Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)

Understanding the core concepts, laws, and methodologies.

• Key concepts, cyber-attack kill chain, and phases of hacking.
• Legality and ethics of ethical hacking.
• Overview of attack vectors and threat landscapes.

Gathering passive and active information about a target.

• Passive reconnaissance (OSINT, social media).
• Active reconnaissance (DNS enumeration, website footprinting).
• Tools: Maltego, Shodan, Google Dorks.

Discovering live hosts, ports, and services on a network.

• Ping sweeps, port scanning techniques (TCP Connect, SYN scan).
• Using Nmap for port scanning and OS fingerprinting.
• Evading IDS and firewall detection during scanning.

Extracting detailed information from target systems.

• NetBIOS, SNMP, and LDAP enumeration.
• Enumerating users, shares, and services.
• Tools: Enum4linux, nbtscan.

Identifying and ranking flaws in systems.

• Active vs. Passive vulnerability scanning.
• Using vulnerability scanners (Nessus, OpenVAS).
• Analyzing scan results and identifying false positives.
• Prioritizing vulnerabilities (CVSS scoring).

Exploiting vulnerabilities to compromise systems.

• Password cracking (Brute-force, Dictionary attacks).
• Using Metasploit for exploitation.
• Privilege escalation techniques (Windows and Linux).
• Maintaining access with backdoors and rootkits.

Understanding trojans, viruses, worms, and ransomware.

• Types of malware and their propagation.
• Ransomware and countermeasures.
• Malware analysis (static and dynamic).
• Evading antivirus (AV) detection.

Intercepting network traffic and manipulating people.

• Packet sniffing with Wireshark and tcpdump.
• Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks (ARP poisoning).
• Social Engineering principles and techniques (phishing, baiting).
• Using the Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET).

Attacking network services and web infrastructure.

• Denial-of-Service (DoS) and Distributed DoS (DDoS) attacks.
• Session hijacking and cookie theft.
• Attacking web servers (IIS, Apache).
• Directory traversal and file inclusion vulnerabilities.

Exploiting common web vulnerabilities (OWASP Top 10).

• SQL Injection (SQLi) and blind SQLi.
• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) - Stored, Reflected, DOM-based.
• Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF).
• Using Burp Suite for web application analysis.

Attacking modern and emerging platforms.

• Hacking wireless networks (WPA2, WPA3).
• Mobile platform attack vectors (Android, iOS).
• Cloud computing threats (misconfigured S3 buckets, exposed credentials).
• IoT hacking fundamentals.

Understanding encryption and preparing for the exam.

• Cryptography concepts (Symmetric vs. Asymmetric, Hashing).
• Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).
• Review of all CEH domains.
• Full-Length Practice Exam Simulation & Review.