312-50v13 Certified Ethical Hacker Exam (CEHv13) Questions and Answers

DNS zone transfers occur when a secondary name server (slave) checks the Start of Authority (SOA) record from the primary server. The serial number in the SOA indicates the version of the zone file.

If:

Primary SOA serial > Secondary SOA serial

→ Zone transfer is initiated by the secondary server to update its data.

From CEH v13:

Module 3: DNS Enumeration

Topic: Zone Transfers and SOA Logic

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“A secondary name server periodically queries the primary name server for changes. If the serial number in the SOA record is higher on the primary, it indicates a zone update, and a zone transfer is triggered.”

Incorrect Options:

B: Reversed condition

C/D: Restarting services doesn’t necessarily trigger a transfer

E: TTL expiration affects caching, not zone transfer logic

The scenario describes a decentralized cryptographic trust model where each user maintains a ring or database of public keys, and communications are encrypted using the recipient’s public key. This aligns precisely with the Web of Trust (WOT) model.

According to the CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Web of Trust (WOT) is a decentralized trust model used primarily in PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) environments.

In WOT:

Each user maintains a local keyring of trusted public keys.

There is no central Certificate Authority (CA).

Trust is built based on mutual verification and endorsement of public keys among users.

It uses asymmetric cryptography: messages are encrypted using the receiver's public key and decrypted using the corresponding private key.

This model provides authentication (via digital signatures) and message integrity (via cryptographic hash functions).

Incorrect Options:

A. Zero Trust Network is a security architecture that enforces strict access control but is not a cryptographic trust model.

B. TLS (Transport Layer Security) is a protocol for securing data in transit, commonly used in HTTPS, and relies on the PKI trust model (not WOT).

C. SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is an outdated version of TLS, also based on centralized certificate authorities.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 20: Cryptography

Section: “Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Trust Models”

Subsection: “Web of Trust (WOT) Model”

Study Guide Table: Comparison of Trust Models – PKI vs WOT vs Hybrid

Lab references in CEH Engage may also cover key signing and verifying concepts in decentralized environments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_filtering

MAC filtering is a security method based on access control. Each address is assigned a 48-bit address, which is used to determine whether we can access a network or not. It helps in listing a set of allowed devices that you need on your Wi-Fi and the list of denied devices that you don’t want on your Wi-Fi. It helps in preventing unwanted access to the network. In a way, we can blacklist or white list certain computers based on their MAC address. We can configure the filter to allow connection only to those devices included in the white list. White lists provide greater security than blacklists because the router grants access only to selected devices.

It is used on enterprise wireless networks having multiple access points to prevent clients from communicating with each other. The access point can be configured only to allow clients to talk to the default gateway, but not other wireless clients. It increases the efficiency of access to a network.

The router allows configuring a list of allowed MAC addresses in its web interface, allowing you to choose which devices can connect to your network. The router has several functions designed to improve the network's security, but not all are useful. Media access control may seem advantageous, but there are certain flaws.

On a wireless network, the device with the proper credentials such as SSID and password can authenticate with the router and join the network, which gets an IP address and access to the internet and any shared resources.

MAC address filtering adds an extra layer of security that checks the device’s MAC address against a list of agreed addresses. If the client’s address matches one on the router’s list, access is granted; otherwise, it doesn’t join the network.

A hybrid attack is a method that combines the dictionary attack with brute-force techniques. It starts with a list of known words (like in a dictionary attack) and then mutates them by:

Appending or prepending numbers (e.g., password1, 123hello)

Adding special characters (e.g., P@ssword!, admin#123)

Varying letter casing or leetspeak (e.g., h@x0r)

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 6: Malware Threats → Password Cracking Methods

Incorrect Options:

B: Linear is not a password cracking method.

C: Symmetric refers to encryption, not password cracking.

D: Brute-force tries every possible combination but does not start with a word list.

A proxy server acts as a gateway between you and therefore the internet. It’s an intermediary server separating end users from the websites they browse. Proxy servers provide varying levels of functionality, security, and privacy counting on your use case, needs, or company policy.

If you’re employing a proxy server, internet traffic flows through the proxy server on its thanks to the address you requested. A proxy server is essentially a computer on the web with its own IP address that your computer knows. once you send an internet request, your request goes to the proxy server first. The proxy server then makes your web request on your behalf, collects the response from the online server, and forwards you the online page data so you’ll see the page in your browser.

WHOIS is an Internet service that allows users to query domain name registries to retrieve information about registered domain names. It includes data such as:

Registrant’s name and contact information

Domain creation and expiration dates

Registrar details and name servers

WHOIS is often used during the reconnaissance phase in penetration testing.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 2: Footprinting and Reconnaissance

Quote:

“WHOIS databases provide public domain registration details including contact names, email addresses, and registrar information. This is useful for initial reconnaissance.”

