EH-Net

EH-Net members,

Recently EC-Council held a webinar for certain attendees to discuss what's happened in 2010 and what's projected for 2011. I've been told I can share this information so here are a few highlights...

- EC-Council has passed SANS/GIAC in the number of certified professionals worldwide (I wasn't given specific permission to share numbers and since EC-Council doesn't share these, neither will I here).

- Within a year of launching their academic course books they have formed 200 international partnerships

- Hacker Halted (US) saw a 116% increase in course attendees and will be back in Miami (October) for 2011.

- I don't have the date but they will be launching CAST - Center for Advanced Security Training - courses this year. These will be advanced technical trainings in areas where they have certifications (CEH,ECSA/LPT,CHFI) and some others. The instructors for these courses MUST be practitioners in the field and meet other requirements. There are no plans to have certifications for these courses at this time, they will be advanced technical trainings only.

- Takedown Con will be launched in May in Dallas, Texas. Unlike Hacker Halted, this conference will be much more technical in its discussions. They plan to roll this out to other areas as well (www.takedowncon.com).

- EC-Council donated $1M to the UN last year to have distributed as needed for training. This year another $1M is being donated to academia.

- A new tool helping in lab setup for classes has been developed called iLabs. This is a virtual hosted system by EC-Council that allows instructors to quickly get classrooms ready. Students will each have access to a handful of systems. All licensing is being handled by EC-Council and will no longer be a responsibility of the training center.

- Along with iLabs will come a client/server app called Frankenstein. The utility looks similar to an FTP client. It allows students to connect to EC-Council and download updated tools. If a tool is installed and an updated version is available Frankenstein will prompt you to install the newer version.

- And, of course, there's CEH v7. This is going to include completely rebuilt courseware. To start, all of those boring looking slides have been removed. You will no longer see pages with slides with a box of text and a heading with more text below the slide. The text has been removed. The slides are now very graphical (example attached) - and they look good (and I hear they're trying to get the courseware in color rather than black/white). What about the tools? Yes, tools are still included but the courseware will only be discussing the top tools in each category. You won't have slide after slide of tools you'll never use. They'll still be included on the discs for self-study. The exam will be updated and, again this is speculation, I believe the objectives will be updated as well. They have spent more money producing this CEH version than any version in the past and they are taking it very seriously. Why do I believe the objectives will be updated? I sat in as a CEH SME during Hacker Halted with a representative from Prometric and other security professionals. We were tasked with developing question topics/categories - and new questions are being written from these so I can only guess that these will be the new objectives. You should not be seeing weird questions or questions that come from portions of the courseware not in the objectives.

What else could make CEH v7 great? How about getting a free seat in the initial roll-out? On March 14, 25 training centers worldwide will be conducting the first CEH v7 courses. EC-Council will be giving away 125 seats for these classes. Attendees will also receive a commemorative limited edition, metal, certificate of attendance. Global roll-out will be the following week, March 21.

:-)

BillV

First and foremost Bill, Thank you for sharing the update info with us.

Secondly, it seems like v7 will be a marked improvement over v6, I would be interested in seeing the changes, though I hope to knock out v6 before March so I can focus on SANS moving into the later part of the year.

Thanks very much again!

@BillV

Thanks for the information on CEHv7!

I'm curious how one would get in on one of those 125 free seats? Will there be a lottery? Or maybe the attendees will be handpicked?

Thanks again!

You know, I'm not too sure on the details of the free seats. The topic was mentioned but he didn't go into details about getting a seat. They did say that they will very much be marketing this launch so I'm sure information will be posted on their website soon. I'll see if I can get any details on it though.

I'm pretty excited about this. It seems like they've really got this one together. They mentioned they want this to be like the "encyclopedia" for ethical hacking - that they've included everything possible in the courseware for reference but obviously only the important parts will be covered on the exam.

I also forgot to mention that each module will have a "flow" to it and cover similar subjects for each part. They're also including a 'pentest methodology' section to each module explaining in detail the steps to go through when doing a pentest.

I've avoided CEH in the past based on poor feedback from colleagues, but I may have to look into it again after they implement these changes. It's always been on my radar because so many jobs ask for it, but I've always made excuses to postpone because I didn't feel like memorizing the names of every tool on the planet for the exam. Sounds good. Thanks for the info BillV!

