Become a Certified Ethical Hacker
Apparently, there’s a course out there that makes you a Certified Ethical Hacker (or CEH). I always thought that being a hacker was about having an certain attitude about technology. I consider myself a hacker because I own a region-free DVD player. It’s about manipulating technology to suit your needs. But unfortunately, these ‘needs’ are personal, and there are plenty of people out there for whom illegal activities like fraud constitute personal goals.
That is where a course like this comes in. This is aimed at software testers and IT security professionals. EC-Council offers courses in Security Fundamentals, Ethical Hacking, Penetration Testing, Computer Forensics
, Disaster Recovery and Secure Programming. They supplied me with a review copy, and as far as I can tell the books offer a wealth of information about known vulnerabilities, software tools and appropriate countermeasures. If hacking really is about thinking outside the box, knowing about what others have put into that box sounds like a good start.
There’s also a set of CD-ROMs filled with tools. While browsing the books I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if these materials fell into the wrong hands. I fully believe this course will make you a ‘certified hacker’, but I’m not sure about the ‘ethical’ bit. I guess it’s fortunate the course isn’t very cheap. Except for one of you, that is.
You chance to win the Ethical Hacking iClass package
I’m going to be able to give the entire CEH course away to one of my readers. That potentially saves you a whopping $2895. To enter, do one of the following.
Comment on this post
Tell me why you’d like to be a Certified Ethical Hacker. Leave a comment on this page and you’re automatically entered into the competition. It might help if you specify which bank you’re targeting, and how much my cut will be 
.
Use Twitter
Simply tweet the following to enter:
RT @roytanck I just entered your contest to become a Certified Ethical Hacker! http://urlbrief.com/98d904 #CEH
This contest is now closed.
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roytanck (1496):
Great! that’s a cool contest!!
why you’d like to be a Certified Ethical Hacker?
Being a hacker means lot of things. First of all, you really become cool. You handle each virus that infects your computer, yourself and don’t cry like a baby. Besides, an ethical hacker also serves community by educating others what’s safe, which I like b’coz I’m already serving computing community as an Microsoft Student partner. A hacker is also one and only way to fight with crackers( the bad guys).
Besides, who don’t like to create easter eggs and play pranks with there fellas.
Wanna know some pranks, go here http://projects-sanil.co.cc/ProjectsBlog/?tag=/pranks
Comment by Sanil Singh Tomar — May 14, 2009 @ 7:00 am
dear roy,
thanks for your widget cumulus code in my blog,i learn it from many source blogs in indonesia. it’s very very and very cool:D could you learn me how to create one hehehehehehe
any way always success for you
regard,
Mas
Comment by mas — May 14, 2009 @ 2:41 pm
I totally agree with your take on hacking Roy. In it’s simplest form it’s a workaround, as you said “manipulating technology to suit your needs”, but it’s so much more, it’s a lifestyle, a way of going about things, and a way of thinking about things. I’m not sure it inherently makes one “cool” but it certainly means one can think through problems logically and often times differently than others.
The other half of this whole thing, ethics. Isn’t something that can necessarily be taught. If it feels wrong, it’s most often something you should be doing… some people can just ignore this or selectively act on it. This “ability” to ignore ethics often seems to be proportionally related to potential profit!
I do appreciate a group that at least tries to help educate people on the proper use of power.
Like many other I found your blog through your cumulus plugin, I’ve continued to enjoy your commentary. Thank you.
Comment by Marshall — May 14, 2009 @ 6:04 pm
RT @roytanck I just entered your contest to become a Certified Ethical Hacker!
Because I like to help those who are frustrated from being hacked from unauthorized ,
I want to help my area police for cyber crime
Comment by Zaid Chauhan — May 15, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
was browsing your site to check up on your Cumulus scripts, and noticed this post.
I’d like to be a Certified Ethical Hacker..
I’m currently a PHP/MySQL/JavaScript programmer for a living. And as my client list grows, knowledge about security becomes more & more important. Taking the test and having the title “Certified Ethical Hacker” would be fun. I’m not sure yet if that looks good on a resume, but it might.
I’m thinking this course probably deals more with the hardware & networking end of the problem, but I enjoy any chance to learn & improve.
haha.. cheers & thanks for the cool plugins. i’ll donate if i can figure out how to take over the world with them.
Comment by JB — May 17, 2009 @ 12:24 am
Came here looking for your Cumulus widget and got sidetracked by your interesting posts. I’ve added you to my feed reader. Good stuff!
