Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH v11) Certification

Ethical hacking is the authorized and legitimate practice of bypassing system settings or network security to investigate and detect vulnerabilities and weaknesses that can be exploited by malicious hackers. This ensures visibility of the security posture of the system and plays a vital role in providing the client with the list of activities to perform to close the gaps. This helps keep clients’ assets safe and thus establishes credibility with customers.

The current trend of increased malware, viruses, and ransomware has increased the need for ethical hackers. They detect and investigate any possible breaches and report it to concerned authorities, along with a remediation plan. They must keep their observations confidential.

With a rapid increase in the number of malicious hackers who seem to constantly find newer ways to intrude into the privacy of companies and organizations, cybersecurity is the need of the hour. This is what also makes it a highly desirable career choice.

Opportunities about in this domain for those willing to upskill with adequate certification. While many options exist for certifications, here are the key points that you must consider before you make your choice:

• Identify your interest

Note down all your queries and interests and look for choices available online. Consider the current industry trend and carefully observe the syllabus of the certification programs to ensure that it matches your interests.

• Dive deeper

Research with the help of the internet and jot down some choices. Connecting with experienced professionals for their feedback would be a great way to assess the various certifications available. Reviews from authentic websites will also provide useful insights. Organizations are willing to pay a premium for candidates with hands-on experience and relevant certifications. So, make sure that the course you select offers practical experience through hands-on labs, internships, and live projects. Developing a mini project based on what you learn would be the best way to showcase your expertise.

• The market value of the program

Verify the accreditation offered by the course. Go only with accreditations from acclaimed organizations. Such courses are in high demand and will help you stand out in a group of applicants.

• Career prospects

Consider the scope of your training and ensure that it covers all the relevant topics that interest you. Ensure that your training is in alignment with industry demands. It is important to consider factors like the job profile that your course will lead you to, as well as the income from the same and the recognition.

• Convenience

Select a plan that suits your schedule whether as a student or a working professional. The course must be flexible and accommodate your schedule. There are several options for self-paced courses, live online training, or personal training. Choose the option that best suits you.

The average salary of an ethical hacker is $84,497 but a certified ethical hacker earns even more with the highest annual salary reaching up to $106,375.

Ethical hacking is not very difficult to learn but the skills cannot be mastered overnight. You must patiently put in sufficient time and be dedicated to acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills. In addition, you must hone the creativity and problem-solving attitude. If your basic concepts and fundamentals are strong, you can learn it faster.

If you are passionate and enthusiastic to learn ethical hacking, go ahead and connect with professionals. This is a great way to get insights.

To lay the groundwork for your future actions, you can brush up your concepts and basic skills for which you can consider gaining command over the following:

• Programming
• Operating system
• Networking
• Cryptography
• Website hacking 

The certificate is considered an important credential for the professionals and has been made compulsory by a lot of organizations.

The fees for the CEH exam is $500.

You need to pay an additional $100 fee if you are a self-study student along with a recorded proof of two years of work experience in the information security domain. Alternately, you can attend an official EC-Council training either at a recognized training institute or at an approved academic institute.

If your application is approved, you get a period of three months to purchase the test voucher from the EC-Council online store. You can use this eligibility code and the voucher code to register and schedule a test at Pearson VUE and EC-Council test centres.

You need to be trained and pass an exam to earn your certification to obtain the CEH credential. You must put in sufficient time and effort into passing this exam. Apart from the online resources available, you can refer to some books to gain knowledge and expertise to pass the CEH exam. These books will help you to understand your role in a better way.

Following is the list of the books that you can refer to:

• CEH Certified Ethical Hacker All-In-One Exam Guide, 4th edition by Matt Walker
• CEH Certified Ethical Hacker Bundle, 4th edition
• CEH V10 Certified Ethical Hacker Study Guide
• CEH Certified Ethical Hacker Practice Exams, 4th edition
• CEH V9: Certified Ethical Hacker Version 9 Kit, 1st edition
• Passing the CEH 10: Learning the Certified Ethical Hacker 10
• CEH V10: EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker Complete Training Guide with Practice Labs
• Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Version 10 Cert Guide, 3rd edition by Michael Gregg and Omar Santos

You must be fully aware of the roles and responsibilities of an ethical hacker. An ethical hacker ensures the security of an organization against intruders and malicious hackers by identifying vulnerabilities, or weaknesses, in the IT systems.

