Here’s a detailed first-hand review of an Infosec Institute CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) boot camp, posted publicly by a student on Reddit’s r/CEH. It echoes the same problems people report about their CISSP boot camp — an inflated pass-rate claim, a “book” that’s really just the instructor’s PowerPoint slides, buggy labs, typo-riddled materials, and even being nudged toward brain dumps.
I recently finished an infosec institue course a week ago and I do not recommend taking it. Definetely not. If you can find a university that has a boot camp or another in person boot camp I would advise you do it that way to get more for your money. Luckily for me my employer ate the cost. Here is why I do not recommend using them:
- They advertise a 90 percent pass rate but towards the end of the class we did practice exam together and most the class got the answers wrong.
- The first day is spent learning basic Linux/Windows commands. Not to sound harsh but if you don’t know what grep is in Linux then you shouldnt be taking a CEH course now anyways….
- They try to utilize brain dumps too much which is against EC-Council (and Comp-Tia) TOS.
- The book they give you is their powerpoint slides the instructor reads. And the slides are not in order of the instructor reading them and the page numbers are also off. Additionally, typos exist like they did not check their work. For example calling bluejacking blackjacking and someone in the class pointed out the error. Other errors existed. For a 4k course this is not acceptable. We should of gotten an actual book like All In One CEH By Matt Walker.
- The labs are done in skillset and very buggy. You have to go back a page and forward a page to get the labs to take your answer. Sometimes that doesnt even work. We should of been doing VM’s and building our own labs like Udemy CEH course does by Tim Pierson (Which honestly for only like 20 or so is A LOT better in quality).
- The instructor trying to get the class to cheat using brain dumps like PassForSure they provide or with the ProctorU saying oh just do it in a VM and have the answers pulled up. I had to point out that no, they run a script you genius. And if you have to encourage us to cheat that proves infosec isn’t worth a damn.
- Not letting us take it at a Pearson Vue testing facility in case you live in a nosy neighbourhood, have kids or something else preventing you from taking it at home. They only allow ProctorU. Again for the cost we should have a choice.
- For the retake you have to take the CEH 2 weeks from the course which they don’t tell you unless you ask. And with that your readniess on Skillset has to be a 80 which agian they don’t tell you upfront.
Just all around not that good. Please save your money.
— Review posted publicly on Reddit’s r/CEH. Quoted verbatim; typos in the original.
What stands out here isn’t just one bad class — it’s the same pattern that runs through every Infosec Institute complaint I’ve collected: a pass-rate number the students themselves can’t reproduce, course “materials” that are really the instructor’s slides, and a $4,000 price tag that doesn’t buy the quality you’d get from a $20 Udemy course.
Part of my full Infosec Institute review roundup — every complaint, the pass-rate claims, and better ways to prepare, all in one place.
