s mission to advance and advocate for women and underrepresented communities in the fields of security and privacy. As the cybersecurity landscape grows increasingly complex, practical training programs like PentesterLab equip learners with the technical skills needed to break into or level up within the field. For many aspiring professionals, access to resources like this can be cost-prohibitive—making scholarships a crucial mechanism for equity and inclusion.
By working with community leaders like VX Underground, WISP helps reduce the financial barriers to entry and ensures more diverse voices can thrive in privacy and security. Whether someone is transitioning into a technical role, building on foundational knowledge, or deepening their offensive security skills, this partnership helped pave the way.
We’re proud to support our scholars on their learning journeys, and we’re excited to see how they apply these new skills in their careers and communities.
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Kavya Ganesan
Kavya is excited to build practical pentesting skills, learning about real-world attack techniques, and improving my ability to advocate for security within teams, while giving back to the scholarship cohort by sharing insights and helping others grow.
Arismita Banerjee
Arismita was excited to enhance her skills in web hacking, code review, and cryptography through PentesterLab access!
Lixin
Lixin was excited to deepen her hands-on skills in web application penetration testing by exploring vulnerabilities like XSS and injection flaws, to refine her secure code review techniques to better detect and mitigate emerging threats, and to dive into the latest challenges in API and authentication security to stay ahead in today's evolving digital landscape.
Twitter: @EstL4na | Linkedln: Lixin (Estl4na) zhang)
Amanda M
Amanda was excited to delve into web application security, explore real-world exploits, and build upon her penetration testing methodologies through the VX-Underground Pentester Lab Access Scholarship.
