CEH v8 FAILED EXAM - Was version 9 - How to Resolve

wayne_wonder · November 2015

Yeah true but damn these books are months away it's pointless taking the test until then

IronmanX · November 2015

saraff wrote: »

Question are so deep even on NMAP ( I got some switch that I not even see nmap help page on kali and I have google it and not been able to find that after the exam)

The ask about a company in USA has been attacked via WiFi on 2007 and ask which wifi attack they use.

Do you recall the NMap switch?

How was that Wifi 2007 questioned phrased?
Seems weird they would just say hey what Wifi attack was used in 2007 to attack ABC Corp.

Although they could have worded it as: "In 2007 at the RSA conference what Wifi attack was used to obtain passwords from attendees using a fake access point to mimic a legitimate access points offered at the event."

debdeepdutta · November 2015

Ok so, I took my exam on Oct 19th, failed at 60%, felt like I was lied to by EC-Council about the assurance of no new materials have been appended in the exam. So I submitted exam appeal, with details of what I remembered from the exam. And no reply till now, so, I asked my CISSP instructor for help, and I was provided with this email address. I forwarded everything from EC-Council plus my exam appeals, and my complaints.
I signed up for CEH 312-50v8 ; Scheduled CEH 312-50v8 in Pearson VUE for Oct. 19, 2015.; Took exam CEH 312-50 on Oct. 19, 2015.
I thought I was high. Went to look back for the exam I took. CEH 312-50v8 has disappeared from VUE, however, in the list it said, I failed my CEH 312-50v8 at 60%. and only exam I can take now is CEH 312-50 not CEH 312-50v8 so I figure v9 has indeed been pushed, however I got confirmation from an CISSP, CEH, CHFI instructor about this.
Hope this helps for all of us unfortunates on the CEH exam.
academia@eccouncil.org

TK1799_st · November 2015

In the end - ECC gave anyone who filed a complaint 1/2 off to take another exam....that's it.

Wait to take the exam - or move to another vendor like SANS or Offensive Security ---

Why risk it - why gamble -- they could push another update. On other forums people are passing v9 after watching Youtube videos or some say there isn't really any difference in the exam...who knows - don't know the background of these posters...don't know if they are trying to get people to take the exam so the failure rate keeps getting higher...I know I wasted a fair amount of funding and time...

Wish I didn't even start this adventure -- I've moved into OSCP and finding it very fulfilling - the books are straight forward - there's a ton of resources on Cybrary and fruitful labs online -- and for the most part (except the books) it's all FREE!

Best of luck for everyone involved...I'm out!

sauravstodia · November 2015

Hi All
We have a couple of vouchers for CEH v8 exams, which we are willing to sell off at $225. The vouchers are certainly valid till 2nd of November before EC Council moves the exam to the ECC Exam Center. Not sure if they are valid after that.

Let me know if interested.

Regards
Saurav

sauravstodia · November 2015

Typo: That was supposed to be 2nd of December

supasecuritybro · November 2015

sauravstodia wrote: »

Hi All
We have a couple of vouchers for CEH v8 exams, which we are willing to sell off at $225. The vouchers are certainly valid till 2nd of November before EC Council moves the exam to the ECC Exam Center. Not sure if they are valid after that.

Let me know if interested.

Regards
Saurav

Doesn't seem like you've followed this thread. The v8 vouchers aren't for that exam anymore. ECC has already moved to the new test. Yes the vouchers should be valid still but not for v8 exam.

anton73 · November 2015

This is exactly the same response I got from EC council about my appeal ( well besides the name !) ...they come out very unprofessional and disappointing by doing this..they do not take into account anything that is put on the appeal form...the questions I got on my exam did not conform on the exam blueprint..the sad thing is that at the moment even if I feel brave enough to retake the exam I do not know how to prepare and what questions I will be getting on the exam.

I am tending to agree with what some people here say i.e to move away from this exam. Certainly I find Matt Walkers book to be a very good reference for the job. Also I had my skills refreshed and updated with all the tool labs I did. But none of these to be found on the CEH exam. Well I hope I had read these posts before I started preparing for this exam (over 6 months in total while on a job using the related skills).

militarytech · December 2015

Everyone,

I just saw this thread and I found it to be such a coincidence, since I took the CEH exam yesterday and barely passed. I have used the CEHv7 and v8 training modules on FedVTE and in skillport. I just found many questions different (e.g. ALE/SLE/ARO). I believe if it wasn't for my knowledge that I learned from passing the SANS GPEN exam (which obviously the open book helps); I would have been embarrassed by feeling this test.

