CEH difficulty

9bits

How's the difficulty of the CEH compared to say the CCNA exams?

McxRisley

Those are two totaly different areas to try and compare. Some knowledge that could carry over from the CCNA would be things like: OSI Model, TCP/IP Stack, CIDR, subnetting. All of those are basic networking concepts. For me, it was MUCH easier than the security +.

E Double U

CCNA = networking basics
C|EH = security basics

Exam difficulty level depends on how prepared you are going into the exam.

cyberguypr

We had this conversation the other day. It's impossible to measure "difficultness".

NetworkNewb

cyberguypr wrote: »

It's impossible to measure "difficultness".

Challenge accepted!



and yes, I just drew that in MS Paint. Obviously it's different for every person and that is what you meant but just wanted to make that.

Cisco Inferno

NetworkNewb wrote: »

Challenge accepted!



and yes, I just drew that in MS Paint. Obviously it's different for every person and that is what you meant but just wanted to make that.

Ah yes, this should be the standard model with dots indicating different certs and CCIE at the end next to going to mars lol

thegoodbye

IMO the CCNA is more difficult. It has a hands on component that requires you to query or configure a L2/L3 device and then answer the correct question based off of your answer. Generally, this means you'll have to do some hands on labbing. The CEH on the otherhand, is just multiple choice memorization. Many in the security community consider it a joke.

p@r0tuXus

That was hilarious. Thanks for that.

PC509

How much experience do you have? How much studying are you doing?

I found the CEH much easier than I expected and the CCNA more difficult than I expected. Whether or not that was due to being more experienced or prepared, I don't know. The CEH was easier when it came to the questions. They were pretty straight forward. The CCNA required more thinking through problems to find out how you're going to solve them. Some subnetting questions didn't ask what subnet something was on, but why a router couldn't talk to another router and you have to go through a simulation to find out the information needed. CEH was easier from that aspect. No simulations, just answering the problem that was asked in the question. More direct.

Difficulty from a materials and knowledge viewpoint? Depends on you.
Difficulty from a test taking viewpoint? CEH is easier than CCNA.

IronmanX

It has been 2 years since I did the CEH exam.
"The CEH was easier when it came to the questions."
I found the questions to be wide in range and not well written which was frustrating.

You don't see a lot of fails on the CEH forums anymore.
Around the time i did the test there was the whole v8 to v9 debacle and lots of people where failing.
Maybe the questions have gotten better and the test is easier now.

9bits

Thanks.

ss207k

Guess it depends as well. If the cert is too difficult it may not have many takers.. but if it's too easy it's loses all respect.

End of the day, it's a business model. EC council or any other org want people to pass and take up their cert.. if they fail most how will they make make their money? I saw one such org charging >500USD to 'certify' someone based on an exam.. I'd highly doubt if anyone who pays up isn't 'certified'..

ss207k

Having said that, I'd be considering CEH as well.. recruiters look for it, so prob worth having it...

Captain_Deadpool

I have heard that CEH is not that difficult in terms of a security cert. I'm looking into getting it as a stepping stone towards OSCP.

McxRisley

I would encourage just building your own virtual lab and working on VMs from vulnhub.com as the CEH will not even remotely prepare you for the OSCP. What you need is real hands-on experience to prepare for the OSCP. There also some really great courses on udemy.com by Zaid, you can usually get them on sale for $15-$20.

9bits

McxRisley wrote: »

I would encourage just building your own virtual lab and working on VMs from vulnhub.com as the CEH will not even remotely prepare you for the OSCP. What you need is real hands-on experience to prepare for the OSCP. There also some really great courses on udemy.com by Zaid, you can usually get them on sale for $15-$20.

I made a virtual lab using VMWare Workstation. It's been helpful for learning. But I don't plan on ever taking the OSCP. It's a great cert for pentesters, but that's not really the direction I want to go. I'm taking the CEH for a general overview and because my work is paying for it.