Will they continue to submit signatures to AV companies as VT has been thought/known to do?

Hahaha, yeah, well wasted indeed

... 22d 15h .. or 543 hours. Wow

Clearly, I used to have very boring jobs

Consider the EC-Council Press series of books as an alternative:
http://amzn.com/1435483669

They also have these available for CEH, CHFI, and ENSA.

No, there were a lot of changes (and 2 years of effort) to earn the accreditation.

As far as content, I'm not really sure. The courseware has not yet been released (perhaps the end of this month at Hacker Halted?).

The exam itself has undergone a lot of changes - basically starting from scratch. Various panels were put together to develop the topics, objectives, and questions. Everything was pretty thoroughly reviewed before being placed into the exam.

There is a little bit of information covered here:
https://cert.eccouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CEH-Candidate-Handbook-v1.6-13022012.pdf

I believe everything on the EC-Council site is still v7 - but, like I said, this will likely get updated soon.

Are you talking about a specific course? Or just looking for answers to those questions to any/all online courses we've taken?

It would probably also help other readers of this post if you both share your background and experience both in IT and security. That way other people looking to take the class can see what sort of skills they may want to have before taking the plunge.

Great overviews thus far though. Enjoy the rest of course and good luck on the exam!

Didn't really hear about this. Haven't heard wikileaks in the news for some time either (or I've just been living under a rock). Did they release some information recently?

@DragonGorge: without going back and looking through the manuals, I don't believe anything in the 'extra mile' challenges was _required_ to pass the exam. The exercises completed within the course itself, along with a little further understanding of what you're doing and hopefully some previous experience, is what's required. This is why many people don't recommend this course for a beginner. The extra mile challenges do help to give you some extra points for the exam though - so if you're struggling and are "on the ledge," they may just bump you over to a passing score.

Personally, I like the fact that they put these in there. They show you where to go to further expand your skills and provide you the direction - it's up to you to continue the research. This is a critical skill and something important for everyone in this field to understand. Working anywhere in security requires you to constantly keep up-to-date on just about everything.

I certainly understand where you're coming from though. It's very tough working in this field and balancing the rest of life along with it. I believe they state in the guide somewhere that the extra mile challenges are just that, extra.

@Jamie.R: Maybe they'll consider doing it that way with the lab time in the future (similar to eLS). I think that's a great way of going about it.

Sorry to hear. Did you do the extra mile challenges during the course? Hard to remember but I think when I was going through, I was looking deeper than I needed to look. Taking a quick nap for a few hours was also helpful.

Looks to be similar (e.g., ends in "e(s)"). Follow the instructions and it should be easily determined.

There are a handful of threads that compare these. Here are a couple:

http://www.ethicalhacker.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,54/topic,8267.msg45116/topicseen,1/

http://www.ethicalhacker.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,54/topic,701.0/

My guess (having not done anything Mile2) is that the content will likely be similar. Also, the ANSI accredited CEH v8 exam should be a big difference from all previous versions of the exam.

Where are you currently and where are you headed? You should be able to find some type of internship related to IT - don't think that will be a problem. You may even be able to find some temporary/contractual paying positions as well. Take what you can get if you're truly interested and jump in. See where you can help out and learn everything they are willing to teach.

Hahaha, congrats on joining such a 1337 club!

What happened to chrisg though? His account has disappeared... odd

If you are ready for the exam, take it.

Excellent! Congratulations!

You said this is a "security company" so will you be providing security services to other companies (as a consultant)? When do you start?

Glad to hear things are working out well for you!