Netwars vs OCSP vs Pentestit

gwood113

So I just finish a Netwars Tournament 1.0 event this week. It left me wanting more so I've recently started working on v9.0 of lab.pemtesit.ru to keep the party going.

I am curious if any OSCP holders have played netwars and/or pentestit and can provide some context to the difficulty of those versus the OSCP labs/exam.

Edit:
Looking back on my post I felt like I formed my question poorly: I know that difficult for me may be very different from difficult for you.

So for those who have completed/attempted the OSCP and one or both of the others how would you compare their relative difficulty to one another?

nopx90

As far as Netwars vs OSCP. Two different animals. Netwars will test your knowledge of linux in the first rounds or so. You'll have forensics, some web app pentesting in the later rounds (as I'm sure you know). Nothing mind numbing in apparent difficulty. I say apparent because as far the OSCP goes... once you know the magic trick; it doesn't seem so hard, but sometimes it takes 8 hours plus to learn said magic trick. If netwars were the same no one would play. Not to say that there aren't any "easy" machines during the OSCP, but then again "easy" is subjective.

OSCP is way harder, but then again you aren't competing, or looking at the challenges from a blue team point of view for the most part. Both are fun. If you've got time to spare and passion to get you thru the times where you'll most likely question why the hell you are torturing yourself; then do the OSCP. Well worth it. Plus, you'll never look at computers the same.

Good luck!

MrAgent

My coworkers and I did a netwars event and placed second. Getting to level 4 is fairly easy, but with the amount of time we had, we were unable to get any challenges done in level 4. It seems much more difficult in levels 4 and 5.

IMO getting to that point is much harder than the OSCP exam. In the OSCP exam you are just trying to break into a set of boxes. In the higher levels of netwars you are tested on a lot of different things. Exploitation, encryption, forensics, etc.

gwood113

Looking back on my post I felt like I formed my question poorly: I know that difficult for me may be very different from difficult for you.

So for those who have completed/attempted the OSCP and one or both of the others how would you compare their relative difficulty to one another?

gwood113

MrAgent wrote: »

My coworkers and I did a netwars event and placed second. Getting to level 4 is fairly easy, but with the amount of time we had, we were unable to get any challenges done in level 4. It seems much more difficult in levels 4 and 5.

IMO getting to that point is much harder than the OSCP exam. In the OSCP exam you are just trying to break into a set of boxes. In the higher levels of netwars you are tested on a lot of different things. Exploitation, encryption, forensics, etc.

Level 4 is harder than level 3, but not crushingly so. Compared to level 3 of your NetWars event, how would you characterize the difficulty level to OSCP in general?

MrAgent

As mentioned they are really two different animals. Its like comparing apples to oranges.
OSCP is purely exploitation. You don't have to worry about forensics, cryptography, etc.

While the netwars event had SOME exploitation, it seemed to be more focused on the forensics piece.

SaSkiller

I didn't do well in a netwars because of my lack of knowledge in other areas. I remember a certain question and I had no idea how to do anything having to do with it, (forensics I think). Very annoying.

TechGromit

So would you say if you passed the OSCP certification, netwars would be fairly easy? Or is the content so different, it wouldn't be significant help?

MrAgent

No, I wouldnt say that at all. If it weren't for the rest of my team coming from CND back grounds, we wouldnt have placed 2nd.
They all had a lot of experience in forensics and incident handling before hand.

gwood113

Thanks for the feedback. I honestly expected Levels 3 and 4 of NetWars to be considered similar to OSCP on a much smaller scale (given what I've read).

I don't suppose anyone has any experience with the Pentestit.ru lab that they could compare and contrast with OSCP.

Mefistogr

I'm on lab.pentestit.ru and, in my opinion, it's a lot more difficult than OSCP. I fared well with OSCP but as far as pentestit.ru is concerned it's difficult even to follow the walkthroughs!!!!!

Hornswoggler

Both are great challenges! Netwars is more approachable for a newbie (you can view hints if needed) where OSCP has a steeper barrier of entry (less hand holding). Depends on your background and career goals. I enjoy them both in different ways, also learned a ton.

Netwars has more of a story or narrative (gradual progression, and the exercises are not exclusively pentesting) where OSCP (PWK labs) are like waking up on a set of Saw and having to hack your way out.