I’d like to throw my name into the hat for the Certified Ethical Hacker course. I’ve been a multimedia content producer for over 20 years, and lately I’ve been thinking that there is are huge unfulfilled opportunities out there for computer security professionals. I think it’s something I could really get into and enjoy, and I know it would make me more useful.
Thanks for offering up the course as a give-away. If I don’t win it, at least I now know that it exists and where to get it.
Much appreciated!
Comment by DigitalDoyle — May 21, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
Hi Roy!
First of all may I thank you for the wonderful WP_Cumulus widget. I’ve used it on a couple of my websites and plan to include it on most of them.
Regarding Ethical Hackers, as you are probably aware the current thinking on hacking has identified two different types of hacker:
1.) Hackers – (or ‘Ethical Hackers’) who try to break the internet purely in order to improve their own knowledge and to expose weaknesses in other peoples coding, but not to exploit those weaknesses.
2.) Crackers – (or ‘Unethical Hackers’) who get their kicks from infiltrating corporate websites for commercial or political gain, to delete information, to cause a nuclear war (a la ‘Wargames’) or generally to cause disruption; I would also expand this category to include authors of viral software such as those employed in the not-so-secret ‘Black Ops.’ laboratories at McAffee and Norton (Wot? Cynical? Me?).
Most people do not know the difference between these two – ethically opposed – groups.
I have respect for any ‘hacker’ out there in cyberspace but, come the revolution, anyone found to be engaged in ‘cracking’ should be taken out into a lonely field and buried under it after being subjected to a certain amount of pain (one stroke of the lash for every computer infected?).
Peace!
Comment by KevanMan — May 21, 2009 @ 5:01 pm
I’ve entered the contest as @arlm .
I would like to be a Certified Ethical Hacker, because I already am a programmer with knowledge on various levels of the machine workings and languages. It would be a great opportunity to certify what I know and add up more knowledge on Safe Programming, and security related matters.
–
Regards,
Alexandre Rocha Lima e Marcondes
Comment by Alexandre Rocha Lima e Marcondes — May 21, 2009 @ 6:39 pm
I’m a .NET Web Developer, I use ASP.NET and C# to do most of my projects, and I’m very concerned about security. In the past months I’ve been studying a lot about the subject and also found some vulnerabilities in some of my codes.
A good book/course would be great to improve my security measures in programming, make my clients safer and be a better programmer.
Comment by Ivan — May 22, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
I like to be Certified Ethical Hacker because I want to know how to protect server against hackers and I think it is fun to learn.
Comment by Petr — May 24, 2009 @ 8:51 am
i just want to learn how to fuck shit up. I LOVE KNOWLEDGE!
Comment by Michael Powers — May 27, 2009 @ 4:20 am
i would like to work for a big company one day and be a success
Comment by warren stearman — May 29, 2009 @ 2:25 am
Hi,
I am a Technical Director for my University and I manage Windows/Linux servers as well as 100+ student PCs/MACs. It is my job to make sure our web application, student machines, our database, DNS, and firewall servers are always performing their best and are up to date with all security patches. Our goal is to develop solutions for many tasks that the University does on a daily basis and provide them with the latest technology to help make their work easier. Currently, our web applications handle employees’ sensitive data, purchase requests from other departments within the university, and other confidential tasks which are very critical. Given the sensitivity of these applications, we cannot afford to slack on any security issue.
Though I have been actively learning network security since the age of 15 (am 22 now), and my skills are what led me to this highly respective position within my university, I feel that one can never know all there is to know and learning is always an ongoing process. Technology changes every day and we should be willing to learn to keep up with it, otherwise, we’re leaving ourselves open to many attacks. I want to become a CEH so I can provide better security to my current setup and also give me an edge for the real world when I graduate with my Masters by the end of the year.
Although you are in charge of picking a winner for this collection, I highly advise you have a chat with the winner to make sure they have somewhat of a proper technical background and have good intentions. The EC-council does not permit anyone to take their test and must provide them with their work experience in a technical field for a minimum of 2 years, as well as a clean background check. Like you mentioned, this information can be very deadly in the wrong hands and hope the winner is someone who deserves and can do good rather than bad.
Good luck and thanks for this opportunity!
–Waleed
Comment by Waleed Ahmed — May 30, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
Hi Roy,
I have always had an interest in computing for as long as I can remember. My first computer was a 286 which I built using parts my dad brought home after his work upgraded.
