CEH is organised around the phases of an attack applied across many technology areas, always from an authorised, defensive standpoint. This is a plain-English summary; EC-Council’s official blueprint is authoritative.
Foundations and ethics
Information security basics, attack types, the cyber kill chain, laws and standards, and the ethics of authorised testing.
Reconnaissance and scanning
Footprinting and reconnaissance, network scanning, and enumeration to map targets and identify services.
Vulnerability analysis and system hacking
Identifying weaknesses, system hacking concepts, privilege escalation, and maintaining access (studied conceptually for defence).
Threats and network attacks
Malware (trojans, worms, ransomware), sniffing, social engineering, denial of service, session hijacking, and evading IDS, firewalls and honeypots.
Web and application attacks
Hacking web servers and web applications, and SQL injection concepts.
Wireless, mobile, IoT and OT
Wireless network security, mobile platform threats, and IoT/OT security concepts.
Cloud and cryptography
Cloud computing threats and controls, and core cryptography concepts and attacks.