Over the past year, we have seen a cybercrime increase. The COVID pandemic that hit the world with a health and economic crisis has evidence of the need for more trained people to combat hackers. As remote work becomes the new normal, cybercriminals have taken advantage of the lack of security measures to perform their stunts, costing organizations millions of dollars to recover their systems, data, and even their reputation.

The best way to fight a hacker is to learn to think like one. Ethical hackers not only learn how to understand their motivations, the way they work, and how they choose their target, but they also earn their same skills and training.

To work as a white-hat hacker, you will need to clear the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) exam.

About the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Exam 

The test consists of 125 questions, and you need to score above 70% to pass it. To take this test, you either enroll for the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) training, or you will have to pay some extra money and prove that you have at least 2 years of background experience in information security.

All the questions in the exam are multiple choice. But the tricky part here is that the number of right answers you need to get correctly will vary depending on the difficulty of the questions in the version you are taking. In other words, if you get a test made up of more difficult questions, you will need to have fewer correct answers to pass than if you had gotten an easier one.

Tips to Pass It On Your First Attempt 

1- Get Familiar with The Content of the Certification 

One of the first things you should do is understand the domains covered in the exam to get a better idea of the areas you need to focus on, what it entails, and prepare for it. 

The Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)’s official course outline consists of 20 modules that will cover subjects such as introduction to ethical hacking, scanning networks, vulnerability analysis, system hacking, sniffing, social engineering, denial-of-service, hacking web servers, hacking wireless networks, and others. 

The test itself is built in 7 different sections, and each will cover a different area of ethical hacking. A tentative breakdown is: 

• Section I: Background (5 questions) 
• Section II: Analysis/Assessment (16 questions) 
• Section III: Security (31 questions) 
• Section IV: Tools, Systems, and Programs (40 questions)
• Section V: Procedures and Methodology (25 questions) 
• Section VI: Regulation and Policy (5 questions) 
• Section VII: Ethics (3 questions) 

2- Study Using The CEH Exam Blueprint 

You can study using the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Exam Blueprint. This page will provide a handbook, blueprint eligibility criteria, exam FAQs, exam details, and course outline. All the information you will need to fully understand what the test looks like, what it evaluates, and prepare for it is on that page.  

3- Create a Study Plan 

Once you have the BluePrint and you have gone through the course outline, you should create a study plan that prioritizes the sections that will require more attention, schedule time to review knowledge gaps you might have, refreshes content you already know, and set practice time. 

4- Take Practice Exams 

Practice makes perfect. Once you have gone through all the course modules and you start feeling confident enough, it is time to test your knowledge! Take practice tests (more than 2) until you score above the passing score. Don’t be fooled by people posting online the answer to the questions of the test. EC Council has been updating the test constantly to fight this.