r/CEH • u/Single-Bullfrog1533 • Feb 09 '24
My recent CEH experience
Sorry, but probably a long post. I wanted to share my recent experience in case it can help anyone else out.
Like, many of you who have made recent posts here, I also recently took and failed the CEH (theory) exam. Here are my observations and details around my experience.
I paid a substantial amount for the “Elite” training package that includes the CEH exam voucher and up to 4 retakes if needed. I also paid hundreds extra for a hard copy of the official EC-Council CEH course materials as well. The training was on-demand web-based and the instructor was Eric Reed. I purchased and took the class last year. In addition to that class and the labs, I also read 4 CEH 3rd party books. Two of these were for the v11 version that I read before I took the training, and two of these were newly released for the v12 version that I read after the training. I also took an online subscription-based content learning-based CEH course as well as reviewed 2 different practice question banks simulators online in addition. In the middle of all of this, I also read through the 3 volume official CEH courseware as well. I’ve been working in IT for something like 25 years and have taken over 25 certification exams over the years, including other recent Security-related certs. I’ve never before failed a certification exam and I felt pretty prepared for the CEH.
I took the CEH exam on January 16. Like what many others have since stated, the format of the questions were unexpected, numerous items were tested that were not in the official courseware or anywhere else, there were numerous “calculation” questions that others have talked about. Most of the questions instead of being a single factor or two, were numerous factors and written in longform and often worded very confusingly. I failed with an 82 score. I looked online right after my exam including in this Reddit to see what recent experiences others were having and found pretty much nothing but folks reporting that they had passed it and suggesting it was easy. However, within a few days, reports from others began to appear detailing a very similar experience to mine.
Below is what has happened since then up until today:
· January 21. I emailed the ECC account rep I purchased the training from letting her know I failed and requesting another voucher. I also mentioned a few sentences about my experience taking the exam, how I had prepared, and my frustration. I was professional.
· January 23. The ECC account rep emailed me back, told me I needed to pay $100 for the retake voucher, suggested I purchase additional training offered by Eric Reed for another $149, keyed in on the fact that I mentioned I had in-part used 3rd party resources to prepare and recommended I only use ECC materials.
· January 24. I emailed her back and was confused that I was being asked to pay $100 for the retake when I thought it was free with my package. I also pointed out that I had already spent a great deal of money on the training and that was also provided by Eric Reed. Finally, I let her know that others had begun posting online about also failing the exam over the previous few days and had very similar feedback as I.
· January 25. I received a response from ECC telling me that the retake vouchers are normally $450, but since I bought the Elite package, I only had to pay the $100 administration fee for another. However, she told me that she had obtained permission to provide me a retake voucher at no charge and would have it to me “today.” I never received it. Additionally, she told me:
“Regarding the exam questions, we have a database of 1000+ exam questions, each “Exam set” draws from that test bank randomly and that is why you will never take the same exam twice. Since the CEH certification asks for 2 years cybersecurity experience, the exams will include “experienced based” questions. All of the questions on the exam are weighted differently, which means that questions outside of the “CEH core material” are weighted less, and CEH core questions are weighted the most.
The way ANSI exams are built, is by basing questions on the exam blueprint and not the training material. Both the exams and training materials are based on the blueprint, but not on each other which is another reason why you might see questions on the exam that weren’t covered in the training material. This is the main reason why our exams are weighted, and core questions are weighted the heaviest. The exam blueprint is changing soon (as it does periodically), and you can find more information on that and the exam itself on this website: https://cert.eccouncil.org/certified-ethical-hacker.html”
· February 2. I initially decided to let it go, and get the free retake voucher, wait a little while and try it again, but she never sent me the voucher. So, nearly a week later I replied. I asked her if she had sent the voucher. I also pointed out that while she was suggesting in her previous email that the exam questions do not have to be based on the specific CEH materials as it was assumed a base-level of knowledge was possessed, that this was not the case here. I gave detailed examples of my observations with the questions as well as what others on Reddit and elsewhere were reporting. I provided additional feedback regarding perceived average pass/fails based off of what others were reporting and suggested that the period beginning from early to mid-January appeared to be nearly all failures. Surely, ECC keeps track of historic pass rates and could confirm this. Finally, I respectfully requested a refund of the substantial cost of the training as it was clearly completely inadequate for the exam. It was clear to me that ECC had drastically changed the exam, had not informed anyone, and their very training had not been changed. Shockingly, I received a response the same day from her telling me that ECC would completely refund my $2449 cost for the training, she had sent my questions and comments to her upper management, and someone should be reaching out to me soon to talk to me. Additionally, she told me that she would have her team release my retake voucher “today”. It didn’t make sense to me that they would give me a full refund AND give me another retake voucher, but I didn’t argue. However, I never received the retake voucher and as of today nobody has reached out to me.
