cdupuis writes "NOTE FROM CLEMENT:
The new CEH V5 has been released. They added a few more modules and once again they seem to be very focused on tools. The announcement below mentions skills only once but does mention tools at least 8 times. This is scary.

Myself I do not care much about playing with "tons" of tools as they stated below. I care if the student knows what the tools does, how it does it, when to use it, what is the best usage for the tool, and what the tool will allow you to do/gather that you could not do with any other tool. Most tester toolbox will not include hundreds of tools, you will have a small collection of quality tool and your brain is still the best tool of all.

I saw that Virus Writing was added as well as reverse engineering. Those are not two common skills that you will use in all of your pentests. When was the last time you did a pentest and you had to write viruses for your client.

They mentioned the huge collection of tools from the UNDERGROUND. What type of vetting was done of this huge collection of tools being distributed to the students??? Am I going to recommend to my students they use underground tools where they could put their clients at risk? I think NOT.

I will contact the EC-Council and see if I can get an evaluation copy. Once I have done due diligence on the content I will report back. I am making a quick jugment above and I would like to either confirm it or confirm that I am wrong (which I hope is the case).

See announcement below:

From: Editor [mailto:editor@eccouncil.org]
Sent: Thu 11/9/2006 5:18 AM
To: Clement Dupuis

November 09th, 2006

Hi Clement,

Certified Ethical Hacker version 5 launched!

EC-Council is proud to announce the launch of the latest version of the Certified Ethical Hacker certification. The Certified Ethical Hacker v5 was successfully launched in the second week of October, 2006 inNorth America and will be followed suit by other regions around the world at differing dates. Accredited Training Centers are advised to contact their local distributor for specific launch dates in their region.

This latest version of Certified Ethical Hacker contains more modules and tons of new tools directly from the hacker underground! This will help organizations in their countermeasures plan. An additional 4 modules have been added to Version 5 to widen students' scope of knowledge. Totaling 26 modules, the new modules are:

* Writing Windows Exploits,
* Reverse Engineering,
* Covert Hacking, and
* Advanced Virus Writing Skills.

The additional modules will give students a wider knowledge base on hacking technologies and be able to effectively safeguard systems by being on par, if not ahead, of malicious hackers.

There are also 8 CD-ROMs consisting of thousands of tools such as Trojans, viruses, backdoors, rootkits and exploit codes.

Version 5 contains tons of new hacking tools, techniques and methodologies.
Each module in Version 5 is showcased with tons of tools. This is to ensure that students are exposed to all the tools covered in each module and attain a higher grasp of the concept behind each tool. By understanding the hacking technologies, students will be able to apply their knowledge to all future and outdated tools in their work to overcome and avoid potential malicious hacks.

Certified Ethical Hacker v5's content is wide and much more advanced than previous versions, giving students a greater insight into the mind of malicious hackers.

To increase flexibility, the Certified Ethical Hacker course may be conducted via one of the three (3) recommended modes of study. These modes are:

* The regular 9.00am - 5.00pm, 5-day training with self-study;
* A 9.00am - 6.00pm, 5 -day training with self-study; and
* A 9.00am - 9.00pm 5-day bootcamp.

Accredited Training Centers should offer the mode which best suits its students' needs and which the Accredited Training Center is equipped to offer.

An Instructor Guide is now available with Version 5 to aid instructors better in their efforts to impart knowledge to students. Acting as a step-by-step manual, the Instructor Guide covers each training module and leads the instructor from Day 1 to Day 5 of training. The guide also points out the do's and dont's to the instructor and provides practical recommendations for the training.

"We understand that technology is ever-changing and dynamic. That's why we strive to update our courseware in a timely manner, and for Certified Ethical Hacker, we ensure that there is a new version every six months." commented Haja Mohideen, Technical Director of EC-Council.
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