Question 1

What is Ethical Hacking?

Accepted Answer

Ethical hacking involves an authorized attempt to gain unauthorized access to a computer system, application, or data. The goal is to identify security vulnerabilities which can then be resolved before a malicious attacker can exploit them. It is also known as 'Penetration Testing' or 'White Hat Hacking'.

Question 2

Explain the CIA Triad.

Accepted Answer

The CIA triad is a foundational model for information security:
1. **Confidentiality**: Ensuring that data is accessible only to authorized individuals.
2. **Integrity**: Ensuring that data is accurate and has not been tampered with.
3. **Availability**: Ensuring that systems and data are accessible when needed.

Question 3

What are the different types of hackers?

Accepted Answer

- **White Hat**: Ethical hackers who use their skills for defensive purposes with permission.
- **Black Hat**: Malicious hackers who violate security for personal gain or damage.
- **Grey Hat**: Hackers who may violate laws but usually don't have malicious intent (e.g., exposing a bug without permission but not exploiting it).

Question 4

What is Footprinting?

Accepted Answer

Footprinting is the first phase of ethical hacking. It involves gathering as much information as possible about a target network or system to identify potential entry points. This includes IP addresses, DNS information, and employee details.

Question 5

What is the difference between VAPT and Penetration Testing?

Accepted Answer

- **Vulnerability Assessment (VA)**: A passive process of identifying and reporting known vulnerabilities without exploiting them.
- **Penetration Testing (PT)**: An active and authorized attempt to exploit vulnerabilities to verify their existence and impact.
- **VAPT** is the combination of both.

Question 6

What is Social Engineering?

Accepted Answer

Social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. Examples include Phishing, Baiting, and Pretexting.

Question 7

What is Phishing?

Accepted Answer

Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends fraudulent messages (usually via email) designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information or deploying malicious software.

Question 8

What is a Firewall?

Accepted Answer

A firewall is a network security device that monitors and filters incoming and outgoing network traffic based on an organization's previously established security policies. It acts as a barrier between a trusted network and an untrusted one.

Question 9

What is an IDS and IPS?

Accepted Answer

- **IDS (Intrusion Detection System)**: Monitors network traffic for suspicious activity and alerts defenders.
- **IPS (Intrusion Prevention System)**: Monitors traffic and actively takes steps to block or stop detected threats.

Question 10

What is the purpose of Cryptography?

Accepted Answer

Cryptography is the science of securing communication by converting plain text into an unreadable format (ciphertext) using mathematical algorithms and keys. It ensures confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity.

Question 11

What is Symmetric vs Asymmetric Encryption?

Accepted Answer

- **Symmetric**: Uses the same key for both encryption and decryption (e.g., AES).
- **Asymmetric**: Uses a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption (e.g., RSA).

Question 12

What is Hashing?

Accepted Answer

Hashing is a one-way mathematical function that turns data into a fixed-length string of characters. Unlike encryption, hashing cannot be reversed. It is used to verify data integrity (e.g., MD5, SHA-256).

Question 13

What is a DoS and DDoS attack?

Accepted Answer

- **DoS (Denial of Service)**: An attack aimed at making a system or network resource unavailable to its intended users.
- **DDoS (Distributed DoS)**: When multiple compromised systems (botnets) are used to target a single system with a flood of traffic.

Question 14

What is a Botnet?

Accepted Answer

A botnet is a network of hijacked computer devices (bots) that are under the control of a single attacking party (the botmaster or botherder). They are often used for DDoS attacks and spamming.

Question 15

What is the 5-step process of Hacking?

Accepted Answer

1. **Reconnaissance**: Information gathering.
2. **Scanning**: Identifying open ports and services.
3. **Gaining Access**: Exploiting vulnerabilities.
4. **Maintaining Access**: Setting up backdoors.
5. **Clearing Tracks**: Removing logs to hide the intrusion.

Question 16

What is Brute Force Attack?

Accepted Answer

A brute force attack is a trial-and-error method used by application programs to decode encrypted data, such as passwords or Data Encryption Standard (DES) keys, through exhaustive effort rather than employing intellectual strategies.

Question 17

What is a Rootkit?

Accepted Answer

A rootkit is a collection of computer software, typically malicious, designed to enable access to a computer or an area of its software that is not otherwise allowed and often masks its existence.

Question 18

What is the difference between a Virus and a Worm?

Accepted Answer

- **Virus**: Requires a human action to spread (e.g., opening a file) and attaches itself to a program.
- **Worm**: A standalone program that can self-replicate and spread across networks without human intervention.

Question 19

What is the OSI Model?

Accepted Answer

The OSI model consists of 7 layers: Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, and Application. Understanding these layers is crucial for identifying where vulnerabilities exist.

Question 20

What is Port Scanning?

Accepted Answer

Port scanning is a method used to determine which ports on a network are open and could be receiving or sending data. It's also used to send packets to specific ports and analyze the responses.
Code Example:
nmap -sS -p 1-65535 <target_ip>

Question 21

Common ports to remember?

Accepted Answer

- 21: FTP
- 22: SSH
- 23: Telnet
- 25: SMTP
- 53: DNS
- 80: HTTP
- 443: HTTPS
- 3389: RDP

Question 22

What is a VPN?

Accepted Answer

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) creates a secure, encrypted tunnel over the internet between your device and a server. It masks your IP address and encrypts your data traffic.