BTW, I cannot find the link to reset a password on this website. I am formerly ITforyears on this forum.

I kind of feel for the OP but if he engaged them in an unprofessional manner, I will understand the lack of assistance from their end.

militarytech · December 2015

BTW, I cannot edit my posts as well. But I forgot to mention that I was given a voucher for the test and I sure did not want to lose that advantage by failing the test.

militarytech · December 2015

Man, I cannot edit posts. I typoed on feeling; meaning failing.

ITforyears · December 2015

OK, I am back as ITforyears.

dfp1234 · December 2015

Okay, I have to chime in here for a moment. A large portion of this thread comes off a EC-Council bashing. I am going to be the minority here, but still want to make the point. I have had occasion to have some concerns and other items addressed by EC-Council in the past. I cannot say enough good things about this organization. They were prompt with their responses and they treated me more than fairly. I truly believe them to be a great organization ... and no, I do not work for them or any affiliates ... let's slay the attacks before they begin. It is really turning into a sad world when people stop accepting personal responsibility for a problem and attempt to flog the whole thing off on someone else or some other entity. An exam has two participants. The person(s) who wrote the exam, and the person(s) who took the exam. Both have their own share of responsibilities. So, the first question I would ask is ... did I do everything that was in my area of responsibility with regard to the exam. Not to mention EC-Council even offered to accept some of the responsibility and provide a retake discount ... where is the other individual(s) acceptance of some responsibility for the failure? I also find it interesting that the CISSP exam has changed and yet I do not hear about people complaining to ISC2 that they want their money back or a free voucher or worse, bashing of the company and the Certification. ISC2 is also in exam/version transition and having some lag issues as well ... nobody is perfect, BUT a 70% pass requirement ... allows for an error buffer that should adequately accommodate either side of the equation with regard to both exams ;o)

ratbuddy · December 2015

EC-Council launched a new version of their exam, ahead of schedule and before study materials were available for the new version. You really shouldn't be surprised that people are going to complain about this. EC Council has earned a reputation as a shoddy certifying body. It's up to them to reverse this bad reputation - not through apologist forum posts, but through getting their act together and taking real steps to regain the trust of their customers.

You mention CISSP changes, well guess what? ISC(2) announced those changes (along with the date the new changes would launch) three months ahead of time, and new materials were available ahead of the launch. That's how you introduce a new version of a cert exam, NOT by launching the new version without notice.

mirak · December 2015

Yesterday I failed the exam in Spain. As says many people the exam content is updated at v9 and there are few questions from v8. I know that there are new questions about: New threats, viruses, vulnerabilities, exploits, etc. Really I studied searching in internet and reading many books, but still did not get to pass the exam, I got 67% in 4 hours.

I have also used the simulator Boson.com, the questions are very different, and I advise not to waste time with this material.

I have also used AIO covering only CEHv8, that covers 50% of the test questions ...

I have some experience in computer security is what has helped me during the exam.

Now I plan to retake the test (within in a month), but I will have some discount? or I have to pay $ 500 again?

I opened a case with boson.com, using the NOT pass and I will return the money, using the warranty.

on the other hand, I see that you have exited the CEH v9 material in Ec council are almost 900 $ expensive for me ... any book or material that can be used as an alternative?

Thanks in advance

GreaterNinja · December 2015

dfp1234 wrote: »

