CEH v13 Course Training Certification

CEH v13 AI is the first CEH revision built around AI-augmented offensive tooling. As an EC-Council Accredited Training Center (ATC), Macksofy delivers the official iLabs curriculum plus an India-context wrapper covering local recruiter expectations. The toolkit is intentionally breadth-first — CEH tests 20+ tools across the 5-phase attack lifecycle.

• Nmap + Nessus + Nikto. Reconnaissance and vulnerability scanning. iLabs covers all three with credentialed scan modes and report-export workflows.
• Wireshark + tcpdump. Packet analysis. CEH v13 includes the encrypted-traffic-analysis chapter using TLS-fingerprinting indicators (JA3, JA4) — newly added vs CEH v12.
• Metasploit Framework + Cobalt Strike (introductory). Exploitation framework deep-dive. Cobalt Strike intro is via the community edition equivalent and concept walkthrough.
• AI-augmented OSINT: ChatGPT, Claude, Bing Copilot for recon-summarisation. CEH v13’s signature addition — using LLMs to summarise leaked-credential databases, parse Shodan output at scale, draft phishing-pretext copy, and generate fuzzer wordlists.
• AI-augmented payload generation. Bootcamp covers prompt engineering for offensive use — generating obfuscated PowerShell, polymorphic JavaScript droppers, AV-evasion ideation. Defensive-side awareness is parallel-taught.
• BeEF (Browser Exploitation Framework). Browser-side post-exploitation hooks, XSS-to-recon pivots, social-engineering toolkit integration.
• Aircrack-ng + WiFi-Pumpkin + Bettercap. Wireless attack chapter. Covers WPA2/WPA3 attacks, evil-twin AP hosting, KARMA-style attacks, captive-portal phishing.
• Mobile attack tooling — MobSF + Frida + objection. Android and iOS application attack workflow. CEH v13 added the iOS chain (Frida-iOS-Dump, Hopper Disassembler intro).
• Cloud security tooling — ScoutSuite, Prowler, Pacu. AWS / Azure / GCP misconfiguration enumeration. New chapter in CEH v13.
• IoT/OT introductory tooling — Shodan filters, MQTT enumeration, Modbus scripts. IoT chapter expanded in v13 to include OT/SCADA basics (Modbus, S7Comm fingerprinting).
• Maltego CE + theHarvester. OSINT graph building and email/subdomain harvesting.
• EC-Council iLabs hosted environment. 100+ guided lab exercises covering the full CEH attack lifecycle. Macksofy provisions cohort iLabs access bundled with the EC-Council voucher.

As an EC-Council Accredited Training Center, Macksofy delivers CEH v13 with full access to EC-Council’s official iLabs cloud environment plus a Macksofy supplementary lab that adds Indian-context attack scenarios (BFSI fraud workflows, MeitY-compliance violations, CERT-In incident-response drills).

• Weeks 1-2 (Reconnaissance + Scanning): OSINT depth with AI augmentation, Nmap NSE library, Nessus credentialed scans, custom Shodan query construction, social-engineering reconnaissance.
• Weeks 3-4 (Enumeration + Vulnerability Analysis): SMB/SNMP/LDAP/DNS enumeration, CVE-to-exploit mapping via NVD + ExploitDB, manual vulnerability validation (avoiding scanner false-positives).
• Week 5 (System Hacking + Malware): Privilege escalation Linux + Windows, password attacks, malware family taxonomy (RATs, droppers, downloaders, ransomware), persistence techniques.
• Week 6 (Sniffing + Social Engineering): Wireshark TCP-stream analysis, ARP poisoning detection, social-engineering pretexts (now including AI-generated phishing copy).
• Week 7 (Web + WiFi + Mobile): OWASP Top 10 hands-on, WPA2/WPA3 attacks, Android + iOS application reverse-engineering basics.
• Week 8 (Cloud + IoT + Cryptography): AWS/Azure/GCP attack workflow, IoT device enumeration, cryptographic-weakness identification, SSL/TLS misconfiguration analysis.

Macksofy classroom workshops at the Mumbai HQ run monthly Saturday sessions; online cohorts run live evening sessions twice weekly. EC-Council iLabs access is included with the official exam voucher bundled in the program fee.

CEH v13 certification has two exam components: the CEH (Knowledge) exam — 125 multiple-choice questions, 4-hour timed, 60-85% pass mark depending on form difficulty — and the optional CEH (Practical) — a separate 6-hour hands-on exam against a live network with 20 challenge tasks. Holding both lands you the CEH Master designation.

The Knowledge exam is delivered via ECCouncil Exam Center (ECC EXAM) or Pearson VUE testing centres. Macksofy bootcamp fee includes the official EC-Council exam voucher for the Knowledge exam. The Practical exam voucher (~USD 550 separate) and CEH Master upgrade are optional add-ons.

Bootcamp exam-day playbook (Knowledge): 125 questions in 240 minutes = ~115 seconds per question. Time discipline matters — flag any question taking >2 minutes for review-round revisit. The exam draws from the entire 20-module syllabus; weak modules account for most question losses. Bootcamp ships a 500-question practice bank covering all 20 modules.

Bootcamp exam-day playbook (Practical): 20 hands-on challenges over 6 hours. Each challenge maps to a specific CEH module — most challenges test ‘find the flag’ via tool-driven workflow (Nmap → vulnerability ID → exploit → flag-file location). Bootcamp Saturday workshops include a full 6-hour Practical-mock exam in the final fortnight.

Renewal: CEH requires 120 ECE credits every 3 years to maintain Active status. Macksofy alumni get refresher session access to bank ECE credits via approved EC-Council channels.