Question 23

What is the 'Principle of Least Privilege' (PoLP)?

Accepted Answer

PoLP is the practice of limiting access rights for users to the bare minimum permissions they need to perform their job functions. This reduces the risk of accidental or intentional security breaches.

Question 24

What is a SQL Injection (SQLi)?

Accepted Answer

SQLi is a type of vulnerability where an attacker can interfere with the queries that an application makes to its database. It allows attackers to view, modify, or delete sensitive data.

Question 25

What is the difference between TCP and UDP?

Accepted Answer

- **TCP**: Connection-oriented, reliable, ensures packets arrive in order (e.g., HTTP, SSH).
- **UDP**: Connectionless, faster but unreliable, no guarantee of delivery or order (e.g., DNS, VoIP, Streaming).

Question 26

What are the 6 phases of Penetration Testing?

Accepted Answer

1. **Planning and Reconnaissance**: Gathering info.
2. **Scanning**: Using tools like Nmap to see open ports.
3. **Gaining Access**: Exploiting vulnerabilities (SQLi, XSS).
4. **Maintaining Access**: Staying in the system.
5. **Analysis**: Preparing a report.
6. **Information Sharing**: Communicating findings.

Question 27

What is OWASP Top 10?

Accepted Answer

The OWASP Top 10 is a standard awareness document for developers and web application security. It represents a broad consensus on the most critical security risks to web applications (e.g., Injection, Broken Access Control, Cryptographic Failures).

Question 28

What is XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)?

Accepted Answer

XSS is a vulnerability where an attacker injects malicious scripts into content from otherwise trusted websites. When a user visits the page, the script executes in their browser, potentially stealing session cookies.

Question 29

Explain the three types of XSS.

Accepted Answer

1. **Stored (Persistent)**: The malicious script is permanently stored on the server (e.g., in a comment field).
2. **Reflected (Non-persistent)**: The script is 'reflected' off the web server in an error message or search result.
3. **DOM-based**: The vulnerability exists in the client-side code rather than the server-side code.

Question 30

What is CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)?

Accepted Answer

CSRF is an attack that forces an authenticated user to execute unwanted actions on a web application in which they're currently authenticated. With a little help of social engineering, an attacker may trick the users of a web application into executing actions of the attacker's choosing.

Ethical Hacking & Cyber Security Master

Difficulty Filters

Tools & Options

What is Ethical Hacking?

Explain the CIA Triad.

What are the different types of hackers?

What is Footprinting?

What is the difference between VAPT and Penetration Testing?

What is Social Engineering?

What is Phishing?

What is a Firewall?

What is an IDS and IPS?

What is the purpose of Cryptography?

What is Symmetric vs Asymmetric Encryption?

What is Hashing?

What is a DoS and DDoS attack?

What is a Botnet?

What is the 5-step process of Hacking?

What is Brute Force Attack?

What is a Rootkit?

What is the difference between a Virus and a Worm?

What is the OSI Model?

What is Port Scanning?

Common ports to remember?

What is a VPN?

What is the 'Principle of Least Privilege' (PoLP)?

What is a SQL Injection (SQLi)?

What is the difference between TCP and UDP?

What are the 6 phases of Penetration Testing?

What is OWASP Top 10?

What is XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)?

Explain the three types of XSS.

What is CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)?

What is a 'Man-in-the-Middle' (MitM) attack?

What is ARP Spoofing?

Explain the difference between Encoding, Encrypting, and Hashing.

What is SQLmap and how do you use its basic command?

What is Burp Suite?

What is a Reverse Shell vs Bind Shell?

What is Enumeration?

Explain Nmap scripts (NSE).

What is 'Salting' in password hashing?

What is a 'Zombie' in the context of cyberattacks?

What is Metasploit Framework?

What is the difference between a False Positive and a False Negative?

What is a 'Buffer Overflow'?

What is 'Netcat' (nc)?

What is Sniffing?

What is the 'Same-Origin Policy' (SOP)?

What is Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Mitigation?

What is 'Broken Access Control'?

What is 'Credential Stuffing'?

What is the difference between vulnerability scanning and port scanning?

Explain 'Pivoting' in penetration testing.

What is a 'Zero-Day' vulnerability?

What is 'Steganography'?

Explain 'Honey Pots'.

What is the difference between a Black Box and a White Box test?

What is 'Fuzzing'?

What is an 'Evil Twin' attack?

Explain 'DDoS Mitigation' techniques.

What is 'DNS Tunneling'?

What is 'BlueTeaming' vs 'RedTeaming'?

What is 'Privilege Escalation'?

What is a 'Sandbox' in cybersecurity?

What is 'WAF' (Web Application Firewall)?

What is 'Penetration Testing Reporting'?

What is 'Session Hijacking'?

Explain 'Cryptography' vs 'Steganography'.

What are the common vulnerabilities in IoT devices?

What is 'Air Gapping'?

Explain the importance of 'Patch Management'.

What is 'Packet Injection'?

What is an 'SQL Injection' (Blind SQLi)?

Explain 'Bug Bounty' programs.

What is 'Cyber Forensics'?

What is 'Bypassing 2FA' techniques?

What is 'Reverse Engineering' in security?

Scenario: You find an open port 80. What is your next step?

Scenario: How to identify the operating system of a remote host?