Hi
I have recently joined this forum after deciding to give my career a new direction in Security arena and complete few aspirations I had during my graduation..

Member Geekyone helped me to clear up my mind and decide to go for CEH.
But had few doubts regarding preparation for CEH
If I opt for self study .. due to nature of my current job ..
how can I practice these tools. I cannot play with these tools in public networks ..
I have two laptops one with Vista Business and other is a MacBook (Leopard 10.5)
I have installed Parallels on MacBook, so I have other OS also in virtual environment
Windows XP in Boot Camp, Win 2003 Server & Ubuntu 8 in Parallels VM
You see I play a lot with my MacBook
So can I use most of the tools just with my own laptops or should I enroll in some virtual training networks to learn these tools?

Thanks & sorry for Long post 

Best of luck to you I'm working on setting up my vmware server at the moment for the CEH as well, let us know if you have any questions!

Suggested reading by one of our members:

Virtual Lab with VMware

And if you're interested:

How I passed the CEH(v5) exam

Enjoy!!

Nice write up on your study path for the v5 CEH exam, it gave me a few good ideas to use for my studies.  One thing I wanted to point out though is one of your resources you used, I don't know the exact policy for EC-Council but I know with other vendors they usually revoke certifications for one of the products you used 'TestKing' if you look at this link:
http://www.CertGuard.com/Search.asp?Site=testking.com
I just wanted you to know if you didn't already.

@hassel

I don't have a lab guide or anything which one are you using? I planned on just practicing and exploring different tools and methodologies I read about in books.
Here's the book I am currently reading:

http://www.amazon.com/CEH-Prep-Guide-Comprehensive-Certified/dp/0470135921/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231085017&sr=8-2  

My lab set up is vmware server running on centos...with various linux vms/windows vms.

Thanks for the info. Anyhow, I use practice tests to assess my learning capabilities and to find out what I need to work on before I take the test. While doing this you have to be careful because you could encounter mistakes suggesting that the answer you have chosen is wrong when otherwise it is correct. But finding these errors is an indication that you have studied and prepared yourself well for the test.

When I was researching for practice test, I had found info that testking was the preferred product . As I recall, the real CEH test questions were different from TestKing. On the other hand, some of the questions I had were similar to those from the Official EC-Council CEH Review Guide.

The moral lesson here is that you take the time and effort to practice and learn the materials well for any given cert test in order for you to perform better at your job or just simply gain new skill sets. Not just earning a cert. For the CEH, it took me 8 months to study. During those 8 months I built a virtual lab to practice the tools that were given as part of the CEH objectives and I also took the Offensive Security course which led me to earned my OSCP which I'm really proud of. Plus having years of experience working in the Security field, I considered that the CEH v5 test was a piece a cake.

Any test is easy if you study hard.
 

blackazarro,

I was only pointing it out for the reasons of what can happen to someone who has used something like testking.  I was in no way trying to elude to the fact you only passed because of test king, from what I've seen I'm sure you didn't need the resource.  I just wanted to point it out to you because I had done the some thing similar. Unknowingly when studying for my Network+ some one had suggested them as a resource. So I hope you didn't take that the wrong way!

Exactly so. If you *just* braindump it, you might as well not do it at all.

That's great to hear that we could help. That's what this site is all about, helping one another out.