Being CEH : Certified Ethical Hacker V8

1.    After CCCSP,,my efforts to clear a EC-Council exam finally paid off....and today I passed my CEH V8 exam....the feeling of being a CEH is yet to set in...but yess!!!it feels good to clear a exam which has good repu in the security world....one thing I would like to share is that though the exam covers nearly all domains and spheres of security and hacking but still ,end of course does not mean that a guy can hack into any site and create havoc...but yess it does make you understand the nuts and bolts of how one can do it...and more importantly from a CEH point of view...what and where are the vulnerabilities?

2.  CEH is all about offensive hacking.The amount of tools that are available today in the open source world is mind boggling...and the best part is the course ware that the student gets...its great!!!!I can just say that...it all comes with a set of 6 CDs which have thousands of PDFs and tools.If one starts doing each and every practical aspect of this course-ware it will take more than a year to assimilate and do it on a VM platform...so that is definitely going to keep me busy.The best part is that all this is explained with screen shots and step by step instructions.

3.   As i keep doing these practicals on my VM...will try certainly uploading and sharing with you guys!!!!will get my hard copy of the certificate in a few weeks from now...anxiously waiting!!!!

Is PORT SCANNING legal in INDIA?

1.   The IT security guys have so much to experiment and learn vide unending open source information and tools available on the net.Be it BACKTRACK or Wireshark or Nmap or nessus or Canvas(not opensource) or a web scanner like Acunetix or Arachini and the list is unending....there is lots to do...but do we actually know that simply running a port scan on the internet is a crime in other parts of the world?

2.   In countries like Australia,UK , port scanning is recognized as a "potential attempt" to infringe on a system and that's a simple truth....no body would run such tools openly available without intent. Yess!!!...the intent can be educating self but the other side can be bad intent and no one can prove whats the intent inside the person's mind.It may change the moment he realizes he/she is caught.In the United States there is no need to prove intent and port scanning is considered illegal.So even installation of such tools is a crime.So if a naive script kiddie from India goes with his laptop to US with a virtual box machine holding a OS with a port scanner...he is a cyber criminal the moment he lands in the US.

3.   Today we in India do not have straight and clear laws defining whether running such tools or installation is a crime or not coz the whole thing is COMPLEX.The compliance laws across countries vary and that too drastically...it may be acceptable in a country like India and it may be serious offence in US.So seeing from the current state of affairs in India,it does not look like if a day will be near when such stringent guidelines exist in India to restrict all these uses and installations...or let it be restricted to professionals only.....but then who will define a Cyber Security Professional....CDAC or CEH or some other such agency....these institutes can be a critical node in identifying and certifying cyber security professionals to measure and endorse the intent...but at the end of the day we all are humans...and we know that "too err is human"....so a agency certified person finally has himself to decide whether he uses a black hat or a white hat!!!! :-)

4.   Meanwhile students and IT security enthusiasts should take care of running such tools on the internet coz these are serious tools who can break into some one's privacy...and if the victim gets serious after you...things will be bad enough to land you behind bars...so the best place to experiment with such tools is a virtual environment that can be available vide Virtual box or vmware etc....Security guys and enthus should be familiar with the excellent Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual (OSSTMM), which provides best practices for these situations.

PLEASE TAKE CARE TO RUN THE CYBER SECURITY TOOLS BEFORE THE LAW STARTS RUNNING AFTER YOU

Being CCCSP: CDAC Certified Cyber Security Professional

1.     There is no doubt that I have keen interest in cyber security issues and subjects.I stop anywhere I find some thing to read or see articles / videos related to cyber security...always grab opportunities like workshops and seminars that hold related events. But just reading and going through these was not going to be enough to make a small mark in the field.Thus I decided to go for a certification exam.Came across CISSP,CCIE,Comp-TIA etc....which were slightly heavier on pocket :-)...so looked for a Indian version and equivalent that is not only recognized but also accepted in government organisations.So I enrolled for the exam in the month of Dec 2011 last year.....and got the results last week....and I passed....became a CDAC Certified Cyber Security Professional.The list of certified professionals is given at the link http://esikshak.in/eSikshak/professional_certified.html

2.   So in this post I am going to tell you few key features of this informative and excellent course :

- Name : CCCSP ie CDAC Certified Cyber Security Professional

- Duration : 6 months

- Certification Fees : Rs 7500/-

- Conducted By : CDAC,Hyderabad

-  Written test conducted at identified CDAC centres across India.

-   Duration of the test is 2 hours.

-  Two sections, 80% of objective type and 20% of subjective in the examination paper .

- 60% score in each section must required

-  The minimum score to get professional certification on average is 70%.

3.    More details available about this course at http://esikshak.in/eSikshak/help/English/eSikshak/CCCSP.html

4.    The certificate issued by C-DAC on CCCSP (C-DAC Certified Cyber Security Professional) is valid for 3 years from the date of issue. This is introduced, considering the importance of updating on-self on the latest security issues. 

5.   Thanks CDAC,Hyderabad.