Hello friends,

After almost 6 yrs of experience in different domains, I have now landed in Information security field. Where my work is nothing but maintain some documents and copy-pasting some articals from new paper and sending them to other colleagues. I thought , it would be better to know more about Info Security field and make future in this as it sounds interesting to me. I have started it last year already 27 yrs old. I bought few books and used google for it and learned basic of C, Ruby and Python. Which I almost forgotten after 3-4 months. I have tried all possible ways to get more knowdege like reading security+, network +, basic ethical hacking books..Joining a onlline hacking course but all in vain as without practical it will not lead anywhr and theortical part will drained away from mind after somtime.finaly I m here... My question are

I decided to go for EC council CEH exam..going to take one more online course as I dont have any practical knwldge.. i thnk it migt help..
could someone please let me know if there is any other certificate which has same or better value than this and reasonable to giv a try.

Sould I still concentrate on programing as I think without practical it is no use...
How to get a job in this field which keep me busy a bit in technical issue so i can learn and apply the techniques which i am using in net.

Is there any online Skype, gtalk comunity who worked together on inforamtion security projects and ready to help new comers.. I m in Germny..

Would be very thankful for your suggestions..
Regards,
meet

ajohson is correct Offensive Security and eLearn Security are both great places Hacking Dojo also has an online hacking lab environment. I just took the class from InfoSec institute for the Ethical Hacking it gives you CPT and C|EH I passed the C|EH and am currently finishing the pratical for the CPT. If you can afford to take a call online that's not a bad one at all. Other wise keep reading and welcome!

Yes, we have an online lab for students, but check out the "Media Page" on the HackingDojo.com site as well for information and targets to set up the virtual hacking lab, if you're unfamiliar with this concept:

http://hackingdojo.com/dojo-media/

There are some of my conference talks on that page as well, but look for the one titled "Penetration Test LiveCDs – DefCon 15" for a more in-depth discussion of LiveCDs used for pentesting labs. There is a free video on setting up a lab here:

http://hackingdojo.com/downloads/videos/virtual_lab/

Enjoy!

You can get a job in the pentesting field with no pentesting experience, but harder to do without IT or networking - not impossible.
Be aware that the CEH will get you past the HR filters when applying for a job, but means almost nothing to a hiring manager who is more interested in your ability to use a methodology, your knowledge of protocols and how to exploit them, and your fu with the different tools. That said, get your CEH but spend most of your time learning how to pentest, not just how to use the tools.