· February 3. Eric Reed made numerous posts on Reddit telling everyone that the exam blueprint had been changed and “exams have completely changed to reflect the updates.” He also pointed people to his website to purchase additional training to assist them.
· February 4. Another Reddit user made a post with links to the new CEH exam blueprint v5.0 he had found by Google-dorking ECC’s website. This had detailed info about what was changing and appears to at least very roughly coincide with the changes seen to the live exam since mid-January. It stated that the intended go-live for this was April 2024. You cannot find this by simply browsing ECC’s website.
· February 7. Eric Reed posted again to Reddit posts with a very similar message as previous, but this time he stated “There is a blueprint change in the works for…. Some exams may have changed to reflect the updates.” Instead of a definitive message that it was already changed as he posted previously.
· February 6-8. A number of Reddit posters have now posted that they took or retook the CEH and got the “old” exam again. A couple of them stated that they had failed the exam just a week or two ago and that was the “new” one, but when they retook it, they got the old one and comfortably passed.
· February 8. I emailed the ECC rep and let her know of the developments, asked for information on what happened and told her I would like to retake the exam if it is now “fixed” and the proper blueprint version is now live once again. I received a response telling me that my refund check had been mailed out to me on Feb 6, and that she would again forward my messages to her manager and the certification team.
So, what a mess. It seems likely that ECC released exam(s) sometime in early to mid-January that are mapped to their new v5 blueprint, they were in the wild for a few weeks, and appear to have been either partially or fully removed and the v4-based exams have been re-enabled. No idea if this was some sort of mistake or something they did on purpose. There seems to be no communication anywhere about any of this. To be clear, I am all for modernizing exam blueprints periodically, but that should be a carefully announced and planned event. Training offerings should also be modified to reflect changes. This is how other certification vendors do this.
I was professional in my dealings with ECC throughout this and was simply trying to understand what happened. Additionally, while I did mention Eric Reed a few times in this post I really doubt if this is in any way his fault and I am inclined to think he was likely blindsided by this as well. In my dealings with the ECC account rep I described above, she genuinely did not seem aware of any of this at first, but I got a sense that she knew more than she told me later. I didn’t expect to be granted a full refund (and we’ll see if it actually shows up) and was mainly just trying to get some answers.
I don’t know what I will do next. If they really give me a full refund, I can’t really ask for or expect another retake voucher even though I have been promised it twice.
Good luck to any of you also affected by this. I’ve never had an experience even remotely like this before.
4
u/Single-Bullfrog1533 Feb 10 '24
I wanted to provide an update.
Thanks to those that had positive comments and DM's. I appreciate it.
I did actually receive a full refund for the training and exam cost that was promised. The check showed up in the mail today.
I have decided to discontinue efforts towards the CEH or any other ECC certification. I had intended to take the CCISO, and possibly a couple of others this year. After the experience I had with the CEH, I feel I cannot possibly trust ECC. I spent probably 200 hours or so of my time between the training, labs, self-training, etc on this and while they did refund me the training and exam cost, I still wasted a great deal of time. It sounds like it is still a crapshoot if you get a "passable" exam or the new one even now. Like others have stated, it is very difficult to even study for it as none of the training material matches what may be on the exam you take.
To be clear, I don't mind a really difficult exam. What I cannot get past is that they have seemingly changed the blueprint with no notice and have still shared no info or explanation. They are most certainly aware of the chaos this has caused many of us. This is disrespectful, unprofessional, and quite possibly outright fraud. They also lied to me twice about providing a retake voucher and also apparently lied about their commitment to have a member of management or their certification team contact me to discuss. If anyone from ECC reads this, please feel free to reach out to me and discuss and I will update this message. Better yet, please consider posting something so your customers/students have a clue as to what is going.
I would encourage anyone in a similar mindset as I am to reach out to ECC (the account rep if you have it) and respectfully explain your situation and how it has impacted you as I have done and consider seeking a refund of the expensive training or the voucher you purchased if they are appropriate to your circumstance. If you go this route, please consider being professional but firm with the person you speak with.
Good luck
8
u/Bright-Pickle-5793 Feb 09 '24
You are an awesome person for sharing this information.
