Top 50 Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers

Cyber security is the practice of protecting internet-connected systems. It includes hardware, software, and data, from cyber threats. Cyber security measures are designed to safeguard computer systems, networks, and mobile devices from unauthorized access or theft. Malicious attacks, and other forms of cybercrime. As more and more sensitive information is stored and transmitted electronically, cybersecurity has become a critical concern for businesses, governments, and individuals. In this particular article, we are more focusing on the Top 50 Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers.

 

1. What is your understanding of ethical hacking? 

• Ethical hacking involves using hacking techniques to identify vulnerabilities in systems or networks with the goal of improving their security, rather than exploiting them for malicious purposes.

2. What motivates you to become an ethical hacker? 

• I am motivated by a desire to help organizations and individuals improve their security and protect their sensitive data from potential cyber-attacks.

3 . What is your experience with ethical hacking?

• This is a basic question that will help the interviewer understand the candidate’s level of experience in ethical hacking. The candidate should provide information on their background, certifications, and any previous work experience in the field.

4. How do you keep up-to-date with the latest hacking techniques and tools? 

• I keep up-to-date with the latest hacking techniques and tools by reading industry blogs and publications, attending conferences and seminars, and participating in online communities and forums.

5. What are some common types of vulnerabilities that you look for during a penetration test? 

• Some common types of vulnerabilities that I look for during a penetration test include outdated software and operating systems. Some have weak passwords, misconfigured network services, and unpatched vulnerabilities.

6. How do you ensure that you are complying with legal and ethical boundaries when conducting ethical hacking?

• The candidate should explain their process for obtaining proper authorization and consent before conducting an ethical hacking engagement. They should also discuss the steps they take to ensure that they stay within legal and ethical boundaries during the engagement.

7. Can you describe your methodology for conducting an ethical hacking engagement?

• The candidate should discuss their approach to conducting an ethical hacking engagement. It includes the tools and techniques they use, the types of vulnerabilities they look for, and their process for reporting and documenting their findings.

8. Can you explain the difference between ethical hacking and malicious hacking?

• Ethical hacking is conducted with the permission of the target organization and is intended to identify and report vulnerabilities in their systems. Malicious hacking, on the other hand, is done without permission and is intended to cause harm or steal sensitive information.

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9. How do you stay up-to-date with the latest cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities?

• The candidate should discuss their process for staying current on the latest cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. This may include attending conferences, participating in online forums, reading industry publications, and taking part in ongoing training and education.

10. How do you prioritize vulnerabilities discovered during an ethical hacking engagement?

• The candidate should discuss their process for prioritizing vulnerabilities based on their severity, likelihood of exploitation, and potential impact on the target organization.

11. Can you describe a particularly challenging ethical hacking engagement you have worked on and how you approached it?

• The candidate should describe a specific engagement they worked on, the challenges they faced, and how they overcame those challenges to identify and report vulnerabilities to the target organization.

12. How do you approach the balance between finding vulnerabilities and maintaining system stability during an ethical hacking engagement?

• The candidate should discuss their process for balancing the need to find vulnerabilities with the need to maintain system stability during an ethical hacking engagement. This may include setting up test environments, conducting thorough testing. It also includes working closely with the target organization to minimize disruption.

13. How do you communicate your findings and recommendations to clients or stakeholders?

• The candidate should describe their process for communicating their findings and recommendations to clients or stakeholders, including the types of reports they produce and the methods they use to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

14. What are some of the most common types of vulnerabilities that you encounter during an ethical hacking engagement?

• The candidate should discuss some of the most common types of vulnerabilities they encounter during ethical hacking engagements, including SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and buffer overflow vulnerabilities. They should also discuss the steps they take to mitigate these vulnerabilities and prevent them from being exploited.

15. What is cybersecurity?

• Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting internet-connected systems, including hardware, software, and data, from attack, damage, or unauthorized access.

16. What are the three key objectives of cybersecurity?

• The three key objectives of cybersecurity are confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Confidentiality refers to protecting sensitive information from unauthorized access or disclosure. Integrity involves ensuring that information is accurate and trustworthy. Availability refers to ensuring that systems and information are accessible to authorized users when needed.

17. What are some common cybersecurity threats?

• Common cybersecurity threats include malware, phishing attacks, password attacks, denial of service attacks, and ransomware attacks.

18. What is a firewall?

• A firewall is a security device that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules. It acts as a barrier between a trusted internal network and untrusted external networks, such as the Internet.

19. What is encryption?

• Encryption is the process of converting information into a code or cipher to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure. This involves using an algorithm and a key to scramble the information, making it unreadable without the correct decryption key.

20. What is two-factor authentication?

• Two-factor authentication is a security process that requires users to provide two forms of identification to access a system or application. This may include a password or PIN, as well as a biometric identifier or a one-time code sent to a mobile device.