Incorrect Options:

B. CAPTCHA is used to distinguish human users from bots.

C. IANA oversees global IP address allocation and DNS root zone management.

D. IETF is responsible for internet standards, not registrant databases.

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In CEH v13 Malware Threats, BITS is highlighted as a legitimate Windows service frequently abused by attackers for stealthy command-and-control (C2) communication and data exfiltration. BITS is designed to transfer files in the background using idle bandwidth, primarily for Windows Updates and Microsoft services.

Attackers exploit BITS because its traffic closely resembles legitimate Windows update traffic, which is almost always allowed through firewalls, proxies, and endpoint security controls. This makes malicious traffic blend seamlessly into normal network activity, significantly reducing the likelihood of detection.

Option C correctly captures this behavior. BITS does not rely on IP fragmentation (Option A), DNS encryption (Option B), or exclusive HTTP tunneling (Option D). Instead, it leverages trusted system behavior and signed binaries, allowing malware to “live off the land.”

CEH v13 stresses that abuse of trusted services like BITS is a hallmark of advanced persistent threats (APTs) and fileless malware. Detecting such abuse typically requires behavioral monitoring rather than signature-based detection.

Thus, Option C is correct.

https://owasp.org/www-community/attacks/csrf

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) is an attack that forces an end user to execute unwanted actions on a web application in which they’re currently authenticated. With a little help of social engineering (such as sending a link via email or chat), an attacker may trick the users of a web application into executing actions of the attacker’s choosing. If the victim is a normal user, a successful CSRF attack can force the user to perform state changing requests like transferring funds, changing their email address, and so forth. If the victim is an administrative account, CSRF can compromise the entire web application.

CSRF is an attack that tricks the victim into submitting a malicious request. It inherits the identity and privileges of the victim to perform an undesired function on the victim’s behalf. For most sites, browser requests automatically include any credentials associated with the site, such as the user’s session cookie, IP address, Windows domain credentials, and so forth. Therefore, if the user is currently authenticated to the site, the site will have no way to distinguish between the forged request sent by the victim and a legitimate request sent by the victim.

CSRF attacks target functionality that causes a state change on the server, such as changing the victim’s email address or password, or purchasing something. Forcing the victim to retrieve data doesn’t benefit an attacker because the attacker doesn’t receive the response, the victim does. As such, CSRF attacks target state-changing requests.

It’s sometimes possible to store the CSRF attack on the vulnerable site itself. Such vulnerabilities are called “stored CSRF flaws”. This can be accomplished by simply storing an IMG or IFRAME tag in a field that accepts HTML, or by a more complex cross-site scripting attack. If the attack can store a CSRF attack in the site, the severity of the attack is amplified. In particular, the likelihood is increased because the victim is more likely to view the page containing the attack than some random page on the Internet. The likelihood is also increased because the victim is sure to be authenticated to the site already.

TCP port 48101 uses the Transmission management Protocol. transmission control protocol is one in all the most protocols in TCP/IP networks. transmission control protocol could be a connection-oriented protocol, it needs acknowledgement to line up end-to-end communications. only a association is about up user’s knowledge may be sent bi-directionally over the association.

Attention! transmission control protocol guarantees delivery of knowledge packets on port 48101 within the same order during which they were sent. bonded communication over transmission control protocol port 48101 is that the main distinction between transmission control protocol and UDP. UDP port 48101 wouldn’t have bonded communication as transmission control protocol.

UDP on port 48101 provides Associate in Nursing unreliable service and datagrams might arrive duplicated, out of order, or missing unexpectedly. UDP on port 48101 thinks that error checking and correction isn’t necessary or performed within the application, avoiding the overhead of such process at the network interface level.

UDP (User Datagram Protocol) could be a borderline message-oriented Transport Layer protocol (protocol is documented in IETF RFC 768).

Application examples that always use UDP: vocalisation IP (VoIP), streaming media and period multiplayer games. several internet applications use UDP, e.g. the name System (DNS), the Routing info Protocol (RIP), the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), the straightforward Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

The nbtstat command is a Windows utility that displays NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) protocol statistics, NetBIOS name tables, and the NetBIOS name cache. However, the nbtstat command does not support IPv6 addresses, which are the standard format for the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). Therefore, using the nbtstat command with IPv6 addresses will result in an error message or no output. To enumerate NetBIOS names on a network that uses IPv6, you should switch to an enumeration tool that supports IPv6, such as Nmap, which is a network scanning and security auditing tool. Nmap has a scripting engine (NSE) that allows users to write and execute scripts for various network tasks, including NetBIOS enumeration. Nmap can also detect the operating system, services, and vulnerabilities of the target machines, regardless of the IP version they use. References:

Nbtstat Command - Computer Hope

Nbtstat CMD: Windows Network Command Line Prompt

[Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) Documentation]

According to CEH v13, black box testing refers to a testing approach where the ethical hacker has no prior knowledge of the internal structure, source code, or configuration of the system.

