Here’s a detailed first-hand review of an Infosec Institute CEH boot camp, the Certified Ethical Hacker course. A student posted it publicly on Reddit’s r/CEH. It echoes the problems people report about the CISSP boot camp. There’s an inflated pass-rate claim and a “book” that’s really just the instructor’s PowerPoint slides. The labs are buggy and the materials are typo-riddled. The student was even 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, with the typos in the original.
This class follows the same pattern that runs through every Infosec Institute complaint I’ve collected. The students can’t reproduce the pass-rate number. The course “materials” are really the instructor’s slides. And a $4,000 price tag doesn’t buy the quality you’d get from a $20 Udemy course.
Part of my full Infosec Institute review roundup. It collects every complaint, the pass-rate claims, and better ways to prepare in one place.
