Cyber Security is one of the highly sought-after careers in the IT industry now. The demand grows as the need to get things online increases day by day. It also poses the industry with the major concern of securing data assets to prevent any misuse of data. The increase in cybercrimes has become a threat for major companies, which compels them to hire Cyber Security professionals like Cyber security Engineers and Cyber security analysts to secure company assets for business success. So, you can take advantage of this market trend and be a Cyber Security expert. Skim through these top 50 Cyber Security interview questions and answers to prepare yourself for the interview. Show
Q1. What is cryptography? 1. Basic 2. Intermediate 3. Advanced Check out our YouTube video on Cyber Security Interview Questions:Top 50 Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers Top 50 Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers Basic Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers1. What is cryptography?Cryptography aids to secure information from third parties who are called adversaries. It allows only the sender and the recipient to access the data securely. 2. What is traceroute? Mention its uses.Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool. It helps track the route taken by a packet that is sent across the IP network. It shows the IP addresses of all the routers it pinged between the source and the destination. Uses:
3. What is a firewall? Mention its uses.A firewall is a network security device/system, which blocks malicious traffic such as hackers, worms, malware, and viruses to maintain data privacy. Uses:
4. What is a three-way handshake?It is a process that happens in a TCP/IP network when you make a connection between a local host and the server. It is a three-step process to negotiate acknowledgment and synchronization of packets before communication starts. Step 1: The client makes a connection with the server with SYN. Step 2: The server responds to the client request with SYN+ACK. Step 3: The client acknowledges the server’s response with ACK, and the actual data transmission begins. Get 100% Hike! Master Most in Demand Skills Now ! 5. What is a response code? List them.HTTP response codes indicate a server’s response when a client makes a request to the server. It shows whether an HTTP request is completed or not. 1xx: Informational The request is received, and the process is continuing. Some example codes are:
2xx: Success The action is received, understood, and accepted successfully. A few example codes for this are:
3xx: Redirection To complete the request, further action is required to take place. Example codes:
4xx: Client Error The request has incorrect syntax, or it is not fulfilled. Here are the example codes for this:
5xx: Server Error The server fails to complete a valid request. Example codes for this are:
6. What is the CIA triad?CIA Triad is a security model to ensure IT security. CIA stands for confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
7. What are the common cyberattacks?Here is a list of common cyberattacks aimed at inflicting damage to a system.
Check out our blog on Cyber Security Tips and Best Practices to prevent Cyber Security attacks! 8. What is data leakage?Data leakage means the unauthorized transmission of data from an organization to an external recipient. The mode of transmission can be electronic, physical, web, email, mobile data, and storage devices, such as USB keys, laptops, and optical media. Types of data leakage:
9. Explain port scanning.A port scan helps you determine the ports that are open, listening, or closed on a network. Administrators use this to test network security and the system’s firewall strength. For hackers, it is a popular reconnaissance tool to identify the weak point to break into a system. Some of the common basic port scanning techniques are:
Check out this interesting blog on Hacking Software now! 10. Explain brute force attack and the ways to prevent it.A brute force attack is a hack where the attacker tries to guess the target password by trial and error. It is mostly implemented with the help of automated software used to login with credentials. Here are some ways to prevent a brute force attack:
11. Explain the difference between hashing and encryption.HashingEncryptionA one-way function where you cannot decrypt the original messageEncrypted data can be decrypted to the original text with a proper keyUsed to verify dataUsed to transmit data securelyUsed to send files, passwords, etc. and to searchUsed to transfer sensitive business information 12. What is the difference between vulnerability assessment (VA) and penetration testing (PT)?Vulnerability Assessment (VA)Penetration Testing (PT)Identifies the vulnerabilities in a networkIdentifies vulnerabilities to exploit them to penetrate the systemTells how susceptible the network isTells whether the detected vulnerability is genuineConducted at regular intervals when there is a change in the system or networkConducted annually when there are significant changes introduced into the system 13. Mention the steps to set up a firewall.Following are the steps you have to follow to set up a firewall:
14. What is SSL encryption?Secure Socket Layer is a security protocol that is used for the purpose of encryption. It ensures privacy, data integrity, and authentication in the network like online transactions. The following are the steps for setting up an SSL encryption:
