Ethical Hacker Community Forums

I recently went for and acquired EC-Council's CEH certification.  I have heard from people and read online that some view Mile2's CPTS certification as being better, while others prefer CEH.

While there is a great amount of overlap from what I have read in terms of subject matter, there also seems to be more focus on actual pentesting methodology in the CPTS program.  Is this a correct statement?

Does anyone have opinions on the pros and cons of these certifications and the associated training programs?  Your advice is much appreciated.

I haven’t done the CPTS but I have gone through the CEH.  My understanding was the CPTS came about due to some of the short falls in the CEH. One of the weak points of the CEH is that it doesn’t really test your ability to hack.  It’s just a bunch of multiple test questions and there have been a number of people that have used things like Test King and have aced it and after they have their CEH admit they still can’t hack! 

One cert to check out is the OSCP that is offered by Offensive Security. It’s the only cert I know of that requires you to actually successfully hack some boxes. If you are truly looking to increase your skill I would say check the OSCP or the CPTS.  The CEH does have the advantage of being better known even though the name still brings a few raised eyebrows from time to time.  Or you could in time do all three, which if you have the time wouldn’t be a bad thing at all

I have taken the CEH course through one of the training centers. I also know an instructor that holds both the CEH and CPTS and his feed back is that they are basically the same thing. After taking both exams, I found the focus to be slightly different. The course was the same for either though. The difference in the outside world is that the government looks more favorably on the CPTS while the corporate world looks towards the CEH. Good luck.

The government doesn't like the word hacker especially when it's on a certification. That's why EC-Council came up with a secondary name, CNDA. This is so you can take the same course and the same exam, but, if you tell EC-Council that you work for the gov't, they will give you the CNDA cert instead of CEH.

Don