CEH EC Council iLabs

canito487

Has anyone had any experience using the CEH iLabs or have any feedback on whether they are worth the investment?

Thanks

MJK9550

Funny, I was just looking at these and wondering the same thing!

R@d1sh

I used them for my studies, they were IMO excellent. I did have an odd glitch that, after completing the entire lab, it wouldn't provide the COMPLETE button, forcing me to close my web browser, re-launch the lab (with the 2-3 minute wait), click all the way through every step of every lab, then the COMPLETE button would display. I then would click it, it would close and show I completed the lab on my progress screen. Occasionally, I'd find a tool that didn't work in their environment as per the steps - most notably, this happened in the Malware lab. But overall, this was an excellent sand box to try out the tools and tricks of the trade. Highly recommended.

horusthesun

R@d1sh wrote: »

I used them for my studies, they were IMO excellent. I did have an odd glitch that, after completing the entire lab, it wouldn't provide the COMPLETE button, forcing me to close my web browser, re-launch the lab (with the 2-3 minute wait), click all the way through every step of every lab, then the COMPLETE button would display. I then would click it, it would close and show I completed the lab on my progress screen. Occasionally, I'd find a tool that didn't work in their environment as per the steps - most notably, this happened in the Malware lab. But overall, this was an excellent sand box to try out the tools and tricks of the trade. Highly recommended.

How excellent? i am really thinking about investing into this

webtech31

I had the opportunity to evaluate the iLabs system a few months ago, so I will give my thoughts:

The iLabs system is a cloud portal service that enables you to access a range of target machines in order to practice the CEH curriculum modules.
Basically you have this set of virtual machines, hosted on a Hyper-V system:
Windows Server 2012 + 2008 / Windows 8 / Windows 7 / Kali Linux / Ubuntu Desktop / Android.

Each module walks you through a bunch of tasks, some of them very basic like "Refresh the webpage" or "Observe the left panel".
You have to click "Done" on each step to proceed to the next, and then complete the lab module. Furiously clicking your way through the lab will do the job, but sometimes you will encounter a few glitches as R@d1sh said.

It's really the same stuff that is described in the CEH lab courseware manuals, just with iLabs you have everything setup with all CEH tools preloaded and a nice course tasklist to follow.
It's worth to note that the supporting platforms are actually provided by Home - Learn on Demand Systems - Learn on Demand Systems and not the EC-Council institution.

My personal view is that it would be much more valuable in the long term to build your own lab systems, then break them and make them evolve at will if your objective is to truly progress on Penetration Testing discipline (there are other topics on lab construction around here).

However if you just just want to pass the CEH certification and someone is paying the bill for you, then adding the iLabs option get you a 6-month timeslot to work on the practical side without investing anything on hardware/software.
By the way, since it's just web interfaces, you can access it with a cheap notebook/tablet or even your smartphone from your couch

horusthesun

webtech31 wrote: »

I had the opportunity to evaluate the iLabs system a few months ago, so I will give my thoughts:

The iLabs system is a cloud portal service that enables you to access a range of target machines in order to practice the CEH curriculum modules.
Basically you have this set of virtual machines, hosted on a Hyper-V system:
Windows Server 2012 + 2008 / Windows 8 / Windows 7 / Kali Linux / Ubuntu Desktop / Android.

Each module walks you through a bunch of tasks, some of them very basic like "Refresh the webpage" or "Observe the left panel".
You have to click "Done" on each step to proceed to the next, and then complete the lab module. Furiously clicking your way through the lab will do the job, but sometimes you will encounter a few glitches as R@d1sh said.

It's really the same stuff that is described in the CEH lab courseware manuals, just with iLabs you have everything setup with all CEH tools preloaded and a nice course tasklist to follow.
It's worth to note that the supporting platforms are actually provided by Home - Learn on Demand Systems - Learn on Demand Systems and not the EC-Council institution.

My personal view is that it would be much more valuable in the long term to build your own lab systems, then break them and make them evolve at will if your objective is to truly progress on Penetration Testing discipline (there are other topics on lab construction around here).

However if you just just want to pass the CEH certification and someone is paying the bill for you, then adding the iLabs option get you a 6-month timeslot to work on the practical side without investing anything on hardware/software.
By the way, since it's just web interfaces, you can access it with a cheap notebook/tablet or even your smartphone from your couch

I hear what you are saying and thank you. But all everyday,(everyday) I play in, spin up, engineer VMs ..on-site, off-site (the stupid cloud). I do have a little lab (a few physical machines) but I don't have the cash to buy an excellent laptop with sweet RAM and an awesome CPU with enough cores .. to handle the labs.

I will most likely buy the iLabs for the price.