15. What steps will you take to secure a server?A server that is secured uses the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol to encrypt and decrypt data to protect it from unauthorized access. Below are the four steps to secure a server: Step 1: Secure the root and administrator users with a password Step 2: Create new users who will manage the system Step 3: Do not give remote access to administrator/default root accounts Step 4: Configure firewall rules for remote access Intermediate Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers16. What is the difference between HIDS and NIDS?Host Intrusion Detection SystemNetwork Intrusion Detection SystemDetects the attacks that involve hostsDetects attacks that involve networks Analyzes what a particular host/application is doingExamines the network traffic of all devicesDiscovers hackers only after the machine is breachedDiscovers hackers at the time they generate unauthorized attacks 17. Mention the difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption.Differentiator Symmetric EncryptionAsymmetric EncryptionEncryption KeyOnly one key to encrypt and decrypt a messageTwo different keys (public and private keys) to encrypt and decrypt the messageSpeed of ExecutionEncryption is faster and simpleEncryption is slower and complicatedAlgorithmsRC4, AES, DES, and 3DESRSA, Diffie-Hellman, and ECCUsage For the transmission of large chunks of dataFor smaller transmission to establish a secure connection prior to the actual data transfer 18. What is the difference between IDS and IPS?Intrusion Detection SystemIntrusion Prevention SystemA network infrastructure to detect intrusion by hackersA network infrastructure to prevent intrusions by hackersFlags invasion as threadsDenies the malicious traffic from threadsDetects port scanners, malware, and other violationsDoes not deliver malicious packets if the traffic is from known threats in databases 19. What are the different layers of the OSI model?OSI model was introduced by the International Organization for Standardization for different computer systems to communicate with each other using standard protocols. Below are the various layers of the OSI model:
20. What is a VPN?VPN stands for virtual private network. It is a private network that gives you online anonymity and privacy from a public Internet connection. VPN helps you protect your online activities, such as sending an email, paying bills, or shopping online. How does a VPN work?
Are you excited to know about the Access Control List, so check out this blog! 21. What do you understand by risk, vulnerability, and threat in a network?
22. How do you prevent identity theft?To prevent identity theft, you can take the following measures:
Enroll in our Cyber Security Course in Bangalore to upskill yourself! 23. Who are White Hat, Grey Hat, and Black Hat Hackers?Black Hat Hackers White Hat Hackers Grey Hat Hackers Check out this interesting blog on Cyber Security Consultant Career! 24. When should you do patch management, and how often?Patch management has to be done immediately once the updates to the software is released. All the network devices in the organization should get patch management in less than a month. 25. What are the ways to reset a password-protected BIOS configuration?BIOS being hardware, setting it up with a password locks the operating system. There are three ways to reset the BIOS password:
Debug o 70 2E o 71 FF quit This will reset all BIOS configurations, and you need to re-enter the settings for it. 26. Explain the MITM attack. How to prevent it?In the Man-in-the-Middle attack, the hacker eavesdrops on the communication between two parties. The individual then impersonates another person and makes the data transmission look normal for the other parties. The intent is to alter the data, steal personal information, or get login credentials for sabotaging communication. These are a few ways to prevent a MITM attack:
27. Explain the DDoS attack. How to prevent it?Distributed denial-of-service attack overwhelms the target website, system, or network with huge traffic, more than the server’s capacity. The aim is to make the server/website inaccessible to its intended users. DDoS happens in the below two ways: Flooding attacks: This is the most commonly occurring type of DDoS attack. Flooding attacks stop the system when the server is accumulated with massive amounts of traffic that it cannot handle. The attacker sends packets continuously with the help of automated software. Crash attacks: This is the least common DDoS attack where the attacker exploits a bug in the targeted system to cause a system crash. It prevents legitimate users from accessing email, websites, banking accounts, and gaming sites. To prevent a DDoS attack, you have to:
28. Explain the XSS attack. How to prevent it?Cross-site scripting also known as XSS attack allows the attacker to pretend as a victim user to carry out the actions that the user can perform, in turn, stealing any of the user’s data. If the attacker can masquerade as a privileged victim user, one can gain full control over all the application’s data and functionality. Here, the attacker injects malicious client-side code into web services to steal information, run destructive code, take control of a user’s session, and perform a phishing scam. Here are the ways to prevent an XSS attack:
29. What is an ARP, and how does it work?Address Resolution Protocol is a communication protocol of the network layer in the OSI model. Its function is to find the MAC address for the given IP address of the system. It converts the IPv4 address, which is 32-bit, into a 48-bit MAC address. How ARP works:
