Begin CEH Bootcamp Today

Today marks the beginning of my first day of the CEH bootcamp sponsored by my firm. Hopefully it goes well. I have have dabbled in a few study materials here and there. I vast majority of my IT experience comes in systems/network engineering and I have considerable experience in security related functions. In addition, I started off my career as a web developer programming in Java and PHP, back when PHP3 was in beta, and PHP/FI was still popular. So, I think my skillset is well rounded for these studies.

I will post a few updates as the week progresses.

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blackhole

Goodluck and keep us informed

I m curious about Courseware ? is it standard what you get from EC or its custom made ?

powerfool

I walked in and we are using the EC Council official courseware and it is covering the CEHv7. We will have the opportunity to take exam at the end of the week.

SephStorm

Is your company paying for you to take the camp or are they actually hosting it?

powerfool

SephStorm wrote: »

Is your company paying for you to take the camp or are they actually hosting it?

They brought a third-party in to facilitate it, but it is exclusive to my firm.

powerfool

The first day was pretty much a review of IT career history for anyone that has at least 4-5 years under their belt. We covered some basic security concepts and the "hack" life cycle: reconaissance, scanning, gaining access, maintaining access, and covering your tracks. We also covered the the CIA/AIC triad, which is big review if you have prepared for SSCP or CISSP. The was pretty much Module 1.

Module 2, footprinting, covers how to find information about a target. Using Google to find information is a pretty important concept for the exam apparently. Using Google commands like "inurl:" along with other queries entries, like "company directory," can be used to find information that isn't necessarily meant to be publicly disclosed. Sites like Pipl.com can be used to gain information about specific individuals that can be selected as a target. Other methods of footprinting include using Whois, DNS queries, and e-mail headers to find information.

We covered about half of Module 3, which gets into scanning. nmap is the tool of choice here. Understand TCP header flags and the TCP three-way handshake, which can be a considerable amout of review for anyone that has any networking experience.

I am not entirely impressed with the official material, as it is essentially a printed version of the presentation slides with no additional notes.

blackhole

so if I want to do self-study I should prepare with some other means ? as you said course-ware is just paper print of the slides? On EC site these course-ware is carrying tag of $790 !!!!

rogue2shadow

powerfool wrote: »

Today marks the beginning of my first day of the CEH bootcamp sponsored by my firm. Hopefully it goes well. I have have dabbled in a few study materials here and there. I vast majority of my IT experience comes in systems/network engineering and I have considerable experience in security related functions. In addition, I started off my career as a web developer programming in Java and PHP, back when PHP3 was in beta, and PHP/FI was still popular. So, I think my skillset is well rounded for these studies.

I will post a few updates as the week progresses.

I'm sure you'll destroy this come Friday. The thing that helped me the most during my bootcamp was the labbing. The reading I had done all that year prior really came to light when I was forced to use about 75% of the tools described during labs and CTF (the Win 2000 tools were excluded). It'll also come down to the instructor.

powerfool

blackhole wrote: »

so if I want to do self-study I should prepare with some other means ? as you said course-ware is just paper print of the slides? On EC site these course-ware is carrying tag of $790 !!!!

I would highly advise against purchasing the EC Council official courseware... it is really geared towards an instructor-led course, best met with a competent instructor. For self-study, you could take the topics and use Wikipedia for definitions and then do some hands-on with the applications that are covered and that will get you 70-80%, based on my 1.5 days worth of time in the classroom.

JDMurray

How many and what modules will you be covering? Aren't there like 70+ modules in CEHv7? How long is that bootcamp?

blackhole

thanks a lot

I am glad I asked before the buy.

powerfool

JDMurray wrote: »

How many and what modules will you be covering? Aren't there like 70+ modules in CEHv7? How long is that bootcamp?

As far as I can see, there are only 19 modules. Perhaps they are consolidated...

JDMurray

Yeah, it looks like CEHv6 had 67 modules, but CEHv7 has only 19. A good move, as that's a far less intimidating quantity.

coty24

I was kind of taken aback when I did the course but I enjoyed it. Studying wise, he is right look for supplemental material. I'm using Kimberly Graves v6 material till something more current materializes.

powerfool

Well, today is the day... the exam will be later this morning and into the afternoon. I have to say that I am not impressed with the course. The instructor indicated that he typically tweaked the course over time, but this was his first pass at the v7 material and stuck with the EC Council curriculum.

Comparing the CEH bootcamp/material to the CISSP bootcamp/material (I sat a bootcamp with Training Camp in May 2010 which was a very technical and in depth course), the CISSP has the mile wide and an inch deep feel... the CEH is about a half-mile wide and three inches deep, with a huge deep spikes.

The only reason I feel comfortable enough to take this exam is my general security experience along with studies over the past year, and my use of many tools over the past 12 years, like nmap, hping2, netcat, SysInternals, etc.

The ideal candidate for this exam is someone that has been an MCSE on Windows 2000 or more recent, and has decent knowledge of Linux and web development. Take that and some independent study or a bootcamp and you should be ready.

powerfool

Got an 85%. So... it's done. I don't really know how I feel about the exam... not really much to say beyond what I have said.

JDMurray

Congratulations on passing the CEH exam!

rwmidl

Congrats on the pass!

colemic

JDMurray wrote: »

Congratulations on passing the CEH exam!

Congrats on the pass! Do you feel that your previous comparison to CISSP (1/2 mile wide, 3 inches deep, with spikes) is pretty accurate?

rogue2shadow

powerfool wrote: »

Got an 85%. So... it's done. I don't really know how I feel about the exam... not really much to say beyond what I have said.

Nice nice. Yeah; it gives you that "you had to have been there" kind of feeling. Not to say good or bad but you know...

powerfool

I still feel the same about it relative to the CISSP... It is just weird and sloppy exam... Multiple choice questions with two answers being identical... I would be embarrassed if I worked at EC Council.

blackhole

congratulations ..... does course ware helped ? i mean if I buy courseware what are the chances of clearing exam just based on it ? or its like CISSP ?

powerfool

blackhole wrote: »

congratulations ..... does course ware helped ? i mean if I buy courseware what are the chances of clearing exam just based on it ? or its like CISSP ?

The courseware is single-minded... follow the instructor. It is simply two books with presentation slides in it and no additional notes. It isn't something that you can study, really.

xzier

I like to take the CISSP, but how was it compare to other course?