CEH is the single most-recognised cybersecurity certification name in India HR systems — especially in government, PSU, BFSI, telecom, and defence-adjacent contracts. Of 350 sampled India ‘cybersecurity analyst’ / ‘information security officer’ / ‘cyber consultant’ JDs in Q1 2026, 71% mention CEH. The credential is mandatory or strongly preferred for CERT-In empanelment for individual auditors, MeitY-empanelled assessors, DRDO/ISRO cyber roles, and most central / state PSU cyber positions.

Salary bands (India, 2026):

• 0-2 years + CEH: ₹4.5-8 LPA at consultancies and PSU contracts, ₹6-12 LPA at private banks and IT-services majors (TCS/Wipro/Infosys cyber divisions).
• 2-5 years + CEH + secondary cert (Security+, CySA+, or CISA): ₹10-18 LPA at lead-analyst / cyber-consultant roles in BFSI and Big 4.
• 5-8 years + CEH + senior credential (CISSP / CISM): ₹22-40 LPA at CISO-track / governance roles. CEH is the practical underwriter; CISSP is the strategic credential.
• Government / PSU track: CEH unlocks cybersecurity consultant pay bands at NIC, NCIIPC, DSCI, CERT-In, and most central PSU cyber positions. Exact pay varies by recruitment grade.

Average time-to-first-offer post-CEH for candidates with prior IT experience: 4-10 weeks. Macksofy placement cell maintains direct hiring partner channels with TCS Cybersecurity (Mumbai/Pune), Infosys Cyber Defence Centre (Bangalore/Pune), Wipro Cyber & Risk Services, and 20+ Indian BFSI cyber units.

CEH v13 vs CompTIA Security+: Security+ is broader and more foundational ($392, 90-minute exam, 90 questions). CEH v13 is offensive-skill-focused and India-recognised at higher rates than Security+. Pick Security+ if your target market is US federal-contractor work. Pick CEH v13 for India recruiter recognition and offensive-security career entry.

CEH v13 vs CompTIA PenTest+: PenTest+ ($404) is hands-on focused, includes performance-based items. India recognition of PenTest+ is rising but trails CEH by ~5x in JD mentions. Pick PenTest+ if your manager values DoD 8570/8140 IAT-II compliance. Pick CEH for broader India hiring funnel access.

CEH v13 vs OSCP: Different exam philosophies. CEH tests recognition (multiple choice) plus an optional 6-hour Practical. OSCP is a 48-hour adversarial exam with report. Most professional pentesters hold both — CEH first (HR-checkbox cert), OSCP second (technical-skill cert).

CEH v13 vs CISSP: Different career stages. CEH is mid-junior; CISSP is senior/management. Stack them as you progress — CEH unlocks early-career roles, CISSP unlocks security-leadership roles 5-7 years later.

CEH v13 vs CEH v12: The major upgrade in v13 is AI-augmented attack tooling — using LLMs for recon, payload obfuscation, social-engineering content generation, and defensive-side AI-poisoning awareness. If your CEH is v12 or older and your credential is still Active, renewing via ECE credits is cheaper than re-sitting v13. If you’re a fresh candidate, start at v13.

A representative iLabs scenario from CEH v13 Module 2 (Reconnaissance) — AI-augmented target-organisation OSINT for a phishing engagement:

1. Domain enumeration (15 min): theHarvester to pull subdomains, public-facing emails, employee names from search-engine indices. crt.sh for certificate-transparency-log subdomain discovery.
2. LinkedIn employee map (20 min): Public LinkedIn scrape (within ToS) of the target’s employees. Filter to security-team headcount, exec assistants, IT helpdesk — typical phishing-pretext anchor roles.
3. AI-augmented summarisation (10 min): Feed the employee+role list into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt asking for likely org-chart inferences and most-impersonate-able role pairings (CFO ↔ accounts-payable, IT-helpdesk ↔ marketing-junior, etc.).
4. AI-generated phishing-pretext draft (10 min): LLM-drafted pretext copy targeting accounts-payable with a fake CFO-replacement invoice approval request. Critically review for tone, internal-jargon accuracy, and tells (excessive corporate-speak, generic salutations).
5. Tracking-pixel + decoy-link injection (10 min): SET (Social Engineering Toolkit) generates the cloned-page + tracking pixel + credential-capture endpoint.
6. Defensive parallel-track discussion (10 min): What detection signals would flag this attack? DMARC failures, unusual email metadata, LLM-generation indicators (high coherence + low domain-jargon-density), behavioural login anomalies.

This is one of 100+ iLabs scenarios. The bootcamp drills the workflow until candidates can run it under time pressure on the Practical exam without losing to clock or to false-positive detours.

CEH v13 is breadth-first; the prerequisite bar is lower than OSCP / OSWE. Six-of-ten on this self-check is sufficient — we provision a 2-week bridge module for candidates below this baseline.

• Comfortable in a Windows command line and a Linux terminal — file navigation, basic commands.
• Understand TCP/UDP, common ports (80/443/22/21/25/3389), basic networking concepts.
• Have installed a virtual machine (VMware Workstation Player or VirtualBox).
• Have heard of and roughly understand the OWASP Top 10.
• Comfortable reading technical English — exam questions are dense.
• 2+ years of IT or security adjacent experience (helpdesk, sysadmin, network admin, application developer) is the typical CEH candidate profile.
• Have used Wireshark to inspect at least one packet capture.
• Understand symmetric vs asymmetric cryptography at a concept level.
• Can dedicate 8-10 study hours per week consistently for 8 weeks.
• Have a workstation with 8GB+ RAM for VM lab work.

EC-Council’s official prerequisite is 2 years of IT-security work experience OR completion of an official EC-Council training program. Macksofy bootcamp completion satisfies the EC-Council ‘training-waiver’ route — no separate work-experience attestation required for exam eligibility.