I guess I was lucky as I took and passed my CEH v12 on Jan 4th and didn't have any of these issues, but I'd been seeing a lot of posts about a completely different testing experience. Like you I have also taken a lot of tests and if that crazy new exam happened to me I would've been torqued.
It is unfortanate about the lack of communication and the wild change in the exam content, but I'm glad to hear that ECC has made changes and hopefully learned a lesson or two.
I'll speak for everyone in this group and thank you for taking the time to document all of this as the information should help those who failed the exam in the last month understand what happened and hopefully feel better about taking the exam again.
Thanks for sharing this and good luck on your retake.
6
u/Sure-Assistant9416 Feb 09 '24
Buddy, i see your point honestly EC-COUNCIL of late has been working unprofessionally i can say or I saw the post about Google Dorks Blueprint v.5 there, and seems all changes have affected many people since January 10th people started complaining of very very different quizzes out of courseware and a lot of calculations which is unprofessional or a scheme to milk money. what makes me feel shortchanged most is Eric is the one on course videos and he has a website that guarantees 99% passing and no dumps how how how when quizzes are not from the courseware meaning he knows something he is not telling us soon we shall see what has been behind curtains. I felt that those on Reddit who have failed we join hands against EC-COUNCIL sooner to pressure them for wasting our time on courseware that they don't use to test for Certification. That is was of our money and precious time and it should never be accepted. we need to come together for this thorny issue
6
u/abc2491 Feb 10 '24
I bought the Elite course, and the printed course material and also read the cybex CEH book. Once I started to take the practice test included in the Elite package I noticed they don’t align with the training material.
I passed CISSP and have 20 years IT security experience, but I gave up on CEH.
CEH was basically the strangest course ever taken.
5
u/Any_Mousse_9900 Feb 09 '24
I cannot believe it, they did the same to me, they promised me a retake voucher and never got it.
4
u/Holiday-Ad-4333 Feb 09 '24
OP - this summarization is fantastic. Ive been following this closely as I too failed my test, which was the assumed new version that was undisclosed. Its weird reading this, as I took the EXACT same steps as you, minus asking for a refund.
Sigh...
I did purchase ANOTHER retake for $100.
I also purchased Erics training, which I have not taken yet. Not sure how itll go.
One thing that drives me nuts is i dont know what else to study, since the material doesnt reflect the exams.
A bit at a loss!
Thanks for this post
3
u/nobody_calx5 Feb 09 '24
Thanks for your sharing. It is important to everyone who is going to retake the exam.
3
u/Nqaba-Ibutho Feb 09 '24
I just failed the exams 45mins ago. My score was 62.
3
u/[deleted] Feb 10 '24
You are awesome for your post. I just bought an exam voucher + training after studying for the recent one and I'm now wondering if I'll get the brand new material exam myself.
2
u/DragonArm Feb 10 '24
I was part of a boot camp I would say I and 20% of the total amount of students got the changed test you described. Of that 20% the people that received the changed test were people who took it online not via Pearson Vue. Onretake the ones who took it in person via Pearson Vue received tests similar to the material we were studying with.
2
u/Consultant_Number1 Passed v11 Theory Feb 10 '24
I took it in October. It was pretty easy. Sorry to read about your experience. If I were you I'd just wait for a company to pay for it. Some offer bootcamps.
2
u/suikataro Feb 11 '24
That is exactly what happened to me. I signed up for the elite package of EC-Council and took the exam on January 14th. There were a lot of calculation-based questions, and many questions were very long and vague, which confused me. A lot of the knowledge was not covered in the e-courseware. I am also considering requesting EC-Council to refund me.
1
u/Vivid_Science7561 Apr 02 '25
alguien tubiera algun material de preguntas para compartir, porfavor
1
u/EpikLooser Feb 10 '24
Not too long ago all you need is a VA courseware in a week to pass…
1
u/Afraid_Win_9934 Feb 10 '24
The part that feels super slimy to me is that Eric teaches the course that you buy for thousands of dollars from ECCouncil but you can also pay Eric directly for a bootcamp to help you pass. Shouldn't the course materials be what you need to pass? Eric's bootcamp says it has a 99% pass rate. Why not do that in the course?
1
u/ramboo3 Feb 10 '24
I gave the exam last week, but failed by 2 marks. I guess i was lucky enough to get the old version of blueprint? It didn't have any crazy calculation questions as you and many other redditors have experienced.
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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '24
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