Hello there, Dear Reader, and welcome to the practice exams for Certified Ethical Hacker, now in version 9. If you’re the proud owner of previous editions of this book or its companion All-in-One book, CEH™ Certified Ethical Hacker All-in-One Exam Guide, welcome back! If not and you’re just picking this book up for the first time to see whether it’s for you, settle in for a moment and let’s cover a few really important items.
Some of you may be curious about what a “hacking” study guide looks like, or you may be thinking about attempting a new certification or career choice. Some of you may have already taken that decisive leap and started down the path, now looking for the next resource to help you along the journey. And some of you reading this may even be simply looking for some credentials for your career—most in this group are true professionals who already know how to do this job and are just finally ready to get the certification knocked out, while a small few are simply looking for a résumé bullet (one more certification you can put on your e-mail signature line to impress others).
Regardless of where you stand in your career or your desire for this certification, there are a couple of things I need to clear the air about—right up front before you commit to purchasing and reading this book. First (before I get to the bad stuff), I firmly believe this book will assist you in attaining your CEH certification. The entire team involved in this effort has spent a lot of time, energy, thought, research, and bourbon on producing what we think is the best companion resource guide on the market. I’m proud of it and proud to have been associated with the professionals who helped put it together.
That said, if you’re looking for a silver bullet—a virtual copy of the exam so you can simply memorize, go take the test, and forget about it—please stop reading now and go take your chances elsewhere. Part of the ethics of attaining, and maintaining, a CEH credential is the nondisclosure agreement all candidates sign before attempting the exam. I, and everyone else involved in this project, have taken great pains to provide you with examples of questions designed to test your knowledge of the subject at hand, not to provide you with questions to memorize. Those who are looking for that, and use that method to attain the certification, belittle and cheapen the hard work the community puts into this, and I would be sickened to know of anyone using this work for that purpose.
If you want to pass this exam and have the respect and benefits that come along with holding the certification, then you better damn well know how to do the job. The memorization/test-taking junkies out there may get an interview or two with this certification on their résumé, but trust me—they’ll be discovered as frauds before they ever get to round 2. This community knows the difference between a contender and a pretender, so don’t try to take shortcuts. Learn the material. Become an expert in it. Then go take the exam. If you’re not willing to put in the effort, maybe you should pick up another line of study. Like professional dodge ball. Or the janitorial arts. To quote a really bad 1980s testosterone movie, “There’s always barber college.”
With all that out of the way—and now that I’m talking to the real candidates for this certification—once again I firmly believe this book will help you in your attempt to attain the certification. As always, however, I must provide a word of caution: relying on a single book—any single book—to pass this exam is a recipe for disaster. Yes, this is a great resource, and you should definitely buy it (right now—don’t wait!). However, you simply will not pass this exam without the time and benefit that can come only from experience. As a matter of fact, EC-Council requires candidates sitting for the exam to have at least two years of IT security–related experience. Bolster your study in this book with practice, practice, and more practice. You’ll thank me for it later.
Lastly, keep in mind this certification isn’t a walk in the park. Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) didn’t gain the reputation and value it has by being easy to attain. Its worth has elevated it as one of the top certifications a technician can attain and is now part of DoD 8570’s call for certification on DoD networks. In short, this certification actually means something to employers because they know the effort it takes to attain it.
The exam itself is a four-hour, 125-question grueling marathon that will leave you exhausted when you click the Finish button. EC-Council has provided a handbook on the certification and exam (as of this writing, located at https://cert.eccouncil.org/images/doc/CEH-Handbook-v1.8.pdf) that provides all you’ll need to know about qualifications, content, and other information about the exam and certification. I’ve included some highlights in the following sections, detailing the exam and what you’ll need.
There are two ways for a candidate to attain CEH certification: with training or using only self-study. Per the site (http://iclass.eccouncil.org/?p=719), training options include the following:
• Live, online, instructor-led These courses are offered by many affiliates EC-Council has certified to provide the training. They offer the official courseware in one of two methods: a standard classroom setting or via an “online-live” training class you can view from anywhere. Both offerings have an ECC-certified instructor leading the way, and as of this writing costs $2,895 per seat.