The attacker simulates a real-world external attacker, relying solely on discovery and exploitation techniques.

White box testing = full knowledge

Gray box testing = partial knowledge

CEH identifies insecure data transfer as a critical IoT weakness. Outdated encryption protocols such as SSLv2 fail to protect confidentiality or integrity. Without strong encryption and authentication, attackers can intercept, decrypt, and manipulate video feeds.

This scenario describes Linear Cryptanalysis, a technique detailed in CEH v13 Cryptography. Linear cryptanalysis involves finding linear approximations that relate plaintext bits, ciphertext bits, and key bits using XOR operations. By analyzing a large number of known plaintext–ciphertext pairs, attackers can identify statistical biases that reveal information about the secret key.

CEH v13 explains that linear cryptanalysis differs from differential cryptanalysis in its approach. While differential cryptanalysis studies how differences in plaintext affect differences in ciphertext, linear cryptanalysis focuses on linear relationships and probability distributions.

The mention of XOR combinations and statistical analysis of plaintext–ciphertext pairs directly aligns with linear cryptanalysis. Brute-force attacks attempt all keys without analysis. Differential cryptanalysis focuses on input differences, not linear equations. Side-channel attacks exploit physical characteristics such as power consumption or timing.

Modern block ciphers like AES are designed to resist linear cryptanalysis by ensuring that linear approximations occur with probabilities close to random. CEH v13 highlights linear cryptanalysis as a foundational attack method used to evaluate cipher strength.

Therefore, Option C is correct.

Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing compiled software to reconstruct its source code or understand its structure and functionality. In the context of mobile applications:

It involves decompiling the APK (for Android) or IPA (for iOS) files.

Analysts can inspect the disassembled or decompiled code.

The goal is to uncover logic flaws, identify hardcoded secrets, debug issues, or assess security weaknesses.

According to CEH v13:

Reverse engineering is a common security assessment method to validate code quality and investigate vulnerabilities in mobile and binary applications.

Tools like JADX, Apktool, Hopper, and Ghidra are often used.

Incorrect Options:

B. App sandboxing restricts app access to system resources; it's a protection mechanism, not an analysis method.

C. Jailbreaking is the process of removing OS restrictions, not source code analysis.

D. Social engineering manipulates human behavior, unrelated to code or binary analysis.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 17: Hacking Mobile Platforms

Section: “Mobile Application Security Testing”

Subsection: “Reverse Engineering Tools and Techniques”

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Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) uses a hierarchical data structure similar to a directory tree. SQL databases use a relational structure with tables, rows, and columns.

Because of its hierarchical nature:

LDAP is excellent for parent-child relationships.

It struggles with representing many-to-many or many-to-one relationships efficiently.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 4: Enumeration → LDAP Basics

Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices are internet-connected medical devices that can collect, transfer, and analyze data over a network. They can provide improved patient care and comfort, but they also pose security challenges and risks, as they can be targeted by cyberattacks, such as ransomware, that can compromise their functionality, integrity, or confidentiality. Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts the victim’s data or system and demands a ransom for its decryption or restoration. Ransomware attacks can cause serious harm to healthcare organizations, as they can disrupt their operations, endanger their patients, and damage their reputation.

To protect IoMT devices from ransomware attacks, the main recommendation is to use network segmentation to isolate IoMT devices from the main network. Network segmentation is a technique that divides a network into smaller subnetworks, each with its own security policies and controls. Network segmentation can prevent or limit the spread of ransomware from one subnetwork to another, as it restricts the communication and access between them. Network segmentation can also improve the performance, visibility, and manageability of the network, as it reduces the network congestion, complexity, and noise.

The other options are not as effective or feasible as network segmentation. Implementing multi-factor authentication for all IoMT devices may not be possible or practical, as some IoMT devices may not support or require user authentication, such as sensors or monitors. Disabling all wireless connectivity on IoMT devices may not be desirable or realistic, as some IoMT devices rely on wireless communication protocols, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or Zigbee, to function or transmit data. Regularly changing the IP addresses of all IoMT devices may not prevent or deter ransomware attacks, as ransomware can target devices based on other factors, such as their domain names, MAC addresses, or vulnerabilities. References:

What Is Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) Security?