Some of the responsibilities of an ethical hacker are as follows:

• Ethically testing IT systems to identify weaknesses that can be compromised by malicious hackers
• Working with developers to advise the possible security needs and the steps to be incorporated to ensure adequate security
• Updating security policies and requirements
• Providing recommendations on how to mitigate the risks of breaches and malicious attempts and possible solutions
• Providing training and conveying to the employees about the necessary awareness measures to be practiced.

The academic requirement usually mentions having a graduate degree in Computer Science or a related field as a minimum criterion for the entry-level job posting. However, getting a certification increases your chances of getting hired by many times. With recruiters preferring to recruit certified ethical hackers, you must consider getting one.

These are the commonly well-known and accepted certification programs:

• Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH): This is the most highly recognized certification program.
• GIAC (Global Information Assurance Certification) Penetration Tester (GPEN)
• Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP).

The EC Council offers a Certified Ethical Hacker Program which is a core training program for IT security professionals. The ethical hacker, also termed as “White Hat” hacker is trained in techniques to intrude a company’s network and system infrastructure in order to detect any vulnerabilities that may lead to malicious attacks or attempted breaches to the security of the company.

The Certified Ethical Hacker Program is a comprehensive Training Program to train you on the most advanced and latest tools and techniques used by the grey hat or black hat hackers to break into the organization. This training program provides an interactive, hands-on learning environment. According to CEH, there are five phases of ethical hacking that you will be dealing with:

• Reconnaissance
• Gaining access
• Enumeration
• Maintaining access
• Covering your tracks

There are four modes of learning through this training program which is as follows:

• iLearn (Self-study)
• iWeek (Live online)
• Master class (Live online)
• Training partner (In-person) 

CEH v10 aims at making candidates more proactive and aggressive in defending their networks against cybercrime. The new modules are as follows:

• IoT security: The boom of IoT in every field has introduced affordable and smart devices that are prone to being compromised by hackers. CEH v10 incorporates this module to explore these devices to check possible vulnerabilities and threats.
• New business tools: With the growing technologies, especially data science, tools like Artificial Intelligence, cloud computing, and machine learning are used by almost all organizations. This also makes them prone to malicious attacks and so these terms are incorporated in the updated version.
• Practical exercises: CEH v10 includes practical exercises to get hands-on experience and in-depth knowledge of the same.

With the above changes in the updated version, the exam aims at developing the following capabilities:

• Use viruses and malware to identify the weaknesses of the system
• Scanning the network to detect any possible vulnerabilities
• Steganography and steganalysis
• Perform OS banner grabbing
• Competency in detecting attack vectors

The benefits of a CEH are as follows:

• Upgrade your knowledge about the vulnerabilities and risks

The hackers innovate new ways to intrude into the security of the system. Not just as a career choice, but knowledge of hacking and possible risks will help you safeguard the system. You can detect possible targets and weaknesses of your network. You can also apply your knowledge to your business.

• Understand the perspective of a hacker

You need to think like a hacker to identify the possible targets. You need to think out of the box to understand what approaches could be taken. Black hat hackers are innovative and creative in their methods, and white- hat hackers need to think alike to stay ahead in the game.

• Learn to use real hacking tools

Hacking courses include access to 140 real-world labs and over 2,200 hacking tools. You will get an in-depth knowledge of these tools as they are applied in real world scenarios.

• Boost your salary

Certified Ethical Hacking positions are challenging and offer a handsome salary, ranging from $24,760 to $111,502 and the average salary being $71,331.

The candidate must have a minimum work experience of two years in the cybersecurity domain to apply for approval to take the EC-Council exam.

If you don’t have the required experience, you are required to attend training at an accredited training institute or approved academic institute through an approved training program, requiring payment of an additional fee of $100.

This mandatory requirement essentially designed to help prepare genuine applicants for the exam and to filter out hobbyists or potential black hat hackers.

• The course

The CEH training prepares candidates to pass the CEH 312-50 exam.