21. What is a vulnerability assessment?

• A vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying and evaluating security vulnerabilities in a system or application. This involves using automated tools and manual techniques to identify weaknesses that could be exploited by attackers.

22. What is a patch?

• A patch is a software update that is released to fix security vulnerabilities or bugs in a program or operating system. Installing patches is an important part of maintaining the security of systems and applications.

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23. What is social engineering?

• Social engineering is a type of cyber attack that involves manipulating people into divulging sensitive information or performing actions that could compromise security. This may include phishing attacks, pretexting, or baiting.

24. What is the difference between a virus and a worm?

• A virus is a type of malware that is designed to spread from one system to another system. It is by attaching itself to a file or program. A worm is a self-replicating program that is designed to spread across a network and infect multiple systems without the need for human interaction.

 

Most Asked Top 50 Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers

25. What is information security?

• Information security is the practice of protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction.

26. What are the three key objectives of information security?

• The three key objectives of information security are confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Confidentiality refers to protecting sensitive information from unauthorized access or disclosure. Integrity involves ensuring that information is accurate and trustworthy. Availability refers to ensuring that systems and information are accessible to authorized users when needed.

27. What is risk management in information security?

• Risk management is the process of identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks to information security. This involves identifying potential threats and vulnerabilities, assessing the likelihood and impact of those threats, and implementing controls to mitigate or reduce the risk.

28. What is the difference between a threat and a vulnerability?

• A threat is a potential danger or risk that could exploit a vulnerability in a system or application. A vulnerability is a weakness in a system or application that could be exploited by a threat.

29. What is access control in information security?

• Access control is the process of controlling who has access to a system, application, or information. This involves using authentication and authorization mechanisms to verify the identity of users and determine their level of access.

30. What is the difference between authentication and authorization?

• Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user, while authorization is the process of determining what actions or resources a user is allowed to access based on their identity and level of privilege.

31. What is encryption in information security?

• Encryption is the process of converting information into a code or cipher to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure. This involves using an algorithm and a key to scramble the information, making it unreadable without the correct decryption key.

32. What is a security incident?

• A security incident is any event that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of information. This may include unauthorized access or disclosure, system malfunctions, or cyber-attacks.

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33. What is a security policy?

• A security policy is a set of rules and procedures that define the acceptable use of information technology and the measures that should be taken to protect information assets. It provides guidance for employees and stakeholders on how to maintain security and avoid security incidents.

34. What is data backup and recovery?

• Data backup and recovery is the process of creating copies of important data and storing them in a secure location to protect against data loss. In the event of a security incident or system failure, data can be recovered from the backup copies to minimize the impact of the incident.

 

IMPORTANT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR MALWARE ANALYSIS

35. What Is A Virus?

• A program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes.
• Viruses can also replicate themselves.
• All computer viruses are manmade.
• Viruses copy themselves to other disks to spread to other computers.
• They can be merely annoying or they can be vastly destructive to your files.

36. What Is Trojan Horse? give Few Examples.

A Trojan Horse program has the appearance of having a useful and desired function.

• A Trojan Horse neither replicates nor copies itself, but causes damage or compromises the security of the computer.
• A Trojan Horse must be sent by someone or carried by another program and may arrive in the form of a joke program or software of some sort.
• These are often used to capture your logins and passwords.

37. What Are Worms?

• A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program.
• It uses a network to send copies of itself to other nodes (computers on the network) and it may do so without any user intervention.
• It does not need to attach itself to an existing program

38. What Is Phishing?

    Phishing :

• Phishing (pronounced like the word ‘fishing’) is a message that tries to trick you into providing information like your social security number or bank account information or logon and password for a website.
• The message may claim that if you do not click on the link in the message and log onto a financial website your account will be blocked, or some other disaster.

39. What Is Ransomware?

Ransomware :

• Ransomware is a form of malware that essentially holds a computer system captive while demanding a ransom.
• The malware restricts user access to the computer either by encrypting files on the hard drive or locking down the system and displaying messages that are intended to force the user to pay the malware creator to remove the restrictions and regain access to their computer.

40. How Does Malware Spread?

• Malware is a program that must be triggered or somehow executed before it can infect your computer system.

Here are some examples of how malware is distributed are given that:

• Social network.
• Pirated software.
• Removable media.
• Emails.
• Websites.

41. Explain What Is Firewall?

• A firewall block attempts to access your files over a network or internet connection.
• That will block incoming attacks.
• Your computer can become infected through shared disks or even from another computer on the network.

42. What is reverse-engineering of malware?

• Reverse-engineering of malware consists of taking an executable and performing what has been called the “computer version of an MRI” on it. Due to the unknown nature of the executable, this work should be performed on a system or environment that is not connected to the network to minimize potential damage. This process can be painstaking. But it is sometimes the only way to understand the executable.

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43. What are some common techniques used by malware authors to evade detection? 

• Some common techniques used by malware authors to evade detection include obfuscation, polymorphism, and encryption.