I'm kinda' in the same boat as tturner. I've avoided the CEH because of some of the things I've heard from people who've taken the courses, but I recognize the value from an HR perspective. If the class is as much improved as you have described it to be, I would be interested in taking the class.

Since I will be starting a pentest position in the next couple of weeks, I'd be interested in learning more about the free seats when you get the info, BillV.

Thanks!

I can't wait to see what's new in the CEHv7 exam (I mean which new topics).

Also, if the course will now focus on one or to tools per category, I wonder if the exam will be the same. I found the CEH exam difficult to study because while it is good that they keep it up to date, the materials can't follow (outside courses).

Looking at the v7 slide compared to the Version 5 & 6 I've seen, it does look like they have done a much better job. I've always been a guy who hasn't been too much of a fan of the CEH - After reading your post though BillV  and seeing the slide, I won't lie v7 looks a lot better. Tturner and ziggy_567 opinions match mine for why I've never been interested in it - Combined with the fact that I think they are introducing way too many topics in the course and teach outdated tools in these previous versions (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).

I'm also interested about hearing the free seats, sounds like the course has been improved and the certification is respected by folks. Good info BillV - thanks!

Very interesting news...

As far as them passing up SANS, I am not surprised that has happened. I wonder though, that the C|EH is LESS valuable because of the plethora of folks picking up the cert. I wonder if it will become so ubiquitous that it will lose some of its elusiveness (similar to CISSP, IMO).  That could have an additional effect of raising the bar for entry level infosec pros trying to cut their teeth because now it because the candidate pool will grow significantly.  Just my opinion.
CEH 7, I guess I will pick it up although that money is looking like it may be better spent on a new server or books or saving it. I don’t know. I won’t say I am in a rush to get a new job but I am always looking to beef up my resume/knowledge. I think that the CEH cert should be coupled with something like the elearnsecurity course to make you a “real” CEH. When I say real, I mean not a paper tiger.  Again just my opinion.
At any rate it looks like the CEH folks are making a killing, I just hope new material will be out by July when I am ready to take the exam.
 

Certs will always loose marketplace value due to the number of holders, a good employer wont pay attention to that, and instead will look for knowedge and experience. I too think that most CEH's will continue to back up their knowledge with practical certs, but I am wary of fully supporting the statement, they give prospective students a bad view of the certs.

@knwminus: I agree with both points - that too many holders may lower the value and that a practical would be a good thing. While the CEH is still meant to be an introductory/intermediate level certification, I would like to see the follow-on LPT have a practical.

Okay, so here's what I've got as far as the free seats go...

Keep an eye on the EC-Council Website (http://www.eccouncil.org). They will be launching a 'Win a CEHv7 Seat' campaign soon.

This will include some sort of application portal that is expected to be available January 27 at 9am EST for 48 hours only.

Only 5 people will be selected for each of the 25 locations - 125 total.

This also means that paid seats will be available if you're interested. Unfortunately, I do not know which 25 training centers have been selected for this launch. I'd imagine this will be posted on the website.

The free seat in the class will also include a free copy of the v7 courseware.

For those of you going for a seat, good luck!

If anyone gets into the first week global rollout be sure to report back and let us know if it's as good as it sounds.

BillV

It's good that we have SANS, ISC2, EC-Council, Offensive-Security, eLearnSecurity, etc to offer us a broad variety of products. It is also obvious that everytime they release a new version of their course, it is improved and updated.


I personnaly think that EC-Council should either release their numbers or just don't talk about it. Offensive-Security don't talk about it either and it is good that way. To me, it's all out or all in. Otherwise, it looks a bit lame...

But if EC-Council has more CEH (which is certainly the vast majority of their certified professionals), good for them! They have found a good market. I am happy to be a CEH myself because people know about it now. Like CISSP, sometime, it's better to have a cert with many, many people has compare to say, GSE that people dont really know (I mean, HR people). GSE is a killer cert to have, but CEH may open more doors...

Thanks for the info BillV, keep us posted!

