Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH Certification for Not Yet Techies

"Computer Careers: Enhancing Systems Security by Testing Them as Real Hackers Do"

by Richard Stooker, President Info Ring Press and author of Secrets of Changing to a Computer Career

Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH certification from:

EC-Council for promoting computer, network and systems security by testing for problems just as real hackers do to break into companies and computers.

Type of Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH certification for computer careers:

Vendor

Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH certification worth it?

Standard disclaimer:

Whether or not any certification is "worth it" is an individual decision. You alone must decide what your career goals and needs are.

Look at certifications from a cost/benefit or Return On Investment (ROI) basis. If they help you get a better paying job or make more money at your current job, they are obviously "worth it."

The problem is, there is no real way of measuring how much you can expect your income to go up as a result of any given certification. It also depends on non-related job search skills such as how well you network.

Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH is the most unusual of certifications I've ever seen. It comes from the EC-Council and their goal is to certify those who have proven their competence in what they call ethical hacking. The Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH credential is vendor neutral.

Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH holders must demonstrate they understand the common ways of exploiting system vulnerabilities, weaknesses and countermeasures. The EC-Council wants to define the legal role of ethical hacking and its legitimate role in enterprise organizations.

To obtain this Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH certification, you must pass a test of 50 questions covering these 21 domains:

Ethics and Legal Issues
Footprinting
Scanning
Enumeration
System Hacking
Trojans and Backdoors
Sniffers
Denial of Service
Social Engineering
Session Hijacking
Hacking Web Servers
Web Application Vulnerabilities
Web Based Password Cracking Techniques
SQL Injection
Hacking Wireless Networks
Virus and Worms
Hacking Novell
Hacking Linux
IDS, Firewalls, and Honeypots
Buffer Overflows
Cryptography

Basically, ethical hackers are employed or contracted by a business to run penetration tests on the business network. They typically work together in groups known as Red Teams and attempt to hack into your network just as any non-ethical hacker might.

The Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH credential can certify your ability to perform this work

Obviously it is ethical and legal as long as you have written permission (it's a felony without that written permission). My only problem with the Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH certification is the motivation of those entering this simply as a profession.

Why can't the people charged with network security do the same things? Everything that Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH credentials know, a competent network security pro should also know. I wonder whether anyone has ever really gauged the success of these Red Teams.

For one thing, I suspect that motivation must be a limiting factor. Real hackers / crackers are highly motivated. They WANT to break into a network, for whatever thrill it gives them. They enjoy the pleasure of the chase, the thrill of outsmarting the grownups in charge of the world. They stay up all night just to find one tiny flaw in a system that no programmer or systems security pro has thought of before.

Ethical hackers are collecting checks. I'm sure they enjoy the work and that reportedly many of them used to be "real" hackers and therefore bring high motivation and inside knowledge with them. Still, it must be fun in a way, so the Certified Ethical Hacker / CEH credential can get you started, especially since you can't admit to a recruiter that you used to break into the Pentagon.

Next: MCDST certifications

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