EH-Net

Evening all, how are you? I only very recently learned of the ethical hacking career and must admit I'm very interested in pursuing it. Being disabled makes travel to colleges in other states that offer courses in ethical hacking or IT security very difficult.

I'm curious if there any online degree courses in ethical hacking (penetration testing specifically) that a beginner seeking a bachelor's degree equivalent study might be interested in?

You may want to look into WGU, Capella, or some of the other relatively reputable schools (quality is going to vary significantly amongst online programs). I'm personally looking at the MSIS from Nova Southeastern after I wrap up my BA.

Self-study, certifications, connections, experience, and luck will all factor into the equation as well. It's important to build up all areas and not just focus solely on formal education, certifications, etc.

Dynamik, WGU seems to have a good rep on the board and techexams.net, I was browsing them earlier today and may need to take a second look...

Unrelated but what is MSIS?

http://www.wgu.edu/online_it_degrees/information_security_assurance_degree Based on this link and the certs involved I'm rather impressed already

hi and welcome to EH.net! i dont know anything about degrees (living in the netherlands so none of my knowledge applies) but there are a few good certificates out there you can (almost) all do by self study. taking the actual exam would require travel but i think its doable.

check some of the other topics on certificates and the certifications part of EH.net. There is tons of information there about all the different certifications in all the different expertises.

I would assume it's a Masters of Science in Information Systems/Security

Also, you may want to have a look at the soon-to-be released courses from eLearnSecurity. Being a member of EH-Net will save you 5% (http://www.elearnsecurity.com/eh.php). That very well may be a good introductory course (student edition) for the cost.

Hello and welcome.  In addition to the good advice you have received thus far, I would say to get some books at your local library such as:  Hacking For Dummies, Hacking Exposed:  Sixth Edition, Exam Cram's Security +, etc.  I do not know what your background is, but you will also want to look at networking related books that breakdown TCP/IP and other networking fundamentals too.  I would recommend trying to pick up on a programming language like Python.

There are online degree programs available online, but they concentrate on IT Security and not Hacking I believe.  I see that DeVry offers a few options in the IT Security realm so may want to give that a look.

Hope this helps!

Welcome to the forums.   There are more and more schools offering completely online programs in information security.   I am not certain if you will find one that specializes in penetration testing, but you should be able to find a general information security offering.      Drexel University and UMass offer online degrees in security, for example. 

Correct. http://www.scis.nova.edu/masters/msis.html

Great advice all! I must say that gaining certifications via self-study sounds doable. Tough and interesting but doable. Buying books etc. is easily done but I'm concerned that being self-taught and not having a degree may be a stumbling block...

Edit: Did a little reading on a few basic certifications and may start with the CompTIA ones. Please correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't A+ come before Network+ and Security+?

In theory, perhaps. I would have to take a closer look at the objectives, but I'm pretty sure they are separated enough where it's not necessary to build one on the other. Will it help you to do it in that order? On the knowledge side, absolutely. Specifically for earning the other certifications? Probably not too much.

It depends on your background and what knowledge/experience you currently have. With little or none (as in, computers are fairly brand new) then doing the A+ before moving to either of the other two is probably a good start. If you know your way around basic hardware/software/desktop stuff and troubleshooting, but need to get a better handle on networking and protocols then certainly go with Network+ as it should provide a good foundation before Security+ - if not directly helping you to earn the certification and pass the exam, it will definitely make some topics and concepts make more sense.

Hope that helps answer your question.

BillV

I am taking my Security+ by the end of the month (already bought the voucher and scheduled), completely skipping over Network+ and having the 2 years of security experience as recommended by CompTIA. I've passed 2 practice exams and the material overall was very familiar based on my personal experience dealing with security.

Most of the questions and material on the Security+ were already known to me just from personal experience with home networking, internet browsing, etc.

Also, Nova's MSIS is very good since they are NSA certified or whatever it's called with the additional that it's online. I did a semester of it but transferred to a state school because of cost. If you can afford it, it is worth it.