5 Steps to Secure Internet of Medical Things Devices

Ransomware in Healthcare: How to Protect Your Organization

[Network Segmentation: Definition, Benefits, and Best Practices]

ESP (Encapsulating Security Payload) in transport mode is used for end-to-end communication between hosts within the same LAN. It encrypts only the payload, not the header, ensuring confidentiality and integrity while maintaining efficient routing.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 20: Cryptography

Quote:

“In ESP transport mode, only the data payload is encrypted, making it ideal for secure communication within a LAN where the IP header must remain intact for routing.”

Incorrect Options Explained:

B & C. Not valid IPSec modes.

D. AH tunnel mode ensures integrity but does not provide encryption.

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Non-repudiation is the assurance that someone cannot deny the validity of something. Non-repudiation is a legal concept that is widely used in information security and refers to a service, which provides proof of the origin of data and the integrity of the data. In other words, non-repudiation makes it very difficult to successfully deny who/where a message came from as well as the authenticity and integrity of that message.

While perimeter defenses like firewalls and IPS provide a layer of protection, internal systems (such as network elements) must also be hardened. This includes:

Enforcing strong authentication

Applying regular patches and updates

Conducting vulnerability assessments and security audits

Security should be layered (defense in depth), and reliance on perimeter defense alone is insufficient.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 3: Scanning Networks / Module 18: Incident Response

Quote:

“Internal systems must be hardened with secure configurations and tested regularly. A layered security approach is required even in protected environments.”

Incorrect Options:

B & C. Relying only on perimeter or physical security is not sufficient

D. While backup sites are part of DR, they don’t replace proactive protection

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The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard organization convention utilized for the exchange of PC records from a worker to a customer on a PC organization. FTP is based on a customer worker model engineering utilizing separate control and information associations between the customer and the server.[1] FTP clients may validate themselves with an unmistakable book sign-in convention, ordinarily as a username and secret key, however can interface namelessly if the worker is designed to permit it. For secure transmission that ensures the username and secret phrase, and scrambles the substance, FTP is frequently made sure about with SSL/TLS (FTPS) or supplanted with SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

The primary FTP customer applications were order line programs created prior to working frameworks had graphical UIs, are as yet dispatched with most Windows, Unix, and Linux working systems.[2][3] Many FTP customers and mechanization utilities have since been created for working areas, workers, cell phones, and equipment, and FTP has been fused into profitability applications, for example, HTML editors.

The Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Malware Threats module explains that attackers often abuse legitimate system services to blend malicious traffic with normal system behavior. Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is a Windows service designed to transfer files in the background using idle network bandwidth.

Attackers leverage BITS because its traffic closely resembles legitimate Windows Update traffic, which is commonly allowed through firewalls and proxy servers. CEH documentation states that BITS-based malware can download payloads, upload stolen data, and maintain persistence without triggering security alerts.

Option A is correct because BITS traffic appears legitimate and trusted, making it difficult for security devices to distinguish malicious usage.

Option B is incorrect because BITS does not operate exclusively through HTTP tunneling; it primarily uses HTTP/HTTPS in a legitimate manner.

Option C is incorrect because IP fragmentation is not a core feature of BITS.

Option D is incorrect because BITS does not rely on encrypted DNS traffic.

CEH emphasizes that living-off-the-land (LotL) techniques—using native tools like BITS—are increasingly favored by attackers due to their stealth and reliability.

An untethered jailbreak is one that allows a telephone to finish a boot cycle when being pwned with none interruption to jailbreak-oriented practicality.

Untethered jailbreaks area unit the foremost sought-after of all, however they’re additionally the foremost difficult to attain due to the powerful exploits and organic process talent they need. associate unbound jailbreak is sent over a physical USB cable association to a laptop or directly on the device itself by approach of associate application-based exploit, like a web site in campaign.

Upon running associate unbound jailbreak, you’ll be able to flip your pwned telephone off and on once more while not running the jailbreak tool once more. all of your jailbreak tweaks and apps would then continue in operation with none user intervention necessary.

It’s been an extended time since IOS has gotten the unbound jailbreak treatment. the foremost recent example was the computer-based Pangu break, that supported most handsets that ran IOS nine.1. We’ve additionally witnessed associate unbound jailbreak within the kind of JailbreakMe, that allowed users to pwn their handsets directly from the mobile campaign applications programme while not a laptop.

