How to prepare for Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)v11 Certification?

5 min readJan 21, 2022

Hello Security researchers, This blog is about how to prepare for your CEH v11 Certification, I will share the tips, resources, and my learning experience to make your preparation easy.

Things to know before starting your preparation for CEH

So basically CEH certification is managed by the EC-Council. and CEH is the base for a cyber career that covers basics fully, My first opinion is before starting with your syllabus be strong in your networking concepts, Cauze, once you jump into the cyber domain 50% of your learning, will only be related to Networking, I recommend you to go with youtube videos or any online courses in Udemy and read books related to Networking and the second thing is playing with Kali Linux operating system (OS) if you are a beginner just know some basics commands to operate your kali OS because once you come into the cyber domain you will be using only Linux OS.

Why CEH?

so many people will confuse you to do Comptia+, Cicso, junior pentester, and many other certs, but if u need to step into the cyber domain close your eyes and pick CEH, the above-mentioned certs are for networking and pentest concepts, so it completely differs, CEH is a part where you learn hacking right from basics so that you won't have any confusion and that's the right way to step into your cyber domain, once you complete it, you yourself will have an idea on what to do next.

Step:1 Know your Exam pattern

So, the exam pattern will be:125 MCQs

Exam Timing: 4Hours

Pass % :80 %

Apply through EC-Council it will cost around 500$ (37k in INR) if you are a student, apply with your college support, your Exam Cost will be reduced, you can take your exam in your home itself (Proctored)

Ec-council Link: https://www.eccouncil.org/

What does EC-council Provide you?

once you purchased your course you will be provided with

PPT’s
Notes (for each module)
Videos
practical Labs

Step:2 Know your syllabus

Totally 20 modules:

Module 01: Introduction to Ethical Hacking

Module 02: Footprinting and Reconnaissance
Module 03: Scanning Networks

Module 04: Enumeration

Module 05: Vulnerability Analysis

Module 06: System Hacking

Module 07: Malware Threats

Module 08: Sniffing

Module 09: Social Engineering

Module 10: Denial-of-Service

Module 11: Session Hijacking

Module 12: Evading IDS, Firewalls, and Honeypots

Module 13: Hacking Web Servers

Module 14: Hacking Web Applications

Module 15: SQL Injection

Module 16: Hacking Wireless Networks

Module 17: Hacking Mobile Platforms

Module 18: IoT Hacking

Module 19: Cloud Computing

Module 20: Cryptography

ok, so where to start now?

Step3: Pick a Course

so as you can see that’s really huge! I will share how you should prepare!

First, you will be completely blank, so go with a youtube video (Theory) of the full course of CEH V11 or any other online course.

Recommended video: https://youtu.be/cHXOAHKK3h8

Taking notes is the most important thing while preparing, if you don't understand any module just take notes and keep them, it will be helpful when you come into a practical session.

taking notes for all modules will at least take more than a month, but trust me once you take it keep it with you, all your basics will be at your fingertips

Step4: Practical Learning

This is where all your queries get cleared!

For Practical session purposes, you can start with CTF (Capture the flag), it's a place where can will practice hacking, solve machines and root the IPs. There are many sites to play with CTF, my opinion is to go with Tryhackme. Out of all CTF sites, I felt easy and user-friendly to play with.

Site: https://tryhackme.com/ (explore yourself)

if you are a beginner it will take more than 2hours to solve a machine but stay focused and try to understand how the machine gets rooted. Take notes too!

Step5: Read Books!

Now you have watched courses and played CTF’s, Now is time to read books, since you practiced CTF it will be easy when you read books, you can quickly understand each and every module quickly.

Book Recommneded: CEH v11 Study guide (Ric Messier)

Book PDF link: https://github.com/imrk51/CEH-v11-Study-Guide

Step6: Practice sample question with the time limit

Total 4hours of your exam spend 3hours 30 minutes for answering and the other 30min for checking your answers

there are many online exams and pdf’s to practice for your exam

practice site: Udemy

Guys most important thing is ,your practise question won't get repeated in your exams, most of the questions will be practically aided, no direct questions will be asked, So practice according to that!

Step7: Watch secondary youtube videos

The thing about CEH is all about clearing your basics, so if have any silly doubts too just google it and take notes of it, and there are many youtube channels that post some common topics on hacking that will be useful for your exam.

Youtube Channels:

Hackersploit

Hak5

Liveoverflow

John Hammond

Insiderphd

and finally, see your EC-council notes, PPT’s, videos, and labs. Since you know all the concepts just go through your module and check whether you can try to remember what the topic is all about!

How did I prepare for my CEH?

I did the same above process I didn't purchase the EC-council course first, I just went only with all online resources,

Watch youtube CEH V11full course

Practiced Tryhackme

Read Books

Watch other youtube videos for clearing basic concepts!

then finally I Purchased CEH v11 from EC-council, it will take 1 month to verify your exam code, Within that time I went through all the materials provided by EC-Council and gave the exam! The preparation time took me whole 6months, right from networking till the date of the exam!

Tips for your exam!

Be clear, You won't get any direct questions, Maximum it will be based on scenario questions only!
Your own notes are your powerful weapon, revise every day with your notes
Don't rush and learn every concept at the same time, take your own time on each module, Research each and every module
Try to get answers for even silly questions and take notes of it!
Only CTF will boost your intelligence and confidence to give your exam, so practice CTF as much you can
Be chill and give your exam, there is nothing to memorize except several commands
Time management is very important! if you don't get any answers, skip them and answer other questions, don't waste time on one question.