CEH Passed (92%)
aftereffector
Member Posts: 525 ■■■■□□□□□□
in CEH
I just came back from my friendly local neighborhood Pearson Vue testing center. CEH is over - now I can move on to something more useful and less annoying... oh wait, next is the CHFI, which is neither of those things. Anyways, my preparation:
WGU provided me with 350 questions from the Boson test engine. I purchased a hard copy of the Matt Walker AIO (2nd edition) and used the practice questions from the included CD to review. I also had access to FedVTE's videos - mostly recorded lectures at CMU - and I got through almost half of the videos while preparing for the test. The exam itself took me about an hour, and I flagged every single question that I wasn't absolutely sure about (approximately 30-40 questions).
Key tips for anyone who will be attempting this exam:
1. Take every single practice question from the Boson and Matt Walker practice tests. Read the explanations and understand the correct answer, which for the Matt Walker tests isn't always the one it tells you. Trust me on this... you will thank yourself later.
2. Study nmap and a few other tools. You will know which ones they are from the Matt Walker book - if he spends more than a couple of pages talking about some tool and its switches and outputs, you will want to be very familiar with it. Nmap is obviously a major player, but you should know netcat, snort, wireshark, etc as well. You will encounter dozens of other tools, but all you need to know about the rest of them is what they do (e.g., password cracking, wireless scanning, and so on).
3. Take the Boson practice test.
4. Know how to subnet. It's not as integral to the test as it is on, say, CCENT, but don't miss out on the easy questions.
5. Take the Matt Walker practice test.
6. Know what different attack types look like in pseudocode, event logs, and IDS logs. You need to be able to distinguish a SQL injection from an XSS attack from a buffer overflow from a CSRF attack, not just in theory (that too!) but in practice.
7. Take those Boson and Matt Walker practice tests again.
8. Good luck!
WGU provided me with 350 questions from the Boson test engine. I purchased a hard copy of the Matt Walker AIO (2nd edition) and used the practice questions from the included CD to review. I also had access to FedVTE's videos - mostly recorded lectures at CMU - and I got through almost half of the videos while preparing for the test. The exam itself took me about an hour, and I flagged every single question that I wasn't absolutely sure about (approximately 30-40 questions).
Key tips for anyone who will be attempting this exam:
1. Take every single practice question from the Boson and Matt Walker practice tests. Read the explanations and understand the correct answer, which for the Matt Walker tests isn't always the one it tells you. Trust me on this... you will thank yourself later.
2. Study nmap and a few other tools. You will know which ones they are from the Matt Walker book - if he spends more than a couple of pages talking about some tool and its switches and outputs, you will want to be very familiar with it. Nmap is obviously a major player, but you should know netcat, snort, wireshark, etc as well. You will encounter dozens of other tools, but all you need to know about the rest of them is what they do (e.g., password cracking, wireless scanning, and so on).
3. Take the Boson practice test.
4. Know how to subnet. It's not as integral to the test as it is on, say, CCENT, but don't miss out on the easy questions.
5. Take the Matt Walker practice test.
6. Know what different attack types look like in pseudocode, event logs, and IDS logs. You need to be able to distinguish a SQL injection from an XSS attack from a buffer overflow from a CSRF attack, not just in theory (that too!) but in practice.
7. Take those Boson and Matt Walker practice tests again.
8. Good luck!
CCIE Security - this one might take a while...
Comments
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IaHawk
Member Posts: 188 ■■■□□□□□□□
Nice write up. Approximately how long did you study for? I have the Matt Walker AIO book and I plan on purchasing the Boson practice tests. I'm thinking I should be good after 1-2 months of study time. -
aftereffector
Member Posts: 525 ■■■■□□□□□□
It's hard for me to really pin down how long I studied for this one. I began studying back in April but didn't get very far - I moved across the country, started a new job, bought a house, and kind of slacked off on studying for a long time. Then when I did get back into it, I paused to knock out Cryptography (another assessment-based course at WGU) for a quick win before coming back and finally finishing my preparation. I would say that 6-8 weeks is definitely sufficient, perhaps less if you have some familiarity with the tools beforehand.CCIE Security - this one might take a while...
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ZzBloopzZ
Member Posts: 192
Congrats and thanks for the tips.
Could you please clarify more on what you mean by your comment "Read the explanations and understand the correct answer, which for the Matt Walker tests isn't always the one it tells you. Trust me on this... you will thank yourself later."?
Thanks! -
aftereffector
Member Posts: 525 ■■■■□□□□□□
ZzBloopzZ - if you go through the test engine provided with the CEH AIO by Matt Walker, you might see some incorrect answers (for example, I can remember a question on biometrics and false positives / false negatives that was backwards). However, even though the test engine's scoring is not 100% reliable, you will definitely want to go over all of the provided questions once or twice as you prepare for the actual test. You might find them to be very helpful.CCIE Security - this one might take a while...
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ZzBloopzZ
Member Posts: 192
A, that makes sense. Thank you so much! My goal it to take the exam by September 20th. Just started studying yesterday.
I took the practice exam on the EC-Council website and scored 54%. I think 2 weeks of study for 6-10 hours/day will be enough hopefully.