I disagree, a good employer will absolutely know that and pay attention to it because in the end, they answer to their boss/shareholders and they want to keep their cost low. Do you think a CCIE would get paid as much if there were (all of a sudden) 10xs as many CCIEs? No. Do you think a CCNA would get paid the same amount if (all of a sudden) there were only 1/10th the amount of CCNAs? No. It is all about supply and demand. Companies know this and that's my point. Most of the jobs asking for SANS certs I have seen are in the 70-100 range for a reason. There are still relatively few certified pros out there. Whether that be because of the price of the difficultly of the material, they have managed to keep their numbers low. CEH has gone the other way, making it relatively easy to pick it up and increasing their numbers. More CEHs = Less money/jobs for CEHs. If your skills become less of a scarce, then your value decreases.

Again this is sort of an extremely comparison but just how their are CCNAs who don't know what a static route is, I am sure the day is coming of the CEH who don't know what NMAP is. Just my 0.02.

Also with all of that money they are making, they really need to overhaul their website. OMG lame lol

I am with you knwminus.

Also, I have recently seen a job poster asking for a network pentester. They were looking for someone with... CISSP! Good employers would know what they are looking for, but that"s mainly true for someone who is looking at hirering.

But for a small company who don't have a clue about security but want someone to check if their infrastructure is secure, they don't know what to look for. They may have heard of CISSP or CEH, but they wouldn't know what OSCP or OSCE is. Sad but true...

So to me, the value is in having multiple certs. Some common ones (CISSP, CCNA and now CEH) and some quality ones (OSCP, OSCE, GPEN). But I mean CISSP, CCNA and CEH are not quality ones, but they are more entry level. That's why many people have them...

Thanks, Bill, for the info on trying to win a seat.  I'm trying to learn (more importantly) and get some useful certifications (less important, but really nice to have) on a tight budget. *Crosses fingers*

I think we have different views of the meaning of de-valued. I generally have a different view of certifications and their value.

Specifically in my post I meant to say that the cert should not loose its value to an individual because of the number of holders. Its like degrees. It happens, but I dont agree with it. :)

This is great news. I now somehow regret for passing CEHv6 a week ago. I would definitely like to see the new curriculum and courseware.

Thanks Bill!

Clement over at cccure.org has put out some great information about the rollout and also mentions one of the training centers that will be conducting one of the first CEH v7 classes.

See the cccure homepage (http://cccure.org/) for more.

Yes. I saw the post. The information provided was good enough to keep the clock ticking.

Thank you for the information Bill.

I am eagerly waiting to hear from EC-Council Guys on the free CEH v7 seats.

Will there be any pre-requisite?

I'm honestly not too sure. I'm sure the same '2-year experience' rule still applies. And I do know they're looking for influential people who are going to review the class, blog about it, and spread the word. Beyond that, I don't know. Have to wait and see what's on the application later this morning.

Anyone have the link at the site? (If it's even up yet) Some creative Google searches did not turn up anything outside of some mentions of v7.

I've been looking all day and I have yet to see it either

https://eccouncil.wufoo.com/forms/ceh-v7/

ITS HERE!!!!!!

Yeah, guess they were a little late in getting it out there. Hopefully they'll keep the app out there longer as well.

CEH v7 (https://eccouncil.org/cehv7.aspx)

BillV

The application is pretty confusing. I'm not sure what I'm choosing on the drop-down menu. Are those training centers linked to specific cities? Also, the text box says I have a limit of 50 words, but it is actually limiting me to 50 characters. It amazing how quickly 50 characters disappears especially when spaces count!

Also the confirmation email that I received was completely blank. I know you had nothing to do with any of that, but I thought maybe SOMEONE might want to fix it?

glad I waited on buying the latest study guide (v6 guide).

Yes, the training centers are definitely linked to different cities/countries. I noticed that earlier as well and have already asked them to add the city/state/country (some are even duplicates like New Horizons and Global Knowledge - which I'm sure are different centers in different locations).

I noticed the 50 char/word issue as well but didn't test it out to see if it actually stopped you at 50 characters or if that was just a typo.

I've forwarded your feedback and hopefully someone will check into it soon.

They're on top of it, should hopefully be fixed soon :-)

Thanks! :D

Still only 50 characters. (It did error out on me at 150ish characters) Pretty difficult to say anything in less than 50 characters. Kinda disappointing since I had some good stuff for them. Hope they fix it soon.

I am very frustrated, having started studying for v6 this month, and now v7 is being released during the middle of my busy work time, and im out of the country. Are any of the classes being held international? I'm sure they might put it up for one of the international Hacker Halted events...