30. What is port blocking within LAN?It refers to restricting users from accessing a set of services within the local area network. The main aim is to stop the source from providing access to destination nodes via ports. Since all applications run on the ports, it is necessary to block the ports to restrict unauthorized access, which might violate the security vulnerability in the network infrastructure. Advanced Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers31. What are the protocols that fall under the TCP/IP Internet layer?Application LayerNFS, NIS, SNMP, telnet, ftp, rlogin, rsh, rcp, RIP, RDISC, DNS, LDAP, and othersTransport LayerTCP, SCTP, UDP, etc.InternetIPv4, ARP, ICMP, IPv6, etc.Data Link LayerIEEE 802.2, PPP, etc.Physical LayerEthernet (IEEE 802.3), FDDI, Token Ring, RS-232, and others 32. What is a botnet?A botnet, which is also known as a robot network, is a malware that infects networks of computers and gets them under the control of a single attacker who is called a ‘bot herder.’ A bot is an individual machine that is under the control of bot herders. The attacker acts as a central party who can command every bot to perform simultaneous and coordinated criminal actions. The botnet is a large-scale attack since a bot herder can control millions of bots at a time. All the botnets can receive updates from the attacker to change their behavior in no time. 33. What are salted hashes?When two users have the same password, it will result in the creation of the same password hashes. In such a case, an attacker can easily crack the password by performing a dictionary or brute-force attack. To avoid this, a salted hash is implemented. A salted hash is used to randomize hashes by prepending or appending a random string (salt) to the password before hashing. This results in the creation of two completely different hashes, which can be employed to protect the users’ passwords in the database against the attacker. 34. Explain SSL and TLS.Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Transport Layer Security (TLS) 35. What is data protection in transit vs data protection at rest?Data Protection in TransitData Protection at RestData is transmitted across devices or networksData is stored in databases, local hard drives, or USBsProtects the data in transit with SSL and TLSProtects the data at rest with firewalls, antiviruses, and good security practices You must protect the data in transit since it can become vulnerable to MITM attacks, eavesdropping, etc. You should protect the data at rest to avoid possible data breaches even when stolen or downloaded 36. What is 2FA, and how can it be implemented for public websites?Two-factor authentication (2FA) requires a password, along with a unique form of identification like a login code via text message (SMS) or a mobile application, to verify a user. When the user enters the password, he/she is prompted for the security code to log in to the website. If the code mismatches, the user will be blocked from entering the website. Examples of 2FA: Google Authenticator, YubiKey, Microsoft Authenticator, etc. 37. What do you mean by Cognitive Cybersecurity?Cognitive Cybersecurity is a way of using human-like thought mechanisms and converting them to be used by Artificial Intelligence technologies in cyber security to detect security threats. It is to impart human knowledge to the cognitive system, which will be able to serve as a self-learning system. This helps identify the threats, determine their impact, and manifest reactive strategies. 38. What is the difference between VPN and VLAN?Virtual Private Network Virtual Local Area Network Provides secure remote access to a company’s network resources Used to group multiple computers that are geographically in different domains into the same geographical broadcast domainA network serviceA way of subnetting the networkCompanies wishing to connect with their remote employees will use a VPNCompanies wishing to employ traffic control and easier management will use a VLAN 39. Explain phishing. How to prevent it?In phishing, an attacker masquerades as a trusted entity (as a legitimate person/company) to obtain sensitive information by manipulating the victim. It is achieved by any kind of user interaction, such as asking the victim to click on a malicious link and to download a risky attachment, to get confidential information such as credit card information, usernames, passwords, and network credentials. The following are some of the ways to prevent phishing:
40. Explain SQL injection. How to prevent it?SQL injection is an injection attack where an attacker executes malicious SQL commands in the database server, including MySQL, SQL Server, or Oracle, that runs behind a web application. The intent is to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data such as client information, personal information, intellectual property details, and so on. In this attack, the attacker can add, modify, and delete records in the database, which results in the data integrity loss of an organization. Ways to prevent SQL injection:
Have a look at this Cyber Security Tutorial, which will make it easier for you to dive into this field! Scenario-based Questions41. You have a suture from where you receive the following email from the help desk:Dear YYY,We are deleting all inactive emails to create space for other new users. If you want to save your account data, please provide the following details:First Name and Last Name:Email ID:Password:Date of Birth:Alternate Email:Please submit the above detail by the end of the week to avoid any account termination.Considering the above scenario, how would you react as a user? Explain briefly.The above email is an excellent illustration of phishing. Here are the reasons why:
As a rule of thumb, you should never revert to a sender who demands personal information and passwords via emails, phone calls, text messages, and instant messages (IMs). You must not disclose your data to any external party even if the sender works for organizations such as ITS or UCSC. Want to learn more about Cyber Security? Enroll in our Cyber Security Course now and practice essential cyber security interview questions! 42. You get an e-card in your mail from a friend. It asks you to download an attachment to view the card. What will you do? Justify your answer.
