Top 20 Ethical Hacking Interview Questions With Answers

Bernie Deon

Last updated 21/07/2021

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So, what does it take to become the dark knight of technology?

Yes, we are talking about Ethical Hacking. 

You have probably dreamt of being an ethical hacker from the time you started coding. Or, maybe it was the time when you have hacked through your school’s wifi password so that you can finish your project in time. Maybe it was at that point when you hacked your boyfriend or girlfriend’s social media account just o spy on them. There have been different times for each of you when you realized that you have grown fond of hacking, and at a certain point of time, you have decided to take up hacking as a career for good and becoming an ethical hacker. But now the million-dollar question arrives. Do you have what it takes to become an ethical hacker?

In our previous blog “Certified Ethical Hacker: The Dark Knight Of Technology”, we have mentioned all the skills that you’d need to acquire to become an ethical hacker. Let us state them in nutshell once again. In order to become an ethical hacker, you’ll have to have:

1. Knowledge of operating environments such as Windows, Linux, Unix, Macintosh
2. Familiarity with programming languages such as HTML, PHP, Python, etc.
3. A deep understanding of networking
4. Awareness of local security laws and standards
5. Understanding  of the architecture of the operating system
6. Understanding of malware analysis and reverse engineering

Think you have it all? 

Great!

Now let’s walk you through the 20 most important Ethical Hacking interview questions with answers!

1. What is Ethical Hacking?

Ans. Ethical hacking is an act of locating the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of computer and information systems by duplicating the intent and actions of malicious hackers. Ethical hacking is also known as penetration testing, intrusion testing, or red teaming. An ethical hacker is a security professional who applies their hacking skills for defensive purposes on behalf of the owners of information systems. 

2. What is ARP poisoning?

Ans. ARP Poisoning is a technique by which an attacker sends spoofed Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) messages onto a local area network. Generally, the aim is to associate the attacker's MAC address with the IP address of another host, such as the default gateway, causing any traffic meant for that IP address to be sent to the attacker instead. It is also known as ARP spoofing or ARP cache poisoning.

3. How can you avoid ARP poisoning?

Ans. Here are a few ways to avoid ARP poisoning:

• Packet filters can filter out & block packets with clashing source address data.
• Organizations should develop a protocol that depends on the trust relationship as less as they can.
• Some programs assess and certify information the transmission and block any information that is spoofed.

4. What is footprinting in ethical hacking?

Ans. Footprinting is gathering information about a target system that can be used to execute a successful cyber attack. To get this information, a hacker might use various methods with variant tools. This information is the first key for the hacker to crack a system.

5. What are some techniques used for footprinting?

Ans. Some widely used footprinting techniques are:

• Open source footprinting
• Network enumeration
• Scanning
• Stack fingerprinting

6. What is the difference between IP address and Mac address?

Ans. IP address is an address that is assigned to every device so that it can be located on the network.

On the other hand, Mac address is a unique serial number that is assigned to every network interface on every device.

7. Name some common tools used by ethical hackers.

Ans. Some common Ethical Hacking tools are as follows:

• Meta Sploit
• Wire Shark
• NMAP
• John The Ripper
• Maltego

8. How many types of Ethical hackers are there?

Ans. There are 4 types of Ethical Hackers:

• Grey Box hackers or Cyber warrior
• Black Box penetration Testers
• White Box Penetration Testers
• Certified Ethical hacker

9. Define DOS.

Ans. DOS or a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to the Internet. Denial of service is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled. 

10. What are the regular types of DOS assaults?

Ans. The regular types of DOS assaults are:

• Buffer Overflow Attacks
• SYN Attack
• Teardrop Attack
• Smurf Attack
• Viruses

11. What are Pharming and Defacement?

Ans. Pharming is a strategy where the attacker compromises the DNS (Domain Name System) servers or on the user PC with the goal that traffic is directed towards the malicious site.

During the defacement strategy, the attacker replaces the firm’s site with an alternate page that contains the hacker’s name, images and may even include messages and background music.

12. What is Brute Force hack?

Ans. Brute force hack is a process of hacking passwords and getting access to the system and network resources. It takes a lot of time, and to execute it properly the hacker needs to learn about JavaScripts. 

 13. What is SQL injection?

Ans. SQL is a technique to steal data from organizations. It is executed by creating a fault in the application code. An SQL injection happens when you inject the content into a SQL query string and the result mode content into a SQL query string. After that, the result modifies the syntax of your query in ways you did not intend.

14. What are some social engineering attacks?

Ans. Some social engineering attacks are as follows:

• Phishing
• Baiting
• Online scams

15. What do you mean by phishing?

Ans. Phishing technique is executed by sending false e-mails, chats or websites to impersonate real systems with the goal of stealing information from the original website.

16. What is Cowpatty?

Ans. CowPAtty is a C-based tool for running a brute-force dictionary attack against WPA-PSK and audit pre-shared WPA keys.

17. What is CIA Triangle?

Ans. A CIA Triangle involves 3 main components:

• Confidentiality: Keeping the information secret.
• Integrity: Keeping the information unaltered.
• Availability: Information is available to the authorized parties at all times.

18. What is Mac Flooding?

Ans.  A media access control attack or MAC flooding is a technique employed to compromise the security of network switches. The attack works by forcing legitimate MAC table contents out of the switch and forcing a unicast flooding behavior potentially sending sensitive information to portions of the network where it is not normally intended to go.

19. What is Network Sniffing?

Ans. Network sniffing is the use of a software tool, called a network sniffer, that monitors or sniffs the data flowing over computer network links in real-time. This software tool is either a self-contained software program or a hardware device with the appropriate software or firmware.

20. What are the types of password cracking techniques?

Ans. The types of password cracking techniques include:

• AttackBrute Forcing
• AttacksHybrid
• AttackSyllable
• AttackRule

Conclusion:

Maybe you are thinking, you just have to study these interview questions and voila! You are a champion who would be able to give the dark side of the web a taste of its own medicine. But that’s not it. If you really want to get hired to be someone who can roll the dice in dark for an organization’s good, that can only be achieved by taking the Ethical Hacking training! So hurry up and check the details of our virtual Certified Ethical Hacker sessions right away!

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