Okay, I have to chime in here for a moment. A large portion of this thread comes off a EC-Council bashing. I am going to be the minority here, but still want to make the point. I have had occasion to have some concerns and other items addressed by EC-Council in the past. I cannot say enough good things about this organization. They were prompt with their responses and they treated me more than fairly. I truly believe them to be a great organization ... and no, I do not work for them or any affiliates ... let's slay the attacks before they begin. It is really turning into a sad world when people stop accepting personal responsibility for a problem and attempt to flog the whole thing off on someone else or some other entity. An exam has two participants. The person(s) who wrote the exam, and the person(s) who took the exam. Both have their own share of responsibilities. So, the first question I would ask is ... did I do everything that was in my area of responsibility with regard to the exam. Not to mention EC-Council even offered to accept some of the responsibility and provide a retake discount ... where is the other individual(s) acceptance of some responsibility for the failure? I also find it interesting that the CISSP exam has changed and yet I do not hear about people complaining to ISC2 that they want their money back or a free voucher or worse, bashing of the company and the Certification. ISC2 is also in exam/version transition and having some lag issues as well ... nobody is perfect, BUT a 70% pass requirement ... allows for an error buffer that should adequately accommodate either side of the equation with regard to both exams ;o)

I gotta bash you because it seems you miss the point. EC Council changed the exam with no notice. They said they were going to version 9 then they changed the exam at least 2 weeks before they said they were officially going to launch it. That is bad for business and schools who utilize CEH as a milestone. Not to mention it costs the customer more time and money.

Now as far as myself? I've spent 2 months studying for CEH v8. I did the labs, videos and read all the official books. Many Hours put into it. To make it even worse EC Council abruptly changed the exam without updating their customer's paid learning material. In fact I don't even think they had learning material ready when they changed the exam. It took me well over 5 weeks and numerous emails to get new CEH v9 material. Now I'm going on 3-4 months of studying for this stupid exam that should have taken 2 months tops to study for. On top of that I only get once chance to pass the exam now for my school. Oh and .....I heard they are changing their testing methods yet again last week.

CHFI was fine, but CEH has been a huge disruption.

IronmanX · December 2015

GreaterNinja wrote: »

They said they were going to version 9 then they changed the exam at least 2 weeks before they said they were officially going to launch it.

Now as far as myself? I've spent 2 months studying for CEH v8. I did the labs, videos and read all the official books. Many Hours put into it.

The has been beaten to death but:
1. Version 9 is the course material not the exam. The exam is fluid and expected to test your real life experience. For example if you got a question about Hashcat being open source or closed source you are expected to know the answer even though its not in their course material and is very recent.
2. People have posted about passing with only studying the V8 books. We have had enough people pass and share their experience that it is pretty much a given now that those who failed would have failed the test a year ago.

cysec · December 2015

@GreaterNinja - The Idiocracy reference!... classic haha

@Mirak- Unfortunate to hear about your recent test experience.

Thank you for posting about Boson as I "was" going to purchase their test content. I am currently reading Matt Walker to prep while deciding what else to add to the mix.

Perhaps EC-Council's $900 book/materials will be the most accurate reflection of new test questions... I am leaning towards pulling the trigger on this purchase as I feel it will take longer than I wish to wait for the 3rd party companies to start producing new/accurate test questions.

GreaterNinja · December 2015

IronmanX wrote: »

The has been beaten to death but:
1. Version 9 is the course material not the exam. The exam is fluid and expected to test your real life experience. For example if you got a question about Hashcat being open source or closed source you are expected to know the answer even though its not in their course material and is very recent.
2. People have posted about passing with only studying the V8 books. We have had enough people pass and share their experience that it is pretty much a given now that those who failed would have failed the test a year ago.

1. The exam and material has both changed. Regardless of the version name it is irrelevant.
And no you are not expected to test real life experience. That is why EC council provides official training material such as labs, books, videos, training.
EC Council tests on tools and concepts. Real life experience does not imply knowing conceptual or tool knowledge on the new CEH exam. Nor does knowing CEH concepts and tools imply you have real life experience.

2. Well that statements is pretty baseless. How many passed? How many failed? When? What time period? That certainly does not imply the "given" scenario either.

IronmanX · December 2015

GreaterNinja wrote: »

1. The exam and material has both changed. Regardless of the version name it is irrelevant.
And no you are not expected to test real life experience. That is why EC council provides official training material such as labs, books, videos, training.
EC Council tests on tools and concepts. Real life experience does not imply knowing conceptual or tool knowledge on the new CEH exam. Nor does knowing CEH concepts and tools imply you have real life experience.

2. Well that statements is pretty baseless. How many passed? How many failed? When? What time period? That certainly does not imply the "given" scenario either.

