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Head Scratching Moment: Digging Into Potential EC-Council Blog Spam

I was drawn to a write up entitled “EC-Council – CEH – Unethical Behavior” by Ryan Dewhurst (@ethicalhack3r) where he discussed some rather peculiar blog spam patterns. I have to admit I didn’t dig to deep at the first read as I was otherwise occupied but, that posting stuck with me. I recalled seeing something similar a while back. All things being equal I tucked it into the back of my skull and forgot about it for the time being.

Then, it started. That recollection started to claw its way forward through my grey matter. So, I went to read up some more on the posting. Tuned in in time to read a rather bizarre rambling response apparently from Jay Bavisi, President and Chief Executive Officer, EC-Council.

Excerpt from the Bavisi response:

Also shocking is that the post that you are complaining about was apparently in Feb and May of 2010 and that no one has written to us since then about this matter. What drew your attention to this after almost 2 years (In case you did not notice, we are coming up in Feb 2012 in three months), especially when you claim that these activities only lasted a few months ?

Shocking? Not really. I think it is a case of good observation. So what if it comes a year later? Bavisi’s supercilious response did little else than encourage me to look in the archives on this site and sure enough, this is what I found which was submitted Sept 9, 2010:

Author : Lee (IP: 91.198.227.49 , neo.misc.e.pointzero.dk)
E-mail : patrick.lee771@gmail.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=91.198.227.49
Comment:
While there is no denying of the risks to key installations from cyber-attacks, pre-emptive strikes may further intensify the cyber warfare. Instead, the focus should be on proactive initiatives to strengthen the IT infrastructure, training employees and creating a strong force of IT warriors. IT Security personnel can be trained in security certifications courses offered by organizations such as (a href=”http://www.eccouncil.org” rel=”nofollow”) ec council(/a). We have a long battle to fight. Therefore, students can be encouraged to choose science and engineering domains at the undergraduate level to meet the long-term needs of cyber experts.

In this case we have a different IP address but, very similar posting.

organisation: ORG-PA233-RIPE
org-name: PointZero Hosting ApS
org-type: OTHER
address: Blangstedgaardsvej 8
address: DK-5220 Odense C
mnt-ref: GCNET-MNT
mnt-by: GCNET-MNT
source: RIPE #Filtered

Where there is smoke there is bound to be fire. It is entirely possible that Rob is on to something here. I’m further intrigued by reading another comment on Ryan’s site from someone who was too cowardly to use their own name. “Unethically disclosing bob” said,

“I may argue that the fact that you have tried us without even trial in itself can be seen as a tactic to increase your web hits and limelight in an unethical matter. Any ethical person would have raised this with EC-Council prior to posting fictional theories on the web.
You can (and have) said many things, but don’t try to frame the discussion to mean that anyone that does something you don’t like as ‘unethical’. It just makes you look like a step away from ligatt levels of doucheness. Ethical behaviour by CEH or not, your cert is an industry joke and isn’t worth the cornflakes box it came in.

To which I can only respond on the equal intellectual plateau…

All that makes me want to do is look harder into this one.

Source: Article Link

(Image used under CC from eraphernalia_vintage)

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