CEH Certified Ethical Hacker All-in-One Exam Guide, Second Edition 2nd Edition

This book was a fantastic supplement to the video training I had purchased. The videos I purchased were not very good, all the 'instructors' did was read the PowerPoint slides 'out loud' from the official EC-Council curriculum. After getting to the end of these 'lectures', it became immediately clear that I would need more to prepare for this exam. This book really helped to solidify the material and Matt Walker's writing style is great, it really takes the 'dryness' out of the subject matter.The book gets 5 stars, the included practice test needs some major proofreading though.Some exam advice: 1.) Per Matt's writing at the beginning, this exam assumes that you already have some extensive experience in IT/Networking. I would highly recommend that anyone attempting this exam go through some CCNA video training first, and possibly Security+ to get familiar with concepts, especially PKI and cryptography. In addition you should also be familiar with A+ and Network+ material, in my opinion you should not be attempting this exam until you are. 2.) If you are going the route of using practice exams for preparation, do NOT rely solely on the included practice exam. I found several instances where answers stated I was wrong, but I was actually correct and vice versa. On a couple questions, some of the options were duplicated.

The author adds in some stories, history, and general trivia that makes the book an easier read. He even mentions things that may confuse people who are already in the business as some things on the test are not as they appear in real life, and these factoids are very much appreciated. I've read numerous technical books that aren't seated in real life very well, but this author does a good job of avoiding fallacy. There are some grammatical errors in the book that should have been caught before publishing, but I've seen a lot worse. I think I came across a couple technical inaccuracies too, but I can't remember what they were offhand, so they must not have been critical.I do get the impression that the author is a hardcore Windows user and has never programmed before, so I'm a little disappointed about the book (or moreover the CEH exam) on that front, but this is because I'm admittedly biased against doing security work in Windows. Most attackers are using Linux, so I don't see why people on the other side of the spectrum wouldn't follow suit. He also mentions various times that a GUI interface for a CLI tool is probably preferred, which actually irritated me a bit. You can't point-and-click your way through security. If you think you can, I certainly wouldn't want to work with you.After reading the book, I don't consider the CEH certification to be of much practical use other than something to go on a resume. I believe that it's going to be a beast for me to pass, but that's because I'm already into the security realm at work and have predefined notions that I'll have to unlearn. I've also been focused on learning things for practical use over memorization of trivial information. Creating and modifying tools is what I'm really interested in improving, but unfortunately the CEH exam looks like it's going to be too focused on how to use specific functions with specific tools, rather than how they actually work. I've been a Linux admin for years, and I find it ridiculous to memorize flags just for the sake of memorization. This is what man pages are for. I kept on getting the feeling like I'm studying to become a certified script kiddie, but that's just my personal opinion. In all fairness, this is a technical guide nonetheless with crucial business and political information to boot.I'm taking the exam in 7 days, so I'll have to update this review with my results. If this review reads a little sour, it's because I'm required to take the exam for work. I've always wanted to take it, but man is it not what I had expected. I'm fully planning on taking the OSCP this year, which I hear is actually fun.UPDATE: I barely passed the CEH exam. It was a disappointing exam to take. There were two misspelled words and a lot of nonsense questions. You'll learn a lot studying for the CEH, but I honestly would have been furious if I spent my own money to take it. Sure, it may look good on your resume for some places, but I wouldn't consider it a very credible certification, especially at theses prices. I felt as though all of the questions were reworded over and over again to avoid people studying brain dumps.

First and foremost I guess I should state I recently passed the C|EH exam.After going through all of EC-Councils video courseware and labs, I felt like I hadn't really learned a whole lot or at least had a hard time absorbing information from the terribly dry videos. From some recommendations online I decided to pick up this book. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to read. Matt Walker takes dry technical subjects and presents them in an interesting way, while tossing in nerdy humor.As Matt states in the book, you should never just use one resource when studying for cert exams. I did find this to be a fantastic resource and probably the one I utilized the most.

I initially started with a different book, and before taking the test decided to get Matt Walker's practice test book. After taking a few of the practice tests, I realized I was nowhere near ready. So I bought this book, read it, and took the exam, passing on the first try. This book is a lot longer and more comprehensive than other books, and gets at the level of detail you need to know to pass. Save your time and money by just getting the book that works.