CEH pros and cons

Turgon

I can across this thread while looking into some security stuff. No opinions myself but some of you may find it interesting. Bit of a ding dong but there are a few considered views each side of the arguments as far as I can tell.

Run Away From The CEH Certification

the_Grinch

Gotta remember that the information there is from 2006. We are now 3 years from that point and the CEH has really matured in that time. You have to maintain the cert with continuing education credits, not nearly as many grammatical mistakes as there use to be, and the community/industry as a whole has begun to accept it. I see a lot of jobs asking for the CEH. Doesn't mean that having it makes you a pro or expert, but it is a good entry-level cert. It is also my understanding that the government is looking to make it a requirement for their security people.

I find that a lot of people with a ton of experience in security dislike the certification. Is it understandable? Sure. But it was a different world when they started on the road to security. I think that if they look at it as I have and see that it really is an entry-level cert then they probably wouldn't bash it as much. But as with anything, you will have those who like it and those who don't. Can't please everyone and it is up to every person to make the decision on their own....

darkerosxx

Should this thread be titled "EC-Council pros and cons", or even "LPT pros and cons"? They don't really talk much about the CEH, but more about EC-Council and LPT.

Appreciate the link, though. I have to say I thought it was weird to get my certificate package straight from Hong Kong.

LarryDaMan

Believe it or not, the name of the cert itself can be a "con". I had an initial phone interview last week and we talked about my current interests. I mentioned that I had been reviewing some CEH material and he seemed taken aback by the work "hacker". The word has such a negative connotation, so for the uninformed I guess it can seem shady.

I thought it was funny reading during my CISSP studies about how hackers were good and "crackers" were bad. The only people I've ever heard use the word cracker were George Jefferson and Fred Sanford.

carboncopy

LarryDaMan wrote: »

I mentioned that I had been reviewing some CEH material and he seemed taken aback by the work "hacker". The word has such a negative connotation, so for the uninformed I guess it can seem shady.

CNDA comes to the rescue!

the_Grinch

Yeah, CNDA is perfect, but sadly not for us civies!

JDMurray

That's based on old information from the CEHv4 days. Since then, EC-Council has gotten its act together for customer service and exam quality. Keatron has also been involved in the creation of the CEH exams since version 1, and the last I heard he thinks the EC-Council is a reputable organization.

People also seem to mistakenly think that the CEH is claimed by the EC-Council to be the "CISSP of hacker exams," and this clearly isn't the case. However, it seems that Mile2 still thinks their pen testing cert is way better than the CEH:

"Certified Ethical Hacker Training and Counter Hacker Courses Hacking School"

"CEH Certified Ethical Hacker Training Inadequacies"

GAngel

As i go through the material i see nothing wrong with it besides the name. I think it's at the very least a brilliant read for sys/net admins. I'm finding the v5 material very dated but the book basically lists alot of the vulnerabilities you might forget about when locking down the system. Especially older systems we take for granted.

It has much better practical knowledge than the original security+ (havn't read 09 version as yet so can't compare). The official guide has almost nothing to do with pen testing but the exam prep books are very good intro into the real hands on stuff as has been mentioned before.

coffeeking

carboncopy wrote: »

CNDA comes to the rescue!

Reading through this thread and coming across I read about CNDA, it seems that it is a repeat of CEH, a lot of the objectives are same as in CEH, is it so?

darkerosxx

coffeeking wrote: »

Reading through this thread and coming across I read about CNDA, it seems that it is a repeat of CEH, a lot of the objectives are same as in CEH, is it so?

Once you earn CEH, you can pay $50 and fill out forms proving you're a government employee to earn the right to say you're a CNDA.

coffeeking

darkerosxx wrote: »

Once you earn CEH, you can pay $50 and fill out forms proving you're a government employee to earn the right to say you're a CNDA.

thanks for info...so I am assuming it is more or less useful only if you work for the government.

the_Grinch

Yup have to work for the government as an employee or a contractor.

LarryDaMan

the_Grinch wrote: »

Yup have to work for the government as an employee or a contractor.

I am a government contractor, but if I took the CEH and paid the fee to use the CNDA designation, could I use the two designations interchangeably or maybe even use both at the same time? One resume with CEH and another with CNDA?

the_Grinch

Yup you could use both the CEH and the CNDA!