This course is spread over five-days and the schedule is to undergo training for 8 hours every day covering the 18 exam modules, which include 270 technologies to launch attacks, presentations, demos, and hands-on on real-life scenarios in 140 labs.

• The exam

The exam comprises 18 modules which are as follows:

• Introduction
• Footprinting and reconnaissance
• Scanning networks
• Enumerations
• System hacking
• Malware threats
• Hacking wireless networks
• Social engineering
• Sniffing
• Denial of service
• Session hijacking
• Hacking web applications
• Hacking web servers
• SQL injections
• Evading IDS, firewalls, and honeypots
• Cloud computing
• cryptography

This exam lasts for four hours and comprises 125 multiple-choice questions.

Some of the sample questions are as follows:

• Which regulations define security and privacy controls for federal information systems and organizations?
• PGP, SSL, and IKE are all examples of which type of cryptography?
• What is the most common method to exploit the “Bash Bug” or “Shell Shock” vulnerability?
• Which Nmap switch will prevent the pinging of a target machine?
• Sam Spade is a tool that enables a hacker to perform which task?
• When creating a digital certificate, what key is used to create a digital signature on the certificate?
• When designing a firewall network, what zone is normally used for systems that must have limited public access?

You must score at least 70 percent to pass the test, which means you need to get a minimum of 88 answers correct out of a total of 125 questions.

The number of modules has increased from 18 in v9 to 20 in v10.

All the modules that were present in v9 are retained with the addition of IoT, Hacking, and vulnerability analysis considering the current trend in the industry. Some additional content has been incorporated in the existing modules like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Malware Analysis.

Additionally, 30 labs from v9 have been replaced and 11 labs have been modified while the total number of labs remains unchanged.

The course fee for CEH varies from region to region. Training from a reputed institute with hands-on exposure can cost you around 40,000 INR in India.

In India, the following companies are hiring CEH professionals, offering good salaries:

• Wipro Technologies Limited
• IBM India Private Limited
• EY (Ernst & Young)
• Tata Consultancy Services Limited
• Accenture Technologies Solutions

In the USA, the following companies are hiring:

• Lockheed Martin Corp
• The U.S. Airforce (USAF)
• The U.S. Army
• Booz, Allen, and Hamilton
• Northrop Grumman Corporation

The CEH exam consists of 125 questions which are divided into the following seven domains:

• Domain 1: Background
• Domain 2: Analysis/ Assessment
• Domain 3: Security
• Domain 4: Tools/ Systems/ Programs
• Domain 5: Procedures/ Methodology
• Domain 6: Regulation/ Policy
• Domain 7: Ethics 

Following are the prerequisites that an ethical hacker must follow in order to make a career in the same:

• Education: There are no defined educational criteria for ethical hacking but at least a graduate degree in Computer Science or related fields is helpful.
• Certification: There are several ethical hacking and security related certifications available. The Certified Ethical Hacker Certification offered by the EC Council is the most popular and is preferred by employers. Some of the other certifications available are:
  • GIAC Penetration Tester Certification
  • GIAC Exploit Researcher
  • Advanced Penetration Tester
  • Certified Vulnerability Assessor
  • Certified Professional Ethical Hacker
  • Certified Penetration Testing Engineer
• Penetration testing

This is not a solely digital role. You may also need to check the possibilities of intruders at the entry gate or security check-ins. Essentially, you must learn to use any techniques that a hacker may use to break into the organization.

• Certificate in forensics

A computer hacking forensic investigator retrieves computer forensic data and information to investigate a process. Getting a certification for the same might help you get recognition among a pool of candidates.

The following domains are included in the syllabus of the ethical hacking exam:

• Background
• Analysis/ Assessment
• Security
• Tools/ Systems/ Programs
• Procedures/ Methodology
• Regulation/ policy
• Ethics

The highest average salary of a CEH in the USA is $117,900 and the salary range including bonus is $24,760 to $132,322.

The most popular ethical hacking tools are as follows:

• Metasploit
• John the ripper
• Nmap
• THC Hydra
• Wireshark
• OWASP Zed
• Maltego
• OpenVAS
• IronWASP
• Aircrack-ng