Passing the OSCP

I’ve been in the Information Security field for over 15 years. I started with penetration testing earlier in my career. I've been deeply involved in various fields of InfoSec such as Incident Management, Vulnerability Assessment, Enterprise Firewall & Linux administration and Regulatory Compliance.

I decided to give the OSCP a try after attending the PWK courseware online. The material is good and covered areas that I struggled over the years such as writing buffer overflows exploits. However, the course material alone is not enough to pass the exam. Initially, I took 2 months lab preparation. This was not sufficient as I had to juggle work and family time. Due to budget constraints, I did a lot of vulnhub practice but sad to say it didn’t prepare me well enough to pass the exam the first 2 tries! Yes, I sat for it 3 times. The first time, I was very close to passing but short of 5 points, I felt I was lucky the first time. The second attempt, I failed miserably.

The main problem for most average folks; we hunt for vulnerabilities but don’t fully comprehend the under lying principles of the OS & application running on it. Therefore, having a good understanding of heterousgenous networks and its services are essential. Be prepared to burn a lot of time practicing and ENUMERATING! I spent almost 6 hours a day for the last 2 weeks practicing the labs. I compromised about 30+ hosts(including PAIN) in the lab before attempting the 3^rd time. Some people say the labs are nothing similar to the exam, but this is not true. I know people struggle with the limited time/budget partaking in the labs but nothing, I say nothing, prepares you better than the lab machines. It’s like they took the machines directly from the lab! Be prepared to figure out how and why the system is running. Look for misconfigurations, think like an average user and admin. Warning, the typical script kiddie approach (download & compile) simply will not cut it!

I have to say, amongst the many certifications I’ve earned in the past such as CISSP, CISA, RHCE, CCSE. The OSCP is certainly the most difficult to achieve. It certainly lives up to its name, hence, 'Try Harder' is nothing further from the truth. The gruesome 24 hour challenge was very painful, especially on the first attempt. It taught me a lot! Most importantly, it gave me the confidence of ‘walking the talk’! I highly recommend any infosec professional to attempt the OSCP, even if you do not intend to be a full fledge pentester, it certainly gives you the hands on understanding of common cyber intrusion techniques which I see lacking in most InfoSec Managers and ‘C’ level peeps. Persistence and hard work certainly pays off! Good Luck folks.