Course
Review written : Unknown... but at the time when the class was offered through PentesterAcademy
Course Format:
This course is online.
Course Materials:
This course materials included videos as well as slides
Class size:
I don't recall the exact number of other student machines in the lab environment I was in (if I have time to look back in my notes I will update this.)
Lab Environment
The lab environment is shared with other students. If I can find in my notes how many, I will update this. I don't recall any issues with other students while working through this course, and I don't recall seeing other students logged in to the machines I was working on.
Estimated cost:
At the time of this review, the course prices were listed as follows (Check the web site for actual prices!)
30 Days $299.00 USD
60 Days $449.00 USD
90 Days $599.00 USD
My motivation:
I took this class after signing up, and spending 30 days in the Windows Red Team Lab class. I think I should have signed up for this first and just gone through the labs and stuff, however, taking this class second and testing on it first probably worked out better for me in the long run.
Review:
This course will teach you Active Directory concepts and movement within an Active Directory domain and forest. These are some critical skills when performing a Red Team assessment.
The course:
I signed up for 30 days worth of lab time, and I was looking forward to getting more hands on time in the labs, but I was the most excited about getting the PDF of the slides. When I got access to the course materials, I noticed three PDFs. The slides, the slide notes and a lab manual.
When I saw the lab manual, all I wanted to do was step through it...and so I spent all my lab time reading this lab manual and following along. (For times when I didn't have access to the labs, but I had access to my laptop and the videos and PDFs, I watched the videos and read the slides and some of the videos I watched several times.) I learned lots of new things and I got to run commands that I didn't run in the Red Team labs.
Misc:
I didn't have any troubles with the servers while doing the labs, but I did make a mistake with my jump box (the box you start on) and had to e-mail support. They were quick to get back to me, and quick to help resolve the issue (even though the problem was caused by me).
I will also say, the tools and data I had on my jump box were there the entire time, which is a huge time saver.
The Exam:
This exam was very hard for me (harder by far than the Red Team Lab exam was in my opinion). Why was it hard for me? My theory is that I was trying to race through the exam and that caused me to make mistakes that took hours upon hours to fix.
For me, this exam was very logically laid out, and I loved every minute of it. I know that some people are wanting me to go into more details on the exam, but I really want people interested in this course to experience what I experienced for themselves. You will learn things in this course, and exam, that you will use in real world red teaming engagements and trying to take shortcuts will hamper you down the road...plus, these courses and exam are the times to learn and have fun so don't short change yourself.
My recommendations are to watch the videos, read the course materials, do the labs over and over again until you are comfortable running the commands needed to complete the labs, and please take the time to understand the tools and their output. Then use what you learned on the exam. Take your time. If you go 12 hours without making progress, start your enumeration over again. You can do it and believe me it is worth it.
My two cents:
Are you an Active Directory expert? If you said yes, then sign up for thirty days, do the labs, take the exam and use the certification as CPEs for some other certification you have taken. If you said no, then sign up for the course and learn so much it will make your head hurt. Just go slow and make sure you understand what you are doing.
More information coming to this review soon!
An image of what the Certified Red Team Professional certificate, which I got several days after submitting the exam report and passing the exam, looked like.
