Customer Reviews

Certified Ethical Hacker Exam Prep

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The previous poster did bring up a good point: this book will not teach you how to hack. It WILL help you pass the CEH exam. It lays a very good foundation, and the only reason I give it 4 stars was because it was lacking the detail and depth to be fully comprehensive.

Keep in mind, that this book is meant for people who do have an administration background and who happen to be pretty familiar with Linux and Windows. The book is written for that group of people because without that experience, you probably won't have the experience necessary to be a CEH.

I happen to read all 3 books for the CEH that are listed on Amazon. The Sybex book, the EC-council book, and this book. By far, this book was the best out of the 3. The Sybex book was a waste of money as it wasn't as good as this book and it had even less depth. The EC-council book had a bit more detail in some topics, although it lacked cohesion and was poor at presenting the thought behind it. I think this book and the EC-council book compliment each other, and give you a pretty good idea of what you actually need to know. I would start with this book and finish up with the EC-council book and/or courseware. My reasoning is that you should set the foundation first and this book does that.

Also, as with hacking, google is an excellent resource. These two books won't be enough to fill all the holes, but the internet is a damned good filler.

In conclusion this book provides for pretty good preparation for the actual test, and is a comfortable read.

ABOUT THE TEST:

150 questions, you have 4 hours. I took only 2 and scored an 86%. 70% is passing. I studied for only two weeks, but have extensive background in the subject area.

The test is very specific, and you are expected to know the material in detail - NOT just concepts. The test is geared towards people with security experience, and the test questions are true to that purpose. It will be very difficult to pass if you:
1) Don't know linux
2) Don't understand Microsoft's OS and operations
3) never actually used any of the hacking tools

Linux is not a MAJOR part of the test, but there are enough questions on linux command line operations to make a difference.

Keep in mind, just reading alone will not let you pass this test. It is very important that you try out the most popular and important tools (firsthand!). You will be asked about specific commands, and be expected to know them. Know nmap, snort, hping2, tracert and tcpdump down cold. Know the ICMP codes and types. The only way you learn this stuff is to actually practice it.

This really isn't an entry level test at all. Even if you know all your stuff, the test isn't easy to pass. I'd strongly encourage that people take some practice with actual pen testing before they try this test (use vmware to simulate a target if you cant throw a home made lab together). If you don't actually try this stuff out, your odds of passing will plummet.

About 10% of the questions are what I'd consider bad questions - either they are unclear, or ambiguous or poorly word... Without violating the NDA - one of the questions parallel the following examples: Can you establish tcp sessions while spoofing your ip address? The answer is: it depends - are you sniffing the outgoing traffic? If so, then it is certainly possible.. otherwise there is no way you'll establish a tcp connection. What if the question doesn't specify, and the answer hinges on this? This type of ambiguous situation happened on at least 10 questions. This will lose you points right off the bat, because to no fault of your own you won't be able to determine the valid answers.

Good luck!

If your studying for the CEH exam or just want to learn more about ethical hacking and security this book is a must have.

I wish they would have included this with the course material as it's a better prep for the test. It also comes with a Linux ISO that has many of the tools used by ethical hackers and discussed in the book.

Does a very good job of going over all the CEH exam objectives in a clear and understandable way.

The test prep software is very helpful. Whenever you get an answer wrong it gives you a reference to the section in the e-book of where the answer came from and an Internet link to look up.

This book and the Anti-Hacker toolkit does a good job of getting you ready for the test.

I got this book today, and I finished the first two chapters. So far the book's been excellent. I have the self-study material that ec-council sells for 300$ and this book covers everything that is covered in that book. So far, I am very satisfied with this book. Useful questions at the end of chapters help with the learning process. Now, CEH is not for the weak. You need to do some practical work before tackling the exam. Sure, you might be able to pull it off without practical work, but this stuff is so interesting that once you got your hands dirty, you are not going to want to stop. The reason I gave this book 4 stars is because I have not reviewed the whole book. Once I finish the book, I can tell more about the overall quality of this book. But so far so good! ((****))

There is no doubt that this book is much easier than CEH official book. Also for those who already have good experience with networking and security will find this book fair enough to prepare for CEH test. For those who are not well established in networking and security field, I belief this book will no be enough. In all cases I really enjoy it

This was a good book in its day... for the previous version (5) of the test. But it's outdated and needs an update. This version of the book won't prepare you for the test. Version 6 was released in 2008 with lots more modules and newer malware and hacking tools. Example, there are no sections on wireless or bluetooth hacking, and no info on Cisco PIX firewall models and their specs. (Unfortunately, books that cover the new CEH v6 exam seem to be lacking at the moment.)

If you are a beginning System or Network administrator, this is a great introductory security book to start with.

The book covers a wide range of security topics with most being based on the Windows OS. It also has a chapter on Linux, and covers networking, web sites, buffer overflows and physical security. Included with each chapter are exercises to reinforce the material, and questions with answers.

Before reading this book, you should have general background knowledge in operating systems and networking. A programming background is not necessary.

As a primer on security, I found this book to be well written and interesting reading.

This book I used for reference material to prepare for the CEH Exam. There is also a review guide for CEH, see Amazon for this book (CEH: Official Certified Ethical Hacker Review Guide: Exam 312-50 by Kimberly Graves). Beware: this is a REVIEW guide. Personally I think that this book (Certified Ethical Hacker Exam Prep, Que Publishing by Michael Gregg) is great for a start and you don't need the other review book.

The exam consists of 150 questions with sometimes deep technical detailed questions. You'll need certainly a good knowledge about protocols and typical behaviour of it but nevertheless this will not make you an ethical hacker. This takes much much more experience, dedication and years of work in the field.
Besides that; you will need lots and lots of other material to prepare yourself for the exam and to build up knowledge in general. For example; buy the guide of "professor Messer" to get additional knowledge on the Nmap tool. The book is however a great guide in the sometimes complex material.

I think this book is easy to read, the author did a great job on this. Second there is a good roll up of all the issues that where discussed in every chapter. I think CEH is a typically focussed on the Windows Platform. This not a problem for me because this is my expertise area anyway but unix and linux is touched lightly.

With that in mind, great guide for preparing, buy some other stuff or search the internet for additional material.

Rob Faber [CISSP, CEH, MCSE]
Security Consultant
The Netherlands

I think Michael Gregg did a fantastic job at taking everything that is in the CEH exam and presenting it in a logical and easy to read format. I personally enjoyed reading the book and recommend reading this book not only for the exam but also to learn more about ethical hacking and the tools used in our profession. I owe a big portion of my CEH certification to Michael Gregg and this book. Regardless if you have no experience or years of experience this book will provide you the knowledge to pass the CEH and further your knowledge or help you start a new career. Job well done!

This is a good book, but you need to have the official courseware because dont cover all topics deeply.