Passed C|EH 7
Passed the CEH V7 today!!! I would like to thank everyone on this forum for sharing their tips and experience. The information provided helped me TONS with preparing for this exam.
To put my exam experience in perspective I’ll give you a little run down on my background. The CEH exam was the FIRST and ONLY cert I have taken to date. I graduated with a B.S in information systems about 9 years ago. After graduating I started my own business which is non-IT related and have been doing it ever since. Although my profession is not IT related it is web based . So I do have experience with web design, web programming, and SQL. My networking experience has basically been limited to the small office environment (5-6 boxes).
Since I graduated I have been looking for something IT wise that I can sink me teeth into again. However I have kind of let myself fall prey to the ole..”if it’s not broke done fix it” deal, and the techie in me has been collecting some cobwebs .About 6-7 months ago I read about the CEH certification and it immediately sparked my interest. It was actually information security/hacking that got me interested in IT years ago. I have to be honest the idea of playing with Nmap, NESSUS and revisiting the ports #’s like 31337, 27374 etc got my blood flowing again
. So the reason I decided to pursue this thing was pretty much purely personal (although I do plan to incorporate it with my business eventually).
OK. Enough of the wind bagging. I’ll get down to the nitty gritty
I have been studying on and off for this exam on and off for the past 5 months. I decided to take my time to develop a stronger foundation with some of the fundamentals. It had been 9 years since I have even THOUGHT about the OSI model, packets-frames, binary-hex conversions etc. Even though that stuff isn’t that difficult (and this exam only really requires a basic knowledge of these) I just had to re familiarize myself with them. Once I got up to speed with this stuff my studying seemed to flow a lot better working into the rest of the domains.
I used the ilearn package from Eccouncil. You can’t go wrong here. Although it is very expensive( being self employed I’m the one who had to flip the bill) . At first I was really skeptical about how much it was going to prepare me. It just didn’t seem to go into depth enough but for this exam it did the job! The course ware and videos were great, but the labs were useless IMO.
Matt Walker AIO,and the practice exam book were great.. The way he presented the material was excellent , easy to read, and concise. Although finding some mistakes in the editing made me a little nervous at first(especially since I was relearning a lot of this stuff) cross referencing with the eccouncil courseware I was able to get it sorted out just fine. I think if I had more experience going into the exam this book alone would have probably done the trick.
Steven Defino official review guide Ehh. To me it was basically an outline of the course ware. Which he does say its supposed to be. Pretty much a book to wet your lips to take the bootcamp or whatever, but as a study guide I didn’t find it useful.
Boson practice exam.. $99.00.. Money well spent!!!! Being my first cert I wanted to take as many practice questions as I could get my hands on to get a feel if I was absorbing the material. It also had questions that gave me more looks at the tools and in particular "switches(netcat,hping,tcpdump,ping etc) snort." that were lacking in the other material. 400 questions that I felt represented closest to the actual exam.
Know your nmap ,netcat, hping, tcpdump, wireshark switches. Snort rules. Virus types etc
I felt that the exam was easy however I only scored 83%. Don’t get me wrong. I’m stoked that I passed but I felt I was well prepared for this exam and thought I could score higher. Some of the questions were kind of oddly worded but nothing too crazy.. about 5 questions were just odd in general. I honestly don’t know what I could have done to score much higher . I may have made some concentration errors. I was super anxious/excited the night before and only got about 3 hours sleep.
Thanks again for all your help!
To put my exam experience in perspective I’ll give you a little run down on my background. The CEH exam was the FIRST and ONLY cert I have taken to date. I graduated with a B.S in information systems about 9 years ago. After graduating I started my own business which is non-IT related and have been doing it ever since. Although my profession is not IT related it is web based . So I do have experience with web design, web programming, and SQL. My networking experience has basically been limited to the small office environment (5-6 boxes).
Since I graduated I have been looking for something IT wise that I can sink me teeth into again. However I have kind of let myself fall prey to the ole..”if it’s not broke done fix it” deal, and the techie in me has been collecting some cobwebs .About 6-7 months ago I read about the CEH certification and it immediately sparked my interest. It was actually information security/hacking that got me interested in IT years ago. I have to be honest the idea of playing with Nmap, NESSUS and revisiting the ports #’s like 31337, 27374 etc got my blood flowing again
. So the reason I decided to pursue this thing was pretty much purely personal (although I do plan to incorporate it with my business eventually).OK. Enough of the wind bagging. I’ll get down to the nitty gritty
I have been studying on and off for this exam on and off for the past 5 months. I decided to take my time to develop a stronger foundation with some of the fundamentals. It had been 9 years since I have even THOUGHT about the OSI model, packets-frames, binary-hex conversions etc. Even though that stuff isn’t that difficult (and this exam only really requires a basic knowledge of these) I just had to re familiarize myself with them. Once I got up to speed with this stuff my studying seemed to flow a lot better working into the rest of the domains.
I used the ilearn package from Eccouncil. You can’t go wrong here. Although it is very expensive( being self employed I’m the one who had to flip the bill) . At first I was really skeptical about how much it was going to prepare me. It just didn’t seem to go into depth enough but for this exam it did the job! The course ware and videos were great, but the labs were useless IMO.
