quogue66 wrote: » I passed the GPEN exam today. This is my fifth GIAC exam in 11 months and I think I'll be retiring from SANS courses/certs for a while....unless anyone knows of a GIAC record I can break. Has anyone taken 6 in a year? Maybe I can squeeze in one more lol. I'm going to start "pre-studying" for the OSCP course. I've read a few reviews and watched a couple videos and since time is literally money with this course I am going to prepare for the class before actually taking it. As far as the SEC560 course goes it was a pretty decent class. They teach you the basics of pen testing. There is a lot of discussion about best practices, rules of engagement and scope. Scanning is also a big part of the course and it covers nmap, scapy, nikto, nessus, etc. The exploitation portion gets your feet wet with Metasploit, the meterpreter, Veil Evasion and netcat. Password cracking with Cain, John the Ripper and Ophcrack is also covered. There are sections on Powershell and Web app pen testing. Overall I think this is a great intro to pen testing. You won't walk out of the course and be the best pen tester in the world but it gives you a solid foundation of what's involved. I started the class the last week of August. I watched some of the videos and read the books 3 times. I did all the labs twice and some I did 3 times. I haven't done the CTF exercise yet but I plan on it. I took my first practice exam on Saturday and scored an 88. I took my second one last night and scored a 90. The surprising thing was that the questions were completely different. This was a first for me. Usually there is a pretty big overlap. The actual test was a lot harder than the practice tests. I scored a 79.
nopx90 wrote: » Congrats man! Maybe next year you can take GSE!
quogue66 wrote: » I'm going to start "pre-studying" for the OSCP course. I've read a few reviews and watched a couple videos and since time is literally money with this course I am going to prepare for the class before actually taking it.
quogue66 wrote: » ... I started the class the last week of August. I watched some of the videos and read the books 3 times. I did all the labs twice and some I did 3 times. I haven't done the CTF exercise yet but I plan on it. I took my first practice exam on Saturday and scored an 88. I took my second one last night and scored a 90. The surprising thing was that the questions were completely different. This was a first for me. Usually there is a pretty big overlap. The actual test was a lot harder than the practice tests. I scored a 79.
