This review is long overdue. My apologies to EH-Net readers, SANS and especially Joshua Wright, developer and instructor of SEC 617 - Wireless Ethical Hacking, Penetration Testing, and Defenses. Its lateness is more due to my inability to comprehend exactly what I experienced than to a lack of desire to complete the task. I honestly sat down at the keyboard multiple times, but each time I felt I wasn’t doing the course or Mr. Wright justice. OK… so like every other SANS course, it had quality courseware, the instructor was top-notch, and I walked away with much more knowledge than when I arrived. So I could simply state the above sentence, report on each and every day of the course offering endless details, recommend it to the masses and be done with my job. But even that felt like empty rhetoric.

As with the review of SANS 560 – Network Pen Testing and Ethical Hacking entitled "Ed Skoudis and the Pen Testing Factory," and many other articles, I felt the writer’s need to have a theme. And it doesn’t have to be a movie, but something that weaves a thread through the words to keep the reader engaged. Just the right connection or idea can make all the difference in the world. And as many do when faced with writer’s block, I let it sit for a while knowing that inspiration would hit me when not looking. But even with pressure and anxiety to produce, it wasn’t coming. Forcing it made for poor results. Suddenly during the minutia of daily life, a bright red spine from one of many bookshelves in my basement caught my eye. I had found my theme.

awsec, it is something to consider, especially if someone else is going to pay for it.  $3k minimum for any course and $900 for the certification attempt is a hard pill to swallow.  Although, there are the alternatives like the Work Study program, which I want to take full advantage of next time SANS rolls into town.