Matt Walker AIO,and the practice exam book were great.. The way he presented the material was excellent , easy to read, and concise. Although finding some mistakes in the editing made me a little nervous at first(especially since I was relearning a lot of this stuff) cross referencing with the eccouncil courseware I was able to get it sorted out just fine. I think if I had more experience going into the exam this book alone would have probably done the trick.
Steven Defino official review guide Ehh. To me it was basically an outline of the course ware. Which he does say its supposed to be. Pretty much a book to wet your lips to take the bootcamp or whatever, but as a study guide I didn’t find it useful.
Boson practice exam.. $99.00.. Money well spent!!!! Being my first cert I wanted to take as many practice questions as I could get my hands on to get a feel if I was absorbing the material. It also had questions that gave me more looks at the tools and in particular "switches(netcat,hping,tcpdump,ping etc) snort." that were lacking in the other material. 400 questions that I felt represented closest to the actual exam.
Know your nmap ,netcat, hping, tcpdump, wireshark switches. Snort rules. Virus types etc
I felt that the exam was easy however I only scored 83%. Don’t get me wrong. I’m stoked that I passed but I felt I was well prepared for this exam and thought I could score higher. Some of the questions were kind of oddly worded but nothing too crazy.. about 5 questions were just odd in general. I honestly don’t know what I could have done to score much higher . I may have made some concentration errors. I was super anxious/excited the night before and only got about 3 hours sleep.
Thanks again for all your help!
Comments
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TechGuy215
Member Posts: 404 ■■■■□□□□□□
Sweet! Welcome to the CEH club!
* Currently pursuing: PhD: Information Security and Information Assurance
* Certifications: CISSP, CEH, CHFI, CCNA:Sec, CCNA:R&S, CWNA, ITILv3, VCA-DCV, LPIC-1, A+, Network+, Security+, Linux+, Project+, and many more...
* Degrees: MSc: Cybersecurity and Information Assurance; BSc: Information Technology - Security; AAS: IT Network Systems Administration -
jvrlopez
Member Posts: 913 ■■■■□□□□□□
Good job! Agree with you to the T in regards to the Matt Walker AiO and the DeFino Review Guide. I actually got the EC Council Review Guide first because I was drawn in by the "official" on the cover. Too bad it was skimpy and lacking. Got the feeling too that it was a coursebook to be used alongside a class.
The AiO book was great, so much so that I went back and bought the practice questions. Loved those little analogies and stories he puts before every section.
Congrats on the pass! Looking forward to anything else?And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high. ~Ayrton Senna
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certero
Member Posts: 18 ■□□□□□□□□□
Thanks guys! It's been along time since Ive had to put my "study cap" on and it felt good to challenge myself again.
[QUOTE=Congrats on the pass! Looking forward to anything else?[/QUOTE]
I was kind of thinking about the CHFI. I think I could possibly put the CEH/Forensics into use business wise. The only thing that has me scratching my head a little is the amount or lack of study prep available for this course. I know about the ilearn from eccouncil but I'm not really wanting to shell out another $1600 and the only only other exam prep that I have really seen for it is the offical review guide on Amazon that seems to be quite dated. If I'm going to pay another $600 to sit for the exam I want to KNOW that I am ready. Does anyone have any thoughts on the CHFI or any recommendations for other certs in this arena? Thanks. -
bobloblaw
Member Posts: 228
Thanks, and congrats. My weak points are rote memorization of syntax. That's what "/?" is for, right?
Lots of options in the security certification game. You can transition relatively easy into the Security+. What are your goals? -
Dakinggamer87
Member Posts: 4,016 ■■■■■■■■□□
Congrats!!*Associate's of Applied Sciences degree in Information Technology-Network Systems Administration
*Bachelor's of Science: Information Technology - Security, Master's of Science: Information Technology - Management
Matthew 6:33 - "Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need."
Certs/Business Licenses In Progress: AWS Solutions Architect, Series 6, Series 63 -
certero
Member Posts: 18 ■□□□□□□□□□
Thanks. Well being in the investigations/security industry I am leaning towards something in forensics(which is why I was considering CHFI) and really anything that will help to lend more credibility when dealing with potential clients. I do a little bit of forensic stuff right now but I'm thinking of doing more in the future. I see your a CISSP. Is the Sec+ the only other cert you have? From reading on here I see people have about a dozen or so certs before they even attempt that exam. lol
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Tyquan Trotter
Registered Users Posts: 1 ■□□□□□□□□□
Hey Congrats. I am new to CEH and was wondering if you could provide a list of books and labs materials that I can use so i can get my CEH. I have 2 years experience and a Sec+ certification.
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bobloblaw
Member Posts: 228
I see your a CISSP. Is the Sec+ the only other cert you have?
Yep. I'm doing it all backwards. Took the Sec+ after the CISSP. Just got the vouchers and book to the A+ too (Not a joke. Planning on enrolling in WGU next year and knocking out some lesser certs to "CLEP" credit hours). Been in IT for ~14 years. Decided a year ago it would probably be a good idea to go ahead and get some certs. Better late than never.
isc2 just popped out a forensics cert.
http://cert.isc2.org/ccfp-exam-outline/
