Other20 modules; official classes run 5 days, self-paced study usually takes 2 to 3 months·Exam voucher around $950, plus a $100 eligibility fee for self-study candidates; official training bundles cost more

EC-Council CEH v13 AI (Certified Ethical Hacker)

3.2

CEH is still a box that HR departments and government contracts want ticked, and v13 is the most up to date it has been. The AI branding, though, mostly means AI tools bolted onto existing modules rather than real coverage of attacking or defending AI systems. It is expensive for what you learn, and practitioners have long preferred hands-on alternatives.

What We Liked

Widely recognised by HR filters and listed in US DoD 8140 baselines, which is the main reason people buy it
Broad coverage across 20 modules gives beginners a complete map of offensive security
221 labs in the official package, and an optional practical exam for CEH Master
v13 adds AI-assisted recon and OSINT tooling that reflects how pentesters work now

What Could Be Better

Expensive: roughly $1,050 for self-study candidates before any training, and official bundles are much more
The knowledge exam is multiple choice and tests recall of tool names and port numbers more than skill
The AI content is about using AI tools to hack, with little on attacking LLM applications or agents
Annual EC-Council membership fee and 120 continuing education credits every three years to stay certified
Many working pentesters rate it below practical certs like OSCP, PNPT or HTB CPTS

Detailed review

Certified Ethical Hacker is the best known name in ethical hacking certification, and the 46% drop in search volume over the past year probably says something about how its reputation among practitioners has caught up with its marketing. EC-Council's answer is version 13, sold as CEH AI. The programme is big. There are 20 modules covering everything from footprinting and scanning to web apps, wireless, mobile, IoT, cloud and cryptography. EC-Council counts 550+ attack techniques, 221 labs and access to more than 4,000 tools.

The knowledge exam is 125 multiple-choice questions in four hours, with a pass mark that varies by question bank between 60% and 85%. An optional six-hour practical exam with 20 challenges in a cyber range earns you CEH Master if you pass both. So what is the AI part? Mostly, it is AI used as a tool. Modules now include sections on using ChatGPT-style assistants and AI-powered OSINT tools to speed up recon, write payloads and analyse results. That is a fair reflection of how many pentesters work in 2026.

What it is not is a course on testing AI systems. If you want to learn prompt injection, attacks on retrieval pipelines, agent tool abuse or model supply chain risk, CEH v13 barely touches them. The name sets an expectation the content does not meet. The cost is the bigger problem. A self-study candidate pays a $100 eligibility fee and needs two years of security experience to be approved, then about $950 for a remotely proctored voucher.

Official training packages cost well over that. To stay certified you pay an annual membership fee and earn 120 continuing education credits every three years. Compare that with PortSwigger's Web Security Academy, which is free, or TCM's practical certs at a few hundred dollars, and CEH is hard to justify on learning value alone. The case for it is recognition. CEH is listed in US Department of Defense workforce baselines and a lot of government and enterprise job ads still filter on it.

If that filter stands between you and a job, the certificate pays for itself. The practical exam is also better than its reputation; if you do go for CEH, aim for Master, not just the knowledge exam. I give it 3.2. Broad, recognised and current, but expensive, recall-heavy, and its AI branding oversells what it teaches about AI security.

[ final ]

The verdict.

Buy it if a job, contract or employer reimbursement scheme specifically asks for CEH. If you want to learn to hack or to test AI systems, spend the money on hands-on training instead, such as HTB's AI Red Teamer path, TCM's PAPA or PortSwigger's free Web Security Academy.