According to the CEH attack methodology, once an attacker obtains initial access—whether through exploitation, misconfiguration, or credential compromise—the next critical phase is privilege escalation. Gaining system-level or administrative control is essential for maintaining persistence, accessing protected data, modifying system configurations, and pivoting further into the network. Privilege escalation exploits target kernel flaws, misconfigured services, improper permission settings, or vulnerable drivers. CEH emphasizes that performing a DoS attack disrupts the engagement and provides no strategic advantage. Similarly, CSRF targets web applications rather than operating systems, and brute-force password attempts are inefficient, noisy, and often ineffective once local access has already been established. By leveraging privilege escalation techniques, the tester converts limited user access into full system control, enabling comprehensive post-exploitation activities aligned with CEH system hacking procedures.

This scenario strongly suggests a race condition attack in the application’s token validation logic, as described in CEH v13 Web Application Hacking. A race condition occurs when an application processes multiple requests simultaneously and fails to properly synchronize validation checks.

The presence of multiple failed attempts using expired tokens followed by successful access within a short time window indicates the attacker exploited a timing flaw. During this window, the system may have inconsistently validated token expiration, allowing an expired token to be accepted.

Option A is unlikely because the logs specifically reference expired tokens. Option B is incorrect because replaying expired tokens should fail unless a validation flaw exists. Option C is highly improbable due to token entropy.

CEH v13 highlights race conditions as advanced logic flaws that are difficult to detect and often missed during standard testing. They are commonly exploited in authentication, payment processing, and session management systems.

Therefore, Option D is the correct and CEH-aligned answer.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

A TCP SYN flood is a type of Denial of Service (DoS) attack. The attacker sends a barrage of SYN packets with spoofed (random or unreachable) source IP addresses. The victim server replies with SYN/ACK, but the final ACK never arrives.

This results in:

The victim keeping the half-open connections in the queue.

The queue filling up, leading to new, legitimate requests being dropped.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 9: Denial-of-Service Attacks → TCP SYN Flood

The host discovery technique that the tester should use is TCP SYN Ping Scan. This technique sends a TCP SYN packet to a specified port on the target host and waits for a response. If the host responds with a TCP SYN/ACK packet, it means the host is alive and the port is open. If the host responds with a TCP RST packet, it means the host is alive but the port is closed. If the host does not respond at all, it means the host is either dead or filtered by a firewall12. TCP SYN Ping Scan can bypass firewall restrictions because it mimics the initial stage of a TCP three-way handshake, which is a common and legitimate network activity. Therefore, most firewalls will allow TCP SYN packets to pass through and reach the target host, unless they are configured to block specific ports or IP addresses3. TCP SYN Ping Scan can also accurately identify live systems because it does not rely on ICMP, which may be blocked or rate-limited by some firewalls or routers.

The other options are not as effective or feasible as TCP SYN Ping Scan for the following reasons:

A. UDP Ping Scan: This technique sends a UDP packet to a specified port on the target host and waits for a response. If the host responds with an ICMP Port Unreachable message, it means the host is alive but the port is closed. If the host does not respond at all, it means the host is either dead, the port is open, or the packet is filtered by a firewall12. UDP Ping Scan may not bypass firewall restrictions because some firewalls may block or drop UDP packets, especially if they are sent to uncommon or reserved ports. UDP Ping Scan may also not accurately identify live systems because it cannot distinguish between open ports and filtered packets, and it may generate false positives or negatives due to packet loss or rate-limiting.

B. ICMP ECHO Ping Scan: This technique sends an ICMP ECHO Request packet to the target host and waits for an ICMP ECHO Reply packet. If the host responds with an ICMP ECHO Reply packet, it means the host is alive. If the host does not respond at all, it means the host is either dead or filtered by a firewall12. ICMP ECHO Ping Scan may not bypass firewall restrictions because some firewalls may block or drop ICMP packets, especially if they are sent to prevent ping sweeps or denial-of-service attacks. ICMP ECHO Ping Scan may also not accurately identify live systems because it may generate false positives or negatives due to packet loss or rate-limiting.

C. ICMP Timestamp Ping Scan: This technique sends an ICMP Timestamp Request packet to the target host and waits for an ICMP Timestamp Reply packet. If the host responds with an ICMP Timestamp Reply packet, it means the host is alive. If the host does not respond at all, it means the host is either dead or filtered by a firewall12. ICMP Timestamp Ping Scan may not bypass firewall restrictions because some firewalls may block or drop ICMP packets, especially if they are sent to prevent ping sweeps or denial-of-service attacks. ICMP Timestamp Ping Scan may also not accurately identify live systems because it may generate false positives or negatives due to packet loss or rate-limiting.

The honey trap is a technique where an attacker targets a person online by pretending to be an attractive person and then