VHL: Completed!

I may be behind schedule in what I initially planned last year, but I have completed both Virtual Hacking Labs Certifications. Those who know me personally would know that I had some issues in real life which affected my morale late last year. This eventually led to me missing out completing both certifications by 3 Advanced+ machines. An extension was made for 1 month for report writing(and redoing screenshots if needed).

In summary, the Virtualhackinglabs course is truly quite an experience. For the price, it definitely is a worthwhile starting point for people looking into obtaining the OSCP, to taste what it has to offer. However, if you you have some prior knowledge of the general methodolgies, and a familiarity in the linux operating system, a 3 month subscription to PWK is definitely sufficient. The advantage of having an extra VHL is the chance to take a break in between, as having a full 3 month commitment to PWK can be mentally exhausting for some.

Lab machines were fairly well designed, with a wide range of difficulties(over 40 machines were available at the time of writing). Most were in my opinion, easy to medium in terms of difficulty. Even some of the Advanced+ were fairly easy and directly gave root shells when exploited. But take this with a a pinch of salt, because I have been dabbling and preparing for at least 6 months prior to this, achieving “Hacker” rank in Hackthebox. Because our experiences and background are different, YMMV. If VHL were to create an examination and a new professional certification, no doubt I will be jumping on and taking it as the quality of their materials is fantastic.

Now, I’m going on to the next step and trying the PWK course, and looking into finally attempting the OSCP. If you have any questions, do feel free to reach out to me by sending me a message on LinkedIn(I’ll work on new avenues of contacting in the future)!

J