The first week of the rollout (March 14) is being held at only 25 training centers which are spread out across the globe. The following week, March 21, it will be available to all training centers.

I don't know why they haven't fixed the form yet - that irritates me as well.

had difficulty finding where half these places are, so I picked one in Atlanta.  hope someone on EH-Net wins!

The only thing I saw were the names of training providers, not locations, i.e. Global Knowledge, New horizons. But I didnt select anything, so there may have been extra menu's when selected.

You will be able to do the CEH6 for 6 months after the release of CEH7. I did call ECcouncil to confirm that. I picked up the CEH book tonight. I plan to take it in April or so.

I wonder if they plan on fixing that 50 chararacters/word thing. When I was done writing I had a couple paragraphs. I'm wondering if I should just shorten it down to 50 words - but if they ended up changing the form or closing it, I'd feel bad.

Have any of you guys e-mailed them about this issue?

-kris

Yes...


The form has been fixed (at least the countries have been added and the character thing has been removed). I tried submitting the form to see if that was resolved as well but just received a blank email.

yeah, but the v7 looks so much better!

will we need to resubmit?

They fixed it this morning.

https://eccouncil.wufoo.com/forms/ceh-v7/

Good luck to everyone!

You may want to if you want to select a different training center, just in case.

I hope they don't select me now. The location I selected (New Horizons) is either Nigeria or Singapore. Bah. these locations are not good at all. Good luck to those of you close enough to attend.

turned out I picked the right one.  But the extra words allowed me to grovel a bit more  ;D

No south korea... :(

Here's a question, I started doing the self-study for the CEH v6 back in November and had to put it on hold due to work getting busy since we are integrating a new system. What is going to happen to the v6? I am guessing it will eventually retire but how quickly? Can I "upgrade" from v6 to v7? I am worried that the content I will be studying will be out of date and useless when V7 hits. Its unfortunate since I can not attend a live class and the flexible classes never met my schedule either. Anyone have any insight?  

Thanks,

Tom

NET+, SEC+

You will be able to take v6 for approx 6 months after v7 is launched. Personally I would be careful taking v7 based off of v6 material, if only because the v6 material is focused at older OS'. You may not know the attack vectors for a monern OS that will be tested such as vista/W7.

I opt for self study, found the red exam prep book pretty awesome, the got the sybex(not the review guide) to double check afterwards. Now it does makes sense to wait a little for the new study material to be available before taking the exam. i dont want to go write with the knowing that its gonna be outdatad in least than a month.

if anyone stumble upon the new books, let me know, im keen on getting them and start drilling at it again. (abigdeale@gmail.com)

abigdeale

Hi all,

I received this email today.

---------------- Follows --------------------------
[cehv7_nominated] Congratulations on nomination for becoming CEH V7 Ambassador
            
date   Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 6:31 PM
subject   [cehv7_nominated] Congratulations on nomination for becoming CEH V7 Ambassador
   
Dear Candidate,

                                Congratulations on nomination for CEH V7.0 Ambassador program! Do you know that you can be the first few candidates across the globe to complete the C|EH V7.0 certification and join the elite C|EH Community? You just need to wait till 22nd February 2011 night for the results, to become one of the 5 ambassadors for the C|EH V7.0 absolutely free!! Anyhow being nominated for the class we have something big in stores for you. Just keep checking your inbox till then!!

 

With Best Regards,

Please avoid any other emails received by us regarding final results  being declared on 20th February 2011.

----------------------- END --------------------------

What's happening can't make heads and tails out of it.

Any insights would help...

Cheers!

not sure about that last part. I have to wonder who writes their emails, and website...

Just found out yesterday that I was awarded one of the spots for Las Vegas! Class begins Monday March 14th, 2011. I'll post how the course goes, the new curriculum seems exciting!

Do you know if there's CBT videos out yet for CEHv7?  Or other self-study videos, books?

Thanks!

I'm not aware of anything yet. Likely not to see anything until at least next week after this initial rollout.

I can tell you this...  From my earlier CEH, this v7 class covers significantly more tools (albeit, mostly overview, as a week-long bootcamp simply doesn't afford the time to get deep into too many tools.)  But we're into day 4, now.  I'll do a detailed review next week, after the bootcamp is over.

Looking forward to it! :)

Finished today and passed v7 exam.  :D

Will write up a review next week.