I have been programming for roughly ten years. Mainly I use C++, but lately I’ve been writing a lot of perl scripts. A subject that has recently occurred to me is that my code may be exploitable or insecure. I do generally check for correct user inputs, but I often leave memory issues to the system. I am in the middle of reading O’reilly’s “Secure Coding” it is a very interesting read so far. I have been researching XSS and SQL Injection in order to thwart malicious users in future web applications I write. I would love to attend the class strictly for the portion pertaining to secure coding.
The penetration testing portion would be a great bonus. I recently (April 20th) started a job with a California based firm that does Network Penetration testing for clients both domestic and (occasionally) international. Although they will give me the training and the tools I need to perform these tests, I wonder if they might gloss over the details and intricacies. I believe the certification would complete my education by giving a history and a more in-depth look at how things work. I would love the opportunity to become the best network tester I can be with this certification. I have been considering paying for this class myself, so it would be fantastic to have the fee waived.
Thanks for the opportunity,
Jonathan
Comment by Jonathan — May 31, 2009 @ 8:34 am
Hello Roy,
I’ve just graduated college and received my degree in Business Administration and Information Systems. I’ve worked two part time jobs while going to school full time and I’m looking to start my career and I believe this certification would help me kick start that career.
Thank you,
Alex
Comment by Alex — June 1, 2009 @ 7:35 am
I like to be Certified Ethical Hacker, I like know how to protect all my systems, and sw creations, and help to others to protect from bad hacks
Comment by Duvier Garnica — June 2, 2009 @ 9:11 pm
Ethical Hacker saves the world around him, saves the group around him
not exp log srand xor s qq qx xor
s x x length uc ord and print chr
ord for qw q join use sub tied qx
xor eval xor print qq q q xor int
eval lc q m cos and print chr ord
for qw y abs ne open tied hex exp
ref y m xor scalar srand print qq
q q xor int eval lc qq y sqrt cos
and print chr ord for qw x printf
each return local x y or print qq
s s and eval q s undef or oct xor
time xor ref print chr int ord lc
foreach qw y hex alarm chdir kill
exec return y s gt sin sort split
Comment by Dipin — June 6, 2009 @ 5:01 am
hay! i am vivek and i think i can be much more help to fight against cyber crime than others. i know i has the capability.i can do much good to this world believe me.
Comment by vivek — June 11, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
Hacking is life, duty to serve humanity and protect our world from illegal activities, i love to be a hacker and help protect and prevent crime in our world, i want to protect againt cyber crime and illegal control and destruction of the world security system. i love to hack and dream to be a hacker
Comment by Moses — June 22, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
FIRSTLY I LOVE TO BECOME A HACKER AND IT IS MY DREAM TO BE AN HACKER(ETHICAL)
1.Becoming a ethical hacker , i will be the legal hacker and by that i may be able to know about the various unethical hacker
2.being a ethical hacker i will protect my system from various hackers,
3. i want to stop all those hackers who are making every thing wrong like hacking various important information of a company ,etc,
AND AT LAST,
I WANT TO STATE THAT IT IS DIFFICULT TO BE AN HACKER
AND MORE DIFFICULT TO BE AN ETHICAL HACKER
Comment by abhishek — June 27, 2009 @ 5:38 am
I always work the round way. to be honest want to be hacker to get good money and according to me hacking is a gift. everyone cannot learn hacking. some ppl capable of hacking only get the knowledge and its natural.
I dont knw if i want to stop ppl from Entering banks or stealing company infos. I just want to know how to break or get into something which is called SECURED
Comment by Pratik — July 11, 2009 @ 5:51 pm
White house here I come like you least expected.
Turn my web up-side-down to get it write
Comment by Code P — July 16, 2009 @ 11:11 am
Oh boy!
This post produces like an inner short circuit in me. Global media has made us think that a hacker is, almost by definition, the devil using a PC (or a Mac in that case)
But if on top of that, we talk about ‘ethics’, damn! I am now ofiially confused. Anyway, I hope that to be an ethical hacker is doable and good luck to you all following this course. It looks really interesting.
Javier
Comment by Javier — July 18, 2009 @ 10:43 pm
i want to be a certified ethical hacker for one major reason fight internet fraud in africa
Comment by theophilus okani — July 20, 2009 @ 10:27 am
i am b.tech graduate i want to learn ethical hacking because i am interested to become a certified hacker .
Comment by shaik mudasar — July 28, 2009 @ 6:37 pm
I have MCSA,RHCE,CCNA… but i dont belive in a certified hacker. I can do it without having that certification
Comment by Deepu — August 6, 2009 @ 7:49 pm
hey.. i wud like to be a Certified Ethical Hacker coz i can think like a thief !
Comment by Sumedha — August 24, 2009 @ 11:25 am