1. Your wrong on this. It has been stated on here by EC Council Schema Committee members that in order to be ANSI certified the exam must not be based on the/a course material. Also the exam must test what a person in the field would have knowledge of. There is a vetting process I believe where people in the industry go through approving all exam questions.

2. You may be right. My statement may be baseless and are more likely just based on my personal feeling on those who post. I see posters with a handful of posts complaining about how the exam cheated them. I see many of these posters are not well written and I try and not judge how well written they are if I see that English is not their primary language. I also look into what questions they are complaining about "I failed recently and I saw a pretty big focus on Cookie/Poisoning/Harvesting, XSS, Firewall states and SQL Injection in general. " how is that not fair subject mater for an exam of this nature?

It was stated on here by people in the know that the exam as of Oct 15th was seeing the same fail to pass ratio as before. If this was true this shows that the people complaining about failing probably would have failed previously to Oct 15th.

That combined with posters who have just created account to complain on here leads me to believe they would have failed in September, but now have an excuse since there was updated questions added to the exam as of October 15th. And by the way if you read the small print somewhere haha it says that they will update the questions with out notice from time to time.

We've seen enough recent passers who have posted similar posts to this to lead me to believe the EC Council people are telling the truth about the pass to fail ratio:
"The exam only took me an hour and I was out, but they aren't wrong about v8 materials covering most of it. I got a few questions that I knew from outside, but basically if you read the AIO, do some practice tests, read infosec news, and just generally really enjoy this stuff you should be ok. There was coverage of risk assessment which was a bit weird, but the calculator you can use is on the screen so it's no big. "

I did this test in March. I took the 5 day in person course. I read the AIO v7 and v8 books. I played with the tools. I watched nugget CEH videos and other videos. In March I got questions out of no where. I didn't see them covered in the material. My conclusion is the exam is not harder then it was months ago. People just have a scapegoat as of Oct 15th.

Edit: I do believe EC Council is at fault for this confusion and should not push their training so much as that seems to what is causing these issues.

ChaseBenfield · December 2015

Hey SecConsultant,

I just passed a few days ago through Pearson VUE so I am still waiting on my CEH Welcome Kit. I assume you have already received yours, so I have a quick question I hope you can answer for me. After passing the CEH 312-50 exam what version number is on your welcome kit? I ask because I studied for the CEH v8 and used my v8 exam voucher, but was given a test with questions obviously derived from the CEH v9 content. The exam number was simply CEH 312-50. I ask because I want to put the correct information on my resume. According to EC-Council after passing my exam I may put the information on my resume, business card, etc. but it also says I must specify the version number.

cyberguypr · December 2015

What's wrong with just putting plain old "CEH"?

Archon · December 2015

TK1799_st wrote: »

The lady who is the Certification Director - here's Cherylann Vanderhide LinkedIn:

https://my.linkedin.com/pub/cherylann-vanderhide/48/8bb/101

Malaysia...nice.....

They are a Malaysian company.

E Double U · December 2015

cyberguypr wrote: »

What's wrong with just putting plain old "CEH"?

But that's just so, well, plain.

GreaterNinja · December 2015

You could do CEH, or CEH 312-50.

I think CEH or Certified Ethical Hacker is best for your resume and linked in.

BillV_ · December 2015

IronmanX wrote: »

1. Your wrong on this.

2. You may be right.

Edit: I do believe EC Council is at fault for this confusion and should not push their training so much as that seems to what is causing these issues.

What he said. Almost.

1. Yes. Per ANSI, the CEH exam is to be derived from a Job Task Analysis (e.g., what is expected of a CEH holder and what tasks do they perform in the real world).

2. No. EC-Council doesn't make the numbers available to the public. I have seen the pass ratios/percentages and the numbers (for the 2015 calendar year, prior to and after the exam update) are all very similar.

I can't speak on behalf of EC-Council's business decisions. What and how they choose to deploy things is up to them but they do have to adhere to ANSI standards and requirements for the CEH - which they do. They are audited every year for compliance.

webtech31 · December 2015

Hello TE,
Occasional lurker here, I thought I would step in to share my experience.

Just a quick background on my profile : IS security consultant for 7 years, mainly pentesting and technical audit stuff. I have no academic diploma in information technology or whatever.

