Ethical Hacking Interview Questions
This article provides a list of common interview questions related to ethical hacking, designed to help employers evaluate potential candidates for the role. Questions cover a wide range of topics, including technical skills, security processes, and problem-solving strategies.
1. What is ethical hacking?
It’s the process of testing a computer system, network, or web app to identify security loopholes that can be targeted by a hacker. Ethical hackers just need to replica the attackers’ moves to secure the databases from being attacked. The objective behind all this is to enhance the security measures of an organization related to cyber security/ attacks.
2. What are the different types of hacking?
Some of the hacking techniques are as follows:
1) White Hat Hacking: In this kind of hacking, the perpetrator supports the organization to enhance their security measures.
2) Black Hat Hacking: Such hacking involves unauthorized control over someone’s database, exploitation, and many more.
3) Grey Hat Hacking: This kind of hacking promotes professionalism among new participants in the field of hacking as they try their skills to find vulnerabilities in the systems to support the enhancement of security measures.
4) Script Kiddie Hacking: Such kind of hacking involves newbies trying to hack systems with existing hacking methods, scripts, and tools.
5) Phishing Hacking: Such kind of hacking needs techniques to trick the victim into disclosing confidential data.
3. What are the tools used for ethical hacking?
Some of the top-tier tools used for ethical hacking are as follows
a) Nmap
b) Network and Vulnerability Scanners
c) Metasploit
d) Armitage
e) John the Ripper
f) Wireshark
g) Aircrack-ng
h) Maltego
i) Burp Suite
j) SQLMap
k) Cain and Abel
l) THC Hydra
m) OWASP Zed Attack Proxy
4. What is the difference between an IP address and a Mac address?
1) IP Addresses are known for being used as a medium of communication on a computer network. Also, they are used for routing data online.
2) There, MAC Address is a physical address that is utilized to find a certain device on a network. Moreover, they are used for local network communication.
5. What is MIB?
It’s also known as “Management Information Base.” You can take it as a database of objects that can be observed and managed on a network. Moreover, it’s utilized to stimulate
a) Network Performance,
b) Fault Management,
c) And Accounting.
6. What is footprinting?
It’s the process of collecting data about a company to have a better look at its
a) Structure
b) Security Posture
c) And Vulnerabilities
Techniques such as follows are involved in footprinting:
● Collecting data from public sources.
● Doing Online Search.
● Utilizing tools such as port scanners and vulnerability scanners.
The objective behind this process is to access knowledge about the targeted system so that the security measures can be upgraded.
7. What are the best sniffing tools?
Some of the best sniffing tools are as follows
a) Wireshark
b) Tcpdump
c) NetworkMiner
d) NetWitness Investigator
e) Nmap
f) Ettercap
g) Snort
h) Kismet
i) Cain & Abel
j) EtherApe
8. What is DNS Cache Poisoning?
In this attack, the adversary uses malicious data to corrupt the Domain Name System resolver cache. Due to the malicious data DNS resolver returns an incorrect IP address, while redirecting users to a fake website/ service. This kind of attack can be used to route unsuspecting users to
a) Phishing Websites
b) Malware Downloads
c) Or Malicious Content
9. What is a phishing attack?
In this attack, the attacker will use social engineering techniques to trick victims into getting their confidential data such as
1) Passwords
2) Credit Card Numbers
3) Other Personal Data
The adversarytries imitating the legitimate company/ individual to gain the victim’s trust. Moreover, the objective behind this attack is to breach sensitive data like – financial data or to deploy malicious software on the victim’s system.
10. What are the types of password-cracking techniques?
Some of the password-cracking techniques are as follows
1) Brute-Force Attack
2) Dictionary Attack
3) Rainbow Table Attack
4) Hybrid Attack
5) Social Engineering
6) Reverse-Engineering
11. What is the difference between a virus and a worm?
a) Virus – It’s a kind of malicious software used to spread across computers.
b) Worm – It makes its replica across several PCs without users’ directions. They don’t even need a host app or file to spread. Thus, resulting in faster spreading than viruses.
12. What do you mean by keystroke logging?
Also known as keylogging/ keyboard capturing. In this attack, the attacker tracks down and records all keys clicked on the keyboard. After which, the data gets stored for analysis. Moreover, it can be used to track users’ activities, gain control over sensitive data, and observe system use.
13. What do you mean by Trojan and explain its types?
It’s a kind of malicious software to execute an unauthorized Execution over a user’s system, such as
a) Stealing Confidential Data
b) Logging Keystrokes
c) Accessing Users’ System.
They spread usually via various means as follows
1) Email Attachments
2) Download
3) Websites
Some of the Trojans are listed below
a) Backdoor Trojans
b) Exploit Trojans
c) Remote Access Trojans (RATs)
d) Password-stealing Trojans
e) Banking Trojans
14. What is Cowpatty?
It’s an open-source tech for cracking WPA/ WPA2 Wi-Fi Networks. Moreover, it can be taken as an audit to test the capacity of WPA or WPA2 passwords. It can also be used to create rainbow tables (used for pre-calculating and storing the results of dictionary attacks).
15. What do you mean by exploitation?
It is the process of taking advantage of the vulnerabilities in a system to get access to databases, apps, networks, or any other resources. Hackers use exploitation to gain access to systems and networks. The objective behind this process is to disclose potential risks and to offer suggestions on enhancing security measures.
16. What is enumeration in ethical hacking?
It’s the process of identifying valid usernames and enumerating other user data on a PC/ network. Moreover, it can be used to gain access to connected networks or systems for confidential data. It allows ethical hackers to gain access to other users’ accounts, to launch further attacks.