44. How do you differentiate between benign and malicious network traffic? 

• I differentiate between benign and malicious network traffic by analyzing the content and behavior of the traffic and looking for patterns that indicate suspicious or malicious activity.

45. What tools and techniques do you use to analyze malware? 

• I use a variety of tools and techniques, such as static and dynamic analysis tools, network traffic analysis tools, and virtual machines or sandbox environments

46. Can you describe a recent malware analysis project you worked on? 

• Sure, I recently analyzed a malware sample that was distributed through a phishing email campaign. I conducted static and dynamic analysis, examined the network traffic, and identified the command and control servers used by the malware.

47. What are some common mistakes that inexperienced malware analysts make? 

• Some common mistakes that inexperienced malware analysts make include not properly setting up a sandbox environment, relying too heavily on automated tools, and not fully understanding the malware’s behavior and capabilities.

 

IMPORTANT QUESTION FOR PENETRATION TESTING

48. What is Cross-site scripting?

• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks are a type of injection, in which malicious scripts are injected into otherwise benign and trusted websites. XSS attacks occur when an attacker uses a web application to send malicious code, generally in the form of a browser-side script, to a different end user.

49. Types of injection attacks?

• The injection is involved in four prevalent attack types. They are as follows. XSS injection, Expression Language Injection, command injection, and SQL injection. During an injection attack, untrusted inputs or unauthorized code are “injected” into a program and interpreted as part of a query or command.

50. What is broken authentication?

• Broken authentication is an umbrella term for several vulnerabilities that attackers exploit to impersonate legitimate users online. Broadly, broken authentication refers to weaknesses in two areas: session management and credential management. Both are classified as broken authentication because attackers can use either avenue to masquerade as a user: hijacked session IDs or stolen login credentials.

51. What is your process for performing a penetration test? 

• My process for performing a penetration test typically involves gathering information about the target system, identifying vulnerabilities and potential attack vectors, attempting to exploit those vulnerabilities, and providing a detailed report of findings and recommendations for remediation.

52. How do you ensure the confidentiality and security of sensitive data during a penetration test? 

• I ensure the confidentiality and security of sensitive data by only accessing and sharing it with authorized personnel, using secure communication channels, and following established protocols for handling sensitive data.

53. What are some common vulnerabilities you frequently encounter during a penetration test? 

• Some common vulnerabilities I frequently encounter during a penetration test include outdated software and operating systems, weak passwords, misconfigured network services, and unpatched vulnerabilities.

Web Application Top 50 Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers

54. Top 10 Web Application Security Risks?

The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a non-profit organization focused on improving the security of software. OWASP has created a list of the top 10 web application security risks. Here are the top 10 web application security risks:

• Injection flaws: Injection flaws occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. This can allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code or commands on the server.
• Broken authentication and session management: This risk includes the improper management of user authentication and session management, which can lead to unauthorized access to the system.
• Cross-site scripting (XSS): This vulnerability allows attackers to inject malicious scripts into web pages viewed by other users. The scripts can be used to steal user data, such as login credentials, or to take control of the user’s session.
• Broken access controls: This risk involves the failure to restrict access to sensitive functionality or data. This can allow attackers to view, modify, or delete data without authorization.
• Security misconfiguration: Security misconfiguration occurs when systems or applications are configured with default or insecure settings, making them vulnerable to attack.
• Insecure communication: This risk involves the transmission of sensitive information over insecure channels, such as unencrypted HTTP, which can be intercepted and manipulated by attackers.
• Insufficient cryptography: This vulnerability occurs when weak or outdated cryptographic algorithms are used to protect sensitive data, making it easier for attackers to decrypt the information.
• Insecure components: This risk arises from the use of third-party components, such as libraries, frameworks, or plugins, that contain known vulnerabilities.
• Improper error handling: This vulnerability occurs when an application fails to properly handle error conditions, which can provide attackers with useful information about the system or cause unexpected behavior.

• Poor code quality: Poor code quality can lead to a wide range of security issues, such as buffer overflows, race conditions, and integer overflows. These issues can be exploited by attackers to gain unauthorized access to the system.

55. what is SQL injection?

• SQL injection is a type of web application security vulnerability that allows an attacker to manipulate the backend database of a web application. SQL injection occurs when an application takes user input, such as form data or URL parameters, and uses it to construct an SQL query to be executed against the database. If the application does not properly sanitize or validate the user input, an attacker can craft a malicious input that includes SQL code that gets executed by the database.

56. Explain Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption.

• encryption is changing the order of data’s appearance from its original format to keep out intrusion from those who do not have the clearance to access the data. Symmetric encryption involves the use of a single encryption and decryption pass key. One password can both encrypt and decrypt the data. In such cases, both the owner and end-user share the same key. 
• In asymmetric encryption, the software owners have a private pass key while the end-users have a public pass key. This is to segregate high-level data that the public cannot access from available data.

Do watch our video: Career in Cyber Security

 

Author:-

Rajat Sharma

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