43. A staff member in a company subscribes to various free magazines. To activate the subscription, the first magazine asks her for her birth month, the second magazine asks for her birth year, and the third magazine asks for her maiden name. What do you deduce from the above situation? Justify your answer.It is highly likely that the above-mentioned three newsletters are from a parent company, which are distributed through different channels. It can be used to gather essential pieces of information that might look safe in the user’s eyes. However, this can be misused to sell personal information to carry out identity theft. It might further ask the user for the date of birth for the activation of the fourth newsletter. In many scenarios, questions that involve personal details are unnecessary, and you should not provide them to any random person, company, or website unless it is for a legitimate purpose. 44. To print billing, you have to provide your login credentials in your computing labs. Recently, people started to get a bill for the print, which was never done by them. When they called to complain, the bill turned out to be correct. How do you explain the above situation?To avoid this situation, you should always sign out of all accounts, close the browser, and quit the programs when you use a shared or public computer. There are chances that an illegitimate user can retrieve your authorized data and perform actions on behalf of you without your knowledge when you keep the accounts in a logged-in state. 45. In our campus computer lab, one of my friends logged into her Yahoo account. When she left the lab, she made sure that the account was not left open. Later, she came to realize that someone re-accessed her account from the browser, which she has used to send emails, by impersonating her. How do you think this happened?There are two possible scenarios:
46. An employee’s bank account faces an error during a direct deposit. Two different offices need to work on it to straighten this out. Office #1 contacts Office #2 by email to send the valid account information for the deposit. The employee now gives the bank confirmations that the error no longer exists. What is wrong here?Any sensitive information cannot be shared via email as it can lead to identity theft. This is because emails are mostly not private and secure. Sharing or sending personal information along the network is not recommended as the route can be easily tracked. In such scenarios, the involved parties should call each other and work with ITS as a secure way of sending the information. Check out this interesting blog on the difference between the Cyber Security and Information Security! 47. You see an unusual activity of the mouse pointer, which starts to move around on its own and clicks on various things on the desktop. What should you do in this situation?A. Call any of the co-workers to seek helpB. Disconnect the mouseC. Turn your computer offD. Inform the supervisorE. Disconnect your computer from the networkF. Run anti-virusG. Select all the options that apply?Which options would you choose?The answer is (D) and (E). This kind of activity is surely suspicious as an unknown authority seems to have the access to control the computer remotely. In such cases, you should immediately report it to the respective supervisor. You can keep the computer disconnected from the network till help arrives. 48. Check out the list of passwords below, which are pulled out from a database:A. Password1B. @#$)*&^%C. UcSc4Evr!D. akHGksmLNChoose the passwords that are in line with the UCSC’s password requirements.The answer is C (UcSc4Evr!). As per the UCSC requirements, a password should be:
49. The bank sends you an email, which says it has encountered a problem with your account. The email is provided with instructions and also a link to log in to the account so that you can fix it. What do you infer from the above situation? Explain.It appears to be an unsolicited email. You should report it as spam and move the email to the trash immediately in the respective web client you use (Yahoo Mail, Gmail, etc.). Before providing any bank-related credentials online, you should call the bank to check if the message is legitimate and is from the bank. 50. In your IT company, employees are registering numerous complaints that the campus computers are delivering Viagra spam. To verify it, you check the reports, and it turns out to be correct. The computer program is automatically sending tons of spam emails without the owner’s knowledge. This happened because a hacker had installed a malicious program into the system. What are the reasons you think might have caused this incident?This type of attack happens when the password is hacked. To avoid this, whenever you set a password, always use a proper standard, i.e., use passwords that are at least 8-character length and have a combination of upper case/lower case letters, symbols/special characters, and numbers. Other scenarios of the above attack could be:
That’s all for now! This blog has listed answers to the most frequently asked Cyber Security interview questions. The answers provided here aim to help you have an understanding of Cyber Security basics. You have also understood how you can implement the concepts practically in the real world through scenario-based questions. Hope this will help you crack your next Cybersecurity interview. If you have any doubts or queries regarding the Cyber Security interview question or preparation, shoot it right away in our Cyber Security Community. What questions are asked in a cyber security interview?Top 10 Frequently Asked Cyber Security Interview Questions. Define Cybersecurity?. What is the difference between IDS and IPS?. What is a Botnet?. What is the difference between stored and reflected XSS?. What are HTTP response codes?. List the common types of cybersecurity attacks.. What is a cybersecurity risk assessment?. What are the 5 types of cyber security?Cybersecurity can be categorized into five distinct types:. Critical infrastructure security.. Application security.. Network security.. Cloud security.. Internet of Things (IoT) security.. What are the 3 importance of cyber security?Cybersecurity is critical because it helps to protect organizations and individuals from cyber attacks. Cybersecurity can help to prevent data breaches, identity theft, and other types of cybercrime. Organizations must have strong cybersecurity measures to protect their data and customers.
What are the 3 elements of cyber security?When we discuss data and information, we must consider the CIA triad. The CIA triad refers to an information security model made up of the three main components: confidentiality, integrity and availability. Each component represents a fundamental objective of information security.
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