17. What are the different enumerations available in ethical hacking?
Following are the different enumerations available in ethical hacking
a) Footprinting
b) Scanning
c) Enumeration
d) System Hacking
e) Trojan Creation
f) Social Engineering
g) Denial of Service (DoS) Attack
h) Web Server Hacking
i) Penetration Testing
18. What is defacement?
It’s a kind of unauthorized modification of a website/ webpage by switching the content with an Image, text, or code. Mostly used as a protest. You can take it as a cybercrime and can cause serious legal penalties.
19. What is MAC flooding and how to prevent it?
In such attacks, the adversary sends a huge amount of frames with random source MAC addresses to the victim. It floods the switch’s MAC address table, which disrupts the recognitionof legitimate MAC addresses of the systems connected to it. Moreover, it can cause DoS Attacks.
How to prevent it?
a) The switch should be driven with a port security feature limiting the amount of MAC Addresses which can be saved on a port.
b) Plus, the switch should be driven with port security aging. That’s to remove inactive MAC addresses automatically.
c) Switch should be driven to alert admins when a port’s MAC table reaches its max limit.
20. What is sniffing and what are its types?
It’s a kind of networking monitoring needed to capture and analyze data packets running over a network. This is the execution of intercepting and logic traffic passing through a digital network. There are two types of sniffing such as follow
a) Passive Sniffing
b) Active Sniffing
21. What is ARP poisoning?
It is also known as ARP Spoofing/ ARP Cache Poisoning. In this attack, the adversary sends malicious ARP messages to a LAN. via this attack, network devices overwrite their ARP Cache entries with the adversary’s MAC address. That results in all traffic intercepted and redirected to the attacker’s machine which was intended to go to the network’s authorized devices.
22. How to prevent ARP poisoning?
You can use the following techniques to prevent ARP Poisoning:
1) Use Static ARP entries
2) Use ARP Security Software
3) Use Port Security
4) Use a Firewall
5) Use Encryption
23. What is SQL injection and how to prevent it?
SQL injection is a type of attack in which malicious code is inserted into a web application’s SQL query to gain access to sensitive data or damage the underlying database. It is one of the most common web application security vulnerabilities.
To prevent SQL injection, input validation, and parameterized queries should be used to ensure that user input is sanitized and only valid commands are executed. Other methods include using stored procedures, limiting user privileges, and using object-relational mapping (ORM) tools.
24. What is Cross-Site scripting and how can you fix it?
It’s an injection attack to inject malicious code into a web app. That code can be utilized to access confidential data, stealuser credentials, to perform other malicious acts.
Now to fix
● Need to deploy appropriate validation to ensure all input gets properly sanitized.
● Plus, output encoding can support ensuring the user’s data is properly encoded to be safe.
● In the end, use web app firewalls to detect and block malicious requests.
25. What is a DDoS attack and how does it work?
It’s a kind of cyberattack, in which an adversary uses victimized machines to flood targeted systems with malicious requests. That makes it hard to respond to legitimate traffic.
Process
● Adversary will send a huge amount of traffic to the targeted system.
● This will disrupt the responding time of the system to any activity happening.
● The attack can be executed by various means. Some of them are as follows
a) Botnets
b) Compromised
26. What are the types of DDoS attacks?
Following are the various types of DDoS Attacks:
1) Volumetric Attacks
2) Protocol Attacks
3) Application Layer Attacks
4) Reflection/ Amplification Attacks
27. What is a Pharming attack and how to prevent it?
It’s a kind of attack in which malicious code drives the users from a legitimate website to a fake one without the user’s consent. Such codes can be hidden in
a) Website
b) Email
c) Advertisement
d) False DNS Entry.
This attack supports stealing confidential data such as
1) Usernames
2) Passwords
3) Credit Card No.
4) Other Personal Data.
How to stop?
● You must get aware of the websites you are trying to visit, and ensure the URL is “OK.”
● Look for “https” in the URL to ensure website safety.
● Plus, avoid clicking keys on
a) Suspicious Links in Emails
b) Advertisements
c) Other Sources.
● Anti-Virus will look up for detecting and removing any malicious code.
28. What is Spoofing?
It’s a kind of attack, in which an adversary imitates another user/ device to gain access to
a) System
b) Network
c) Application
Such attacks are used to gain unauthorized access to
1) Computers
2) Networks
3) Websites
29. What are the different types of penetration testing?
Some of the penetration tests are as follows:
a) External Penetration Testing
b) Internal Penetration Testing
c) Web Application Penetration Testing
d) Network Penetration Testing
e) Wireless Penetration Testing
f) Social Engineering Penetration Testing
g) Mobile Application Penetration Testing
h) IoT Penetration Testing
30. What is a social engineering attack?
Such attacks manipulate users to the extent that they
a) Discloses their confidential data
b) Get ready to perform certain acts,
c) Click on malicious links
d) Give away passwords.
Some of the social engineering methods are
1) Phishing,
2) Baiting,
3) And Tailgating
31. What are the different types of social engineering attacks?
The different types of social engineering attacks are as follows
a) Phishing Attacks
b) Pretexting
c) Baiting
d) Quid Pro Quo Attacks
e) Tailgating
f) Dumpster Diving
32. What is a rogue DHCP server?
It’s an illegitimate DHCP server on a network. Due to this various issues can arise
a) Assigning incorrect IP addresses
b) Or conflicting with existing DHCP servers.
Via such servers, attackers can launch DoS attacks/ spoof the IP Addresses of hosts.
33. What is Burp Suite?
It’s a web app security testing tool. Via this tool, one can find loopholes in a web app. Moreover, security professionals can run security checks with this tool. That includes
a) Proxy Server,
b) Spider,
c) Intruder,
d) Repeater,
e) Sequencer,
f) Decoder
g) and more.