Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Study Guide

Chapter 6. Web-Based Hacking: Servers and Applications

Have you ever seen the movie The Shawshank Redemption? If we were all in a classroom together and you answered no, I’d stop all proceedings and make the entire lot of you reading this book go watch it. I’m entirely unsure if any pen test team (let alone society in general) can function with members who have not seen it. Not to mention, I do not want to be held at fault for turning you out as such. However, we’re not in class, and you’re free to do whatever you want, so the best I can do for those of you who will not go see the movie is to provide a wrap-up here. And to pray for you.

In the movie, a kind, honest, well-educated banker named Andy Dufresne is wrongly convicted for the murder of his wife and sentenced to life in the hellish Shawshank State Prison. He spends two decades of his life there and, through all the turmoil and strife, manages to form strong friendships, change lives, and stop evil in its tracks. He also manages to escape the prison, leaving the evil warden and those involved in his money-laundering operation to face the consequences of their actions. How Andy escapes the prison isn’t what the story is all about, but it is apropos to our discussion here. How, you may ask? Glad to explain.

Early in the film, Andy’s friend, Ellis Redding, gives him a small rock hammer for chiseling chess pieces. No guards can see the harm in it, so they just let him keep it. Over the next two decades, Andy painstakingly chisels ...