All other certifications - Penetration Testing

Author

Penetration Testing

badger11

2004-05-04, 4:14 pm

Since SANS has made it very expensive to get their certs, (no more self study) are there any other courses for penetration testing that are good and more economical than SANS?

t_bind

2004-05-06, 12:09 am

OPST and CEH come to mind.

I agree with your statement on the GIAC certification as well. It's a lot of money. And in most cases, you'll pay this again in two years.

tree

2004-06-02, 11:01 pm

SANS still has the challenge certs, but an attempt is a bit more than your average cert. I may challenge the GCUX soon.

For the info on challenge certs:
http://www.giac.org/cert_programs.php

Regards...

badger11

2004-06-11, 8:17 pm

Yeah, SANS still has a challenge cert but it now costs about 2,500 instead of around 900. 2,500 is way too much for me to pay for a certification. I will let my SANS cert lapse, I will no longer support SANS. They say they want to promote community among security professionals but they want to make outrages sums of money to do it. For the same amount of money you can bet your MCSE and the CCNP plus have enough money left to party hard for the weekend.
SANS got greedy!!!!

walterbyrd

2004-12-12, 6:28 pm

SANS is betting that most people don't pay for their own education. The employer, or government, pays for it.

What two areas have costs completely out of control? Medical and education. The reason is same for both: somebody else pays for it - government, empolyer, insurer, parents, etc. As long as somebody else pays, nobody cares about the costs. Thus, the cost goes through the roof.

johntaro

2004-12-14, 4:46 am

Mile2 will be sponsoring their own certification: Certified Pen Testing Specialist (CPTS). Recently took the CPTS training course and highly recommend it if offered in your neck of the woods. Covers the fundamentals of pen testing and the commonly used tools, which of course are same/similiar tools that hackers use. They also offer an advanced course (CPTE) which is supposed to apply knowledge of CPTS course, go through a simulated pen test, and conclude with writing a pen test report.

Beta version of CPTS exam supposed to be out this month, according to my CPTS instructor (exam writer). I've been checking the Prometric site to see if available, nothing yet.

http://www.mile2.com/security.html

genocyber

2005-01-06, 4:57 pm

The CPTS exam should now be offered at Prometric. Later this year I’m thinking about doing the CPTP, Certified Penetration Testing Professional, course.

Johntaro, how did you find the CPTS course? Did you feel that the course went into enough technical detail? Also how did you find the learning material, e.g. books, notes, CD’s etc? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

johntaro

2005-01-21, 11:41 pm

genocyber;

I thought the CPTS course was GREAT, highly recommend it if you can afford it. Day 1 was of course mostly overview and concepts. Days 2-4 covered techniques and we got to try out some of the hack tools. Day 5 was wrap-up and included a Capture the Flag game. Bummer part was our class was small and other guys just wanted to bag-out and go home, so we didn't do the game. We got the course guide, 2 DVDs with tons of reading material and all the hack tools you could ever use. I got a lot out of the course, some of the other guys seemed only somewhat entertained, primarily because their workplace sent them to the course (involuntarily).

The course is designed as Part 1 of 2 on Pen Testing, not meant as a "how to hack" course. I'd really like to go to the advanced coure (CPTE), but money and work schedule will dictate (my work paid for CPTS, I'll have to pay out-of-pocket for CPTE).

At work, I work mostly on the admin/policy side of security, so CPTS was both educational and 'hands-on' for me.

When I check the Prometric site, I see the CPTP exam available, but not CPTS. I sent Prometric an email about it, still waiting for a reply....

gat0r

2005-04-02, 6:37 pm

i wish my job would send me to hacking course involuntarily, that would be awesome. i might work a little harder at work if they forced me to horrible stuff like learning...

also looking back at the original question OPST is still gonna cost you a couple thousand for the training, that's no real savings over SANS

freak

2005-07-19, 12:53 pm

quote:
Originally posted by johntaro
genocyber;

I thought the CPTS course was GREAT, highly recommend it if you can afford it. Day 1 was of course mostly overview and concepts. Days 2-4 covered techniques and we got to try out some of the hack tools. Day 5 was wrap-up and included a Capture the Flag game. Bummer part was our class was small and other guys just wanted to bag-out and go home, so we didn't do the game. We got the course guide, 2 DVDs with tons of reading material and all the hack tools you could ever use. I got a lot out of the course, some of the other guys seemed only somewhat entertained, primarily because their workplace sent them to the course (involuntarily).

The course is designed as Part 1 of 2 on Pen Testing, not meant as a "how to hack" course. I'd really like to go to the advanced coure (CPTE), but money and work schedule will dictate (my work paid for CPTS, I'll have to pay out-of-pocket for CPTE).

At work, I work mostly on the admin/policy side of security, so CPTS was both educational and 'hands-on' for me.

When I check the Prometric site, I see the CPTP exam available, but not CPTS. I sent Prometric an email about it, still waiting for a reply....

thanks for the review. Very interesting comments. Mile2 has some attractive offerings right now.

rshullic

2005-08-14, 12:53 pm

as far as SANS, the challange went from $500 to $800, the recertification cycloe was extended from 2 years to 4 years, the recertification cost (what you pay every 4 years) is still around $120, and you no longer have to do the practical, it is exam only, so all-in-all it is now much easier and cheaper.

As far as the mile2 exam, took the exam this weekend, it was 180 minutes (3 hours) and 135 questions (this is a beta exam). Looks like another month and the exam probably will go live.

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