Congratz! ;D

Nice job hayabusa!  Was the exam part of the class or did you just schedule it for the last day?  I've got the CEH class (hopefully) pending, but I didn't think the exam was included as part of the class.

Thanks!

Probably depends on who you took the class through, etc.  Usually, bootcamps I've taken (from all different vendors and certs) come with an exam voucher for 1 attempt, but maybe not all places have that in their package.  I DO know that for the v7 rollout this week, all students in our class got 1 free attempt.  I chose to take my exam right after class, which you can often do in these.

Just finished the class and exam today (passed....barely).  While i never took any of the earlier exams or classes the course material for V7 is essentially death to trees by powerpoint.   There are plenty of websites referenced in the back of the books but the books themselves do not provide any additional information beyond bullets in the pictures or what's contained in the labs.  We had significant issues with some of the labs but i believe most were due to the fact that it was the first time through for the instructor.  I suspect that there will be significant improvements as the feedback makes it back to EC Council.

On those points we agree, and I provided similar feedback on my forms after the class, to both the training partner I sat from, and EC-Council.  I'll note some of those things in my review, as well, next week, here on EH-net.

Additionally, having been through previous CEH version(s), I took some of my time and fixed some of the lab issues, and a classmate also worked some out, while our instructor moved forward, so the class could come back to them and at LEAST experience them.  As much as I wanted to learn and/or update, I also wanted to help others learn, too.  (Guess I'm just nice like that, sometimes. <insert cheesy grin> )  And, as with pretty much ALL cert exams, I had serious issues with a handful of questions on the exam, as far as 'correctness,' as well as one or two that flat out didn't format on my screen correctly enough to even answer, had I not spotted a clean character or two, outside the mess, that was enough for the 'trained eye' to pick out.  But it is what it is, and I knew I'd pass, so I'll note those to EC, if they want to fix.

Anyway, watch for my review, next week, and feel free to comment, as well, as to your experience, as it compared to mine.

Honestly, I find that discouraging. Previous versions seemed to overemphasize tools, and this version does that to an even greater extent?

I'd prefer them to dramatically lessened the quantity of tools and focus on the underlying concepts. I think that would create much more genuinely skilled professionals compared to certifying individuals based on a cursory knowledge of a multitude of tools.


Wow. That's on par with Michael Jordan making a lay-up on a practice court. With the rim at 6'. Congrats! ;)


This is another issue (maybe I'm reading too much into this specific situation, but I know it exists in reality). It seems that the knowledge, skill, and experience of the instructors varies greatly. I know there are some that completely destroy me (to the point where I probably couldn't even make eye contact with them), but at the other extreme, there are others that appear to be completely unqualified. Personally, I've heard of instructor complaints for years. I'd be extremely hesitant to sign up for a course where the actual value is such a crap shoot. Do you have any insight into how they oversee the uniformity of how the course is actually delivered?

Congrats Hayabusa, well done! Looking forward to the review.

Congrats, hayabusa. ;)

If I may, I would say this is likely a problem with the training providers rather than EC-Council. I'm guessing that some of these instructors may not be "Ec-Council Master Trainers"

Same as what SephStorm said above. I'm not sure what the requirements are exactly to become a 'Master Trainer' but if you look at the people who hold that title you can clearly see that the group knows what they're doing.

EC-Council has a "trainers" portal just as they do for certified members. Here the trainers can collaborate, downloading training materials, etc. As I understand it, EC-Council provides the guidelines for the training on what's to be covered - typically whatever is in the instructor slides. It's the good trainers that know what to include from this and what to skip, and what other information they can provide to add value.

As a side-note to anyone considering training, you should always check to see who your instructor is going to be ahead of time and ask the training center for some sort of bio on that person.

I have a friend that used to teach CCNA. You would be almost as well off just reading the book than take the course because his answer for just about everything was "look it up". Great guy- lousy teacher (from what I hear).

The best ones don't spoon feed you, they help you know how to find valuable sources and give you someone more knowledgeable to bounce ideas off of to get a better understanding.

Wow!  Thanks for the compliment, while I think you may give me too much credit.   ::)

That said, though, I appreciate the kind words, and for those who were waiting, I just posted my review in the following thread:

http://www.ethicalhacker.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,54/topic,6827.0/