Monthly Archives: December 2015

HackNet, a Diversion from Certification

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Before I start my primary focus of this post, I want to briefly update my certification goals. With the release of the two new exams (220-901 & 220-902) for the CompTIA A+ certification, I plan to take both of those sometime in January or February. I’ll follow that up with the CompTIA Server+ exam (SK0-004) before turning my sights to the (ISC)2 CCFP exam that I need to complete by the end of June in order to take advantage of the free exam voucher the organization provides to faculty.

My new focus, in part driven by my desire to improve content for my College’s CIS 152 Ethical Hacking course, is to try and “master” the HackNet game available through Steam. This simulated hacking exercise has received a large number of favorable reviews, and I’m thinking as I continue to play it that it may prove to be a valuable tool, providing students with “hands on” experiences in a safe environment to practice their investigative skills. I’d encourage you to give it a try. At a cost of less than ten dollars ($10), it certainly makes sense if you are interested in learning how hackers operate.

To help you in your efforts, I prepared, based upon game content, a list of commands that are utilized in HackNet. The list of commands can be accessed HERE.

Steve

Network+ (N10-006), Why Not To Rush

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For some unknown reason I decided yesterday to “knock off” the CompTIA Network+ certification exam that was released earlier this year. First step was to go to the CompTIA Store, and order the voucher. They make that too easy. I figured this morning that I might as well call my favorite testing center and see if I could get a time before the end of the year to take the exam. Unfortunately all they had was today at 4:00p.m., with no other openings until next year.

Given that I’ve taught the course since before the turn of the century, I figured studying was unnecessary. Well, by the skin of my teeth, I managed to eke out a passing score (see test score below), convinced when I clicked the “end” button in the testing booth that I was looking at the first exam failure in a very long time. I took all of the time that was available, given a larger number of simulation questions than I anticipated that were much more complicated than I had thought they would be.

N10-006 ScoreReport

Passing score for the exam is 720 out of a possible 900 points. I managed to get an unimpressive 751. Lots of comments indicating I did not do so well on the scenario (aka simulation) questions. A couple of things I took away from this exam experience are:

  • Don’t treat the Network+ certification as a low level certification.
  • CompTIA is clearly taking a path to make their certifications more difficult, hence a better measure of both knowledge and skills associated with network design and administration.
  • Know more about what routers and switch can do, including how VPNs are configured.
  • Increase the depth of your knowledge in virtualization technologies.

Good luck to all. Know that CompTIA’s Network+ certification has increased value because you must know much more than was required in the past to pass the exam.

Semester Break – Time to Study

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Semester break provides college faculty with the opportunity and time to learn. During this past week I have been busy. First on the calendar was a 3-day online class in a leading computer forensics software toolkit called EnCase. This is software law enforcement utilizes to collect and catalog evidence (e.g. kiddie porn) found on storage devices (e.g. hard drives, jump drives, printers, etc.). Problem with its utilization in an academic setting is even though Guidance Software has an academic program that reduces the cost of the software, it is still quite expensive (e.g. $2,500 for a 20 concurrent student access license) that the cost is beyond the capability of many colleges.

Below is  a certificate that evidences my completion of the class:

EncaseCert

My next effort, which covered Thursday and Friday’s activities was faculty trainig on the NetLabs+ virtual lab environment. That class went quite well, and I’m spending the next week or so, going through the Ethical Hacking labs so I will be in a position to teach them this Spring semester. Turning to the remainder of the break to study for and pass the N10-006 exam (Network+). I suspect not much studying required, given it is really a refreshment.