I Passed the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
Well, I recently passed the Certified Ethical Hacker exam, so I thought I would share my findings.
I have not sat an exam for quite a while now. With my CCIE recert looming, I thought it necessary to start getting back into the swing of things. My last exam was the CISSP in December 2004!, the longest exam break in my last ten years of certifications!
So, I started to prep for the CEH exam about three months ago. I bought the Official CEH exam guide from Amazon. The book, although thorough has horrendous typography, with spaces added into the middle of words on virtually every page. Really makes reading hard as it stops your flow. As well as this, I built myself a couple of hack machines, one on Linux and one on Windows. For the Linux machine I downloaded the v1.0 release of BackTrack.
So, armed with all this, and my usual trusty MindManager (I will be blogging loads on Mind Mapping) I set about my studies.
I used my usual, trustworthy study method, again one I will explain and blog later. The same method that has got me through over 40 exams including ones such as the CISSP and CCIE (on the first attempt). This consisted of reading through the material, and then making Mind Maps, before the practical hands on. It also helps that I am involved in some hands on penetration testing at work right now.
So, to cut a long story short, I passed the exam with 96%. I found it a very fair exam, but I must admit that the courseware and knowledge required is very wide. It is not like a traditional Cisco exam where you can eat the course notes, and be assured that is where the exams will be asked from. This exam is vast, pulling on a lot of quite detailed technical knowledge as well as the utilisation of many tools available on the Internet.
All in all, I found the CEH a very valuable experience. I already have the networking knowledge (CCIE) as well as the security knowledge (CISSP), combined with some application knowledge (CNA, MCSE). But the CEH gave me a great understanding of the available tools, and also it is quite worrying the number of very easy to use tools that are out there that can cause a lot of damage!
I have not sat an exam for quite a while now. With my CCIE recert looming, I thought it necessary to start getting back into the swing of things. My last exam was the CISSP in December 2004!, the longest exam break in my last ten years of certifications!
So, I started to prep for the CEH exam about three months ago. I bought the Official CEH exam guide from Amazon. The book, although thorough has horrendous typography, with spaces added into the middle of words on virtually every page. Really makes reading hard as it stops your flow. As well as this, I built myself a couple of hack machines, one on Linux and one on Windows. For the Linux machine I downloaded the v1.0 release of BackTrack.
So, armed with all this, and my usual trusty MindManager (I will be blogging loads on Mind Mapping) I set about my studies.
I used my usual, trustworthy study method, again one I will explain and blog later. The same method that has got me through over 40 exams including ones such as the CISSP and CCIE (on the first attempt). This consisted of reading through the material, and then making Mind Maps, before the practical hands on. It also helps that I am involved in some hands on penetration testing at work right now.
So, to cut a long story short, I passed the exam with 96%. I found it a very fair exam, but I must admit that the courseware and knowledge required is very wide. It is not like a traditional Cisco exam where you can eat the course notes, and be assured that is where the exams will be asked from. This exam is vast, pulling on a lot of quite detailed technical knowledge as well as the utilisation of many tools available on the Internet.
All in all, I found the CEH a very valuable experience. I already have the networking knowledge (CCIE) as well as the security knowledge (CISSP), combined with some application knowledge (CNA, MCSE). But the CEH gave me a great understanding of the available tools, and also it is quite worrying the number of very easy to use tools that are out there that can cause a lot of damage!
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