• Client site EC-Council can also arrange for a class at your location, provided you’re willing to pay for it, of course. Costs for that depend on your organization.
As for doing it on your own, there are a couple methods available:
• i-Learn With this option, you pay for the official courseware and prerecorded offerings, along with the labs used for the class. This allows you to work through the stuff on your own, without an instructor. Cost as of this writing is $1,899.
• Self-Study If you want to study on your own and don’t care about the class at all (that is, you’ve been doing this for a while and don’t see the value of going to a class to have someone teach you what you already know), you can simply buy the courseware for $870 and study on your own.
The exam is a four-hour proctored test (in other words, it’s taken in person at an authorized testing facility). It’s computer based and allows you to skip and mark questions to revisit at the end of each section. Your exam score is tabulated immediately after completion, so be sure to review everything before clicking Finish. A passing score is 70 percent, which means you need to answer at least 88 questions out of 125 correctly. You can find authorized VUE test facilities at their website (http://www.vue.com/eccouncil). Here are some key points to keep in mind:
• Test content Version 9 of the CEH exam, per EC-Council, tests 20 domains, cobbled together in seven different categories. Each section is tested individually and has a weighted value, with an appropriate number of questions offered to cover the material (for example, per the breakdown from the site, you’ll see three questions on ethics). Most of the exam points and weighting come from system attacks, tool knowledge, and networking knowledge.
• Eligibility Per EC-Council, you must either attend their official training—official CEH instructor-led training (ILT), computer-based training (CBT), or online live training—or submit an exam eligibility form (along with a $100 nonrefundable fee) proving you’ve been in the security field for at least two years. In either case, once you’ve been approved to sit for the exam, EC-Council will forward a code to you that must be presented at the Authorized VUE Testing Center on the date of the exam.
• Forms Before sitting for the exam, you’ll be required to sign nondisclosure forms and candidate agreement forms (indicating you promise to be ethical in your hacking). If you’re taking the exam without attending training, you’ll also need to submit the CEH eligibility form to certmanager@eccouncil.org. The eligibility form requires your colleagues’ and boss’s signatures, and you’ll need to include a copy of a valid government-approved identification. EC-Council will contact your boss for a follow-up interview to complete the process and verify your eligibility. All forms and submission instructions (fax numbers and e-mail addresses) are available within the handbook.
• Test retake policy If a candidate fails on the first attempt, there is no waiting period—in other words, you can immediately retake the exam if you want. On the second, third, and fourth failures, you must wait 14 days before a reattempt. The only other restriction on this is you are not allowed to attempt the exam five times within a 12-month period.
• Getting your certification Per the handbook, after successfully attaining at least a minimum score, you will be issued your CEH credential and will receive your CEH welcome kit within four to eight weeks. The CEH credential is valid for three-year periods but can be renewed each period by successfully earning EC-Council Continued Education (ECE) credits. All EC-Council correspondence will be sent to the e-mail address provided during your exam registration. If your e-mail address changes, it is your responsibility to notify certadmin@eccouncil.org; failing that, you will not be able to receive ECE credits for your work.
Best of luck to you, Dear Reader. I sincerely hope your exam goes well for you and your career is filled with great experiences. Be honest, do a good job, and make every day and action work toward a better world.
I’ve organized this book so that each chapter consists of a battery of practice exam questions representing part of the knowledge and skills you need to know to pass the Certified Ethical Hacker exam. This book was designed to mirror the organization of CEH Certified Ethical Hacker All-in-One Exam Guide, Third Edition, and it serves as an excellent companion.
This book features a pre-assessment test as Appendix A. The pre-assessment test will gauge your areas of strength and weakness and allow you to tailor your studies based on your needs. I recommend you take this pre-assessment test before starting the questions in Chapter 1.
In addition to the practice questions included in this book, 300 practice questions are provided in an electronic test engine. You can create custom exams by chapter, or you can take multiple timed, full-length practice exams. For more information, please see Appendix B.