Virtual Hacking Labs
My Experience with VHL
Last updated
Was this helpful?
My Experience with VHL
Last updated
Was this helpful?
I joined VHL in July 2021 and as of December 23,2022 I recieved the Virtual Hacking Labs Advanced+ Certification.
They have a Advanced Certification but I did not write the reports for the 20 machines that is required.
There is a little bit of a wait for the course material and lab access, Maybe 12 hours. You will get a 400+ page pdf. The first and second chapter detail lab access credentials, downloading fortiiclient for vpn access to the labs. The rest of the pdf goes into enumeration, Exploits and privilege escalation. It is pretty detailed and some of the exploits are exactly what you will do with the labs. After downloading the vpn client and connecting I Started with the beginner machines. There are currently 10 beginner machines. 19 Advanced machines and 21 Advanced+ machines. I quickly learned that kernel exploitation is the main focus. A lot of the labs are linux based machines, both debian and rhel based. There are a few windows machines. Initial access is usually finding a way to upload a reverse shell weather it be php or java, mostly php.As a beginner having done a little bit with HackTheBox and TryHackMe, I struggled a lot with privilege escalation. I wasted many hours researching and trying different exploits and scenarios that didn't work. This is where I feel the pdf could be better at explaining things especially for a beginner. There are hints with beginner and advanced labs. No hints for advanced+. To get the Advanced+ certification you need to submit reports for at least 10 machines. Two of those machines need to be exploited manually. No automatic tools or scripts. I purchased the 3 month pass 3 times ( yes,) I was determined to get the advanced+ certification and in the process I learned an immense amount of knowledge. I would recommend VHL, Perhaps do some Tryhackme and HTB labs if you are a beginner. The first few machines of the DC Series on vulnhub are also geared towards beginners. For $250 USD you get 90 days of lab access. With hands on experience and a certificate of completion this is highly reasonable.