[Article]-Review: eLearnSecurity’s Penetration Testing Pro (PTP)

[secureseven]

Really looking forward to this!

[secureseven]

Started my courses tonight! It's fun and amazing so far!

[Synquell]

Cool Keep us informed!

[T_Bone]

@Armando

When will the version 1.1 of the PTP course be released?

[JollyJokker]

I'm definitely thinking seriously of taking this course. Almost there.

By the way the picture-logo is awesome!

[Armando]

I know I'm not arrogant if I say it doesn't matter when we publish version 1.1 since all our current students will get it for FREE.

(But we are close to it  )

[Armando]

Happy to announce that now we have a Students forum where all our students will be able to peer with our instructors, ask questions, meet other students and enjoy new small video guides that we will (hopefully) run every week (free for our students).

This is another step towards a 360° learning experience that I want to build with eLearnSecurity.

It's hard to keep all this work affordable but the great attention we got on this and other forums makes me think we are on a good track.

Thank you all for your kind support.

[recon]

Hi All:

I'm considering taking this class before the price increases again.

For those who are currently or have taken this class, could you let me know what were your thoughts about taking this online class and certification?

What were the differences between this class and the Pentesting with Backtrack offerred by Offensive Security?

Also, I've already read the course syllabus and reviews on here but wanted to get a feel of what ppl though of both courses.


Thanks,
recon

[hayabusa]

Hey recon.

While I'm in process with eLearn's course, I've definitely been enjoying it.  Personally, I agree with JHaddix's remarks, of it being a 'CEH killer', but it definitely varies, from what was covered in PWB.  It seems, to me at least, that eLearn went through more time on the web application attack side, whereas, PWB made gave you some higher-level overview, but then made you self-study that a bit more.  And if you're a newbie to the realm of security, eLearn's buffer overflow info is an excellent resource, and IMHO, will be easier for someone to learn, if they're starting that topic from scratch.

Overall, PWB was very rounded, and really made you work for your knowledge, and challenged you more, with their multiple-machine, multi-faceted labs.  So of the two, I preferred it, as it gave me much more hands-on experience and time on multiple fronts. 

So it depends on who you are, how you learn, and what your end goals are.  If you're emphasizing web app security, eLearn went out of their way to put some good training together.  If you're looking for a much more rounded approach, with more lab and hands-on time, at least from what I've seen so far, PWB wins that comparison.

But both courses are well worth the time and money that are involved with them.  And both are a step (or more  ) above and beyond the CEH.

My 2 cents, anyway,,,

[impelse]

I am taking the eLearnsecurity right now (I did not take the offensive security jet), I feel the eLearnsecurity gives you a good base to begin to build your pentest career, I am fixing this training with the CEH (I am bad momorizing) so I see eLearnsecurity like the practice of the CEH.

[xXxKrisxXx]

D'oh - this kind've sucks. I had about 5 paragraphs typed out stating the comparisons between the two when I hit the post button I was timed out and lost everything I wrote. Having taken both (and currently still in eLearnSecurity's PTP course), I'll bullet out their main differences:

-Offensive-Security's Penetration Testing with Backtrack 3 course offers a vpn lab for you to test your newly acquired skills on expanding across 4 subnets.

-In the eLearnSecurity course, you download slide attachments and pretty much replicate what's on the slides to get the hands-on approach.

-Offensive-Security has an IRC Channel for students where ops are around almost 24/7 to provide basic help. Don't expect to be spoon fed answers, expect "Try harder" as their main responses regarding questions that your capable of doing yourself.

-eLearnSecurity doesn't offer an IRC Channel but has a 'Chat with Tech' support feature which isn't available 24/7.

-Both have an e-mail support line and both of these support areas you get responses pretty quick.

-Offensive-Security has a support account on MSN that you can add and talk to 1 on 1 just in case you need a quick response on something.

-Offensive-Security's videos are more than twice as long eLearnSecurity's video footage in the course.

Regarding the above, eLearnSecurity's videos tend to be on more point-n-click tools versus in the offsec course your learning more command-line kung fu techniques

-eLearnSecurity's Web Application Attack section is the strongest section.

-Offensive-Security's Web Application Attack section isn't as detailed as eLearnSecurity's (For example, eLearnSecurity's course covers introductory stuff like basics of HTTP, cookies and sessions, in the OffSec course it's mainly talking about exploitation of attack vectors XSS, RFI/LFI, SQL Injection, etc).

-eLearnSecurity's video demonstrations are pretty basic compared to offensive-securitys. In the eLearnSecurity course I've noticed a lot of point and click fundamental tool usage type stuff versus in the offsec class your focusing on your command-line kung fu.
Overall I think the 2 courses are in a different league of their own but similar because you do a report and a practical pentest to obtain the certification. I'd say choose the course based on your experience level - are you new to the field and don't know much regarding penetration testing? Go with eLearnSecurity's course. Are you someone who's comfortable with BackTrack as a pentesting platform, know the basics and ready to take it a step further with a more hands on approach? Take Pentesting with BackTrack.

[impelse]

I'd say choose the course based on your experience level - are you new to the field and don't know much regarding penetration testing? Go with eLearnSecurity's course. Are you someone who's comfortable with BackTrack as a pentesting platform, know the basics and ready to take it a step further with a more hands on approach? Take Pentesting with BackTrack.

This is the real possition between these two training.

[ajohnson]

-Offensive-Security's Penetration Testing with Backtrack 3 course offers a vpn lab for you to test your newly acquired skills on expanding across 4 subnets.

This has been updated to BT4, and from what I hear, the labs are much larger this time around.

[recon]

Hi hayabusa, impelse, xXxKrisxXx, dynamik and All:

First, I'd like to thank you for the fast replies! These were all great and in depth comparisons among the OCSP and eLearnSecurity classes. Since I do not have as much experience with Backtrack and would like a good overview again of the web application testing (others said is was strong in this), I'm going to pursue the eLearnSecurity class first since you have access to this class permanently. I think I would learn new things and this would also be great review for me. After that, maybe prepare and study for the CEH or do the Wifu from Offensive Computing. After all of this, I would really have to familiarize myself and be strong with Backtrack before I do the PWB from Offensive Security.

Has anyone here done the Wifu class by Offensive Security?


Thx,
Recon

Hi All:

I'm considering taking this class before the price increases again.

For those who are currently or have taken this class, could you let me know what were your thoughts about taking this online class and certification?

What were the differences between this class and the Pentesting with Backtrack offerred by Offensive Security?

Also, I've already read the course syllabus and reviews on here but wanted to get a feel of what ppl though of both courses.


Thanks,
recon

[UNIX]

pizza1337 took Wifu and did a short write-up on it.