CRTP Exam Review

First of all, thank you Nikhil and Team for providing such a wonderful exam and lab experience. The course was well taught by Nikhil and it was all the knowledge that was taught was applied to clear the exam. I would mention my review for each topic - such as preparation, exam day, lab experience, exam experience.

- Preparation -

- Preparation starts on day 1. I bought the bootcamp version of the course, and from day 1 of the session, I started learning. In fact I went through the recorded videos few times to have better understanding.

- Go through the lab material and give attention to each attack, enumeration step. These would come handy during the exam.

- Practice the lab at least twice , so that you get a very good hands-on on the concepts and outcomes. It is very important that we should know the 1) Concept, 2) Why the tool worked, 3) What is the outcome, 4) Finally how can we defend / detect.

- Go Through the lab material at least twice so that you can remember on exam day.

- Exam Day -

- The exam is timed for 25 hours ( 24 + 1) - 1 hour for setting up the exam lab.

- Ensure to have a cheat sheet prepared that would come handy during the exam.

- Enumerate as much as possible, enumeration is the key. Focus on credential extraction and how we can use the credentials to move forward.

- We have to compromise all the 5 machines ( excluding the student VM ) to pass the exam.

- If you are stuck, go back and figure out how you can enumerate more to move ahead. Remember enumeration is the key.

- Timer in the exam page runs for 24 hours, keep a watch on that.

- Lab Experience -

- My lab experience has been good, I haven't faced any issues.

- Every tool that worked during the bootcamp worked in the lab ( except the Enter-PSSession, but still we can use OPTH attacks and login via WinRS)

- Overall lab experience has been really good.

- Utilize the lab time as much as possible so that we are hands-on with the concepts, tools.

- Exam Experience -

- My exam experience has been really good.

- It took around 12 hours for me to compromise all 5 machines and become EA ( Enterprise Admin )

- Also while compromising, I took various screenshots for my reporting.

- Reporting -

- As part of passing requirement, we also need so submit a detailed report as to how the compromise was achieve, what tools were used, why those tools worked and finally we have to explain how to defend/detect/mitigate these various attacks.

- As a best practice use table format to explain the tools used, attacks used etc. That would give a very good view while reading the report.

- If English is not your native language, please mention that to the lab team so that they can keep that in mind while reading the report.

- Add sections about tool clean up, and a simple attack path diagram that helps explain the attack path

- Report should be submitted within 48 hours from the end time of the exam.

- Lab team responses and Support -

- The lab support team out there is exceptionally good in responding. You can almost keep a timer to measure the time of response. The responses have been super fast.

- Lab team can also help you in case you have any technical issues in exam environment, but keep in mind they absolutely cannot help you during the exam.

- I want to really appreciate each and every team member of the lab team for their "very quick" turnaround for any queries sent via email. Exceptionally well.

Overall the experience has been really good, a very good course specific for AD attacks, and I think completing this will help you prepare for at least 50% of any other Advanced Penetration Testing Certifications.

Link for the exam page - https://www.alteredsecurity.com/adlab

Link for the bootcamps - https://www.alteredsecurity.com/bootcamps

Link for online labs - https://www.alteredsecurity.com/online-labs

Link to my own blog for various technical articles - https://blospot-tech927.blogspot.com/

Online labs comes with lab material, pre-recorded videos. Benefit of using online labs is that we can choose our own start time for the lab and followed by that exam has to be attempted within 90 days from the start time of the lab.

I am now preparing for CRTE ( Certified Red team Expert ).