I passed CEH v7 in 2012 with only the official material as study guide, and found it to be a lame joke : I aced the exam in 1h20 and scored 93%. I could not believe all the marketing fuss at that time and the overpriced tag.
While walking out the exam room, I was under the impression that any cocky punk could pass the test and go through the HR filter to get hired in a security job without having the skillset.

Then I passed OSCP in March 2015. Now that's what I call a true pentesting examination.

Just after that, I started to study for CEH v8 with only the official material as study guide (again). I scheduled to sit the exam for December 2015.
Early November, I learned about the unannounced v9 evolution and read various info here and there about the ECCouncil "misfire" and how they pushed the exam update before the new materials were released. I told myself "F*** it man, if the exam level is still the same, I'm going to hit the 99% score easy"

So last week I passed CEH v9 (ok, no exam version anymore... but still). If I compare this actual exam to the one I passed 3 years ago, the level has been significantly beefed up.
I had a handful of questions on topics not covered by the official v8 material, like threat modeling, risk management framework, ALE/ARO calculations, HIPAA/SOX and recent overhyped vulnerabilities with fancy names (you already know them all if you read the security news sites).
Somehow I managed to hit the same score than for CEH v7, but I found some of the questions to be really tricky.

Now my conclusion is that the nature of knowledge necessary to take on this exam today is very different from what it was before.
It's no more about memorizing, you have to understand and think on your own if you want to answer the scenario-based questions with confidence. If you already work in the field and use common sense, many answers will come naturally to your mind.

So of course I do not vouch for the EC-Council customer relationship attitude (general confusion, lame canned responses and all) ; but this looks like a globally good evolution for the security community, as we may see less people just memorizing **** and more people showing off real skills in their daily jobs.

My 2 cents,
WT

Gess · December 2015

webtech31 wrote: »

It's no more about memorizing, you have to understand and think on your own if you want to answer the scenario-based questions with confidence. If you already work in the field and use common sense, many answers will come naturally to your mind...but this looks like a globally good evolution for the security community, as we may see less people just memorizing **** and more people showing off real skills in their daily jobs.

That's great, as it's how certifications should be. Certifying your working knowledge of a discipline, not just binging on courseware to pass a certification for a college class or to add to a resume. It sounds like the CEH is now more like the CISSP in that regard. Which is good since the CEH exam has taken some flack in the past for being too much about rote memorization and using archaic tools. If what you're saying is accurate then it is indeed a healthy step forward for ECC, CEH, and the industry.

BillV_ · December 2015

webtech31 wrote: »

Now my conclusion is that the nature of knowledge necessary to take on this exam today is very different from what it was before.
It's no more about memorizing, you have to understand and think on your own if you want to answer the scenario-based questions with confidence. If you already work in the field and use common sense, many answers will come naturally to your mind.

So of course I do not vouch for the EC-Council customer relationship attitude (general confusion, lame canned responses and all) ; but this looks like a globally good evolution for the security community, as we may see less people just memorizing **** and more people showing off real skills in their daily jobs.

Thanks for the post and background about your experience. As you've seen, there have been some significant changes since v7. The biggest one that you've experienced here is the transition to the ANSI accredited model - where the exam is based on a job task analysis for what a CEH candidate would be expected to know/perform in the real world. That's not to say that it's perfect or can't be improved. There are improvements and enhancements already planned that will hopefully continue to push this in the right direction.

divya.n116 · February 2016

same issue as you guys have mentioned here i had. my point of contact person never even had mentioned about the new version neither did i think that EC council will act in such lowly way. i regarded EC council as a very professional institution but turns out its not the case. when i tried to explain the problem they started with denial and never came on an agreement for the same.

cherylann has a way of beating around the bush and not solving the issue, i think they just wanna earn more money thats all. more than educational institue they are acting as a money minting institute.

asking me to pay $349 for retake exam but wont even provide CEHv9 material and i have to pay extra for that, what the hell... its like they are preparing me to fail..

i am filling a consumer court case against these fruads as they have versions writen all over their materials, vouchers communications but denying it(what the hell is V8 V9, magic numbers?)

i want a retest conducted for CEHv8 or retest with V9 materials. i am fighting for my right.

A deemed security institute acting like this and neglecting so many students is pathetic.

CEH v8 FAILED EXAM - Was version 9 - How to Resolve

Comments