[NFBCS] has anyone taken the EC Counsil certified network Defender certification?

Tue Oct 7 18:23:51 UTC 2025

Beth,
As I had mentioned in my email, I have tried looking on Bard, Learning Ally and Bookshare. EC Counsil, like the SANS institute creates courses around their certification exams which normally cost between 6 and 7 grand if a university wasn't paying for it. So, they are very protective of what they deem intellectual property. I also looked on amazon kindle knowing that the PC app is fairly accessible, and no dice there. I received some very good news this morning in the fact that I now own an accessible pdf. I am aware that orca would work just fine on XRDP. However, I made the assumption several days ago that setting up containerized ssh connections with something like Kubernetes would be much simpler to throw together in a short amount of time. Yes, of course I would prefer full parity of experience, but I personally don't mind working solely out of the command prompt, and could probably tailor many of the labs to my specific needs. Many of the assignments require you, as the attacker, to launch exploits on a misconfigured windows server with weak security controls, and then harden the same windows server. Nearly all of the roles and features with MS server 2022 can be configured with PowerShell, and I already do this consistently at work each week. Also, I would argue that in the real-world, a legitimate attacker or penetration tester would frequently only have the benefit of a terminal. I am also aware that as far as accessibility is concerned, we frequently have to pick our battles. If I could at least hop on a terminal and complete some of the labs for the time- being, that would go a long way towards ensuring that I don't fall too far behind. We turn in screenshots for the deliverables, so theoretically nothing would stop me from starting the portions of the lab that I can complete in a command prompt, and then joining later with the XRDP connection. I have also read and researched that VNC is feasible to connect this way, when you use the pulseaudio service to relay back speech. Some folks have had luck with this approach, but the VNC tiger interface itself isn't very accessible. Tuesday is my day off, so I will contact EC Counsil by phone at this point, and I will share on the list and with other students what the response will be. We also have RDP at the Security Operations Center, so in theory they should just be able to give me dedicated VM's as a substitute. I won't complete the exact same labs, but they surely must be very similar. Many cybersecurity competitions and Capture the Flag challenges are pretty much the same type of exercise when you get right down to it. I don't want/don't feel it is my responsibility to essentially rewrite the curriculum for them, but I feel that at this juncture we need to act fast to allow me to complete my coursework on time.
At this rate, if I have to take an incomplete, I won't qualify for the NFB National scholarship, because I will have only finished 2 core-subject science courses. You can naturally see how this is really screwing up my future trajectory in the degree program.  

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Chris Nestrud via NFBCS
Sent: Thursday, October 2, 2025 7:59 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Chris Nestrud <ccn at chrisnestrud.com>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] has anyone taken the EC Counsil certified network Defender certification?

Amelia,

The page at https://www.eccouncil.org/contact-us/ suggests an email address of support at eccouncil.org and a phone number of
+1 (833) 675-1925.

Best of luck.

Chris

On Thu, Oct 02, 2025 at 01:42:06PM -0500, Amelia Pellicciotti via NFBCS wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> My college institution utilizes the EC Counsil curriculum to teach 
> their certified network Defender Certification.
> 
> I cannot complete my course labs at present, because the browser has 
> the virtual machines imbedded in an image that sighted students would 
> click on to interact with live operating systems. I know that 
> underpinning this setup is Hyper V virtualization. So, setting up a 
> remote desktop or ssh connection for myself and the other blind 
> student should be fairly easy and straightforward.
> 
> Further, there are also problems with the pdf of the textbook. We use 
> the Vital Source textbook app to access the course content, but the 
> version of the book that was uploaded into their software is a scanned 
> image, thus when I arrow through the reading pane, jaws and NVDA say 
> blank, blank, blank. I might have otherwise tried to OCR the images of 
> the book, but it is 4400 pages!
> 
> The problem is that I have been siloed and shut out of any 
> communications with the publisher, ECCounsil. ECCounsil lists an email 
> address of support at eccounsil.com <mailto:support at eccounsil.com>  as 
> their support ticket email address. However, every time I contact this 
> address my email bounces. It would appear that this domain is not 
> accessible to the public facing internet, or it no longer exists. Yes, 
> I am working with a department head at my university. When I have 
> brought up these concerns, she explained to me that they want to work 
> on making the PDF of the textbook accessible first. Meanwhile, my instructors have already assigned 8 labs.
> 
> We tried looking for the Certified Network defender 3rd edition on 
> Amazon Kindle, but it is not available there, on bard, with Learning 
> Ally, or with Bookshare.
> 
> This decision to solely work on the pdf was made without my consent, 
> and I do not see how this precludes  different departments from 
> working on both things at the same time. I work at the SOC at my university, and have VPN
> access, so I also suggested being permitted to     build my own virtual
> machines on the school servers. This idea was likewise nixed, because 
> there are specific files and scenarios needed for each attacker/victim simulation.
> 
> 
> I am searching desperately for anyone in the computer science Division 
> that has gone through EC Counsil certifications before, and provide us 
> some guidance on how you studied and practiced the material. I was 
> also told that we do not have the option of hosting their VDI files on 
> our servers, because that could be a violation of the contract with ECCounsil.
> 
> I am very much hoping for any guidance and advice that you can give. 
> Please, no doom and gloom about how horrible accessibility is for 
> blind people in the IT space.
> 
> I am looking for solutions, not to waste the thread by complaining. 
> Please reply only if you have suggestions when dealing with something similar.
> 
> Could advocating with the NFB be the solution? I have to continue at 
> my current university, at least for the time being because my working 
> as a paid intern is contingent upon my being registered for classes, 
> irrespective of the subject. I had considered unenrolling from the 
> tech courses to instead focus on something else, such as my needed 
> core science courses. However, I feel that response will only result 
> in kicking the can down the road, and not giving EC Counsil  an incentive to push forward with this.
> 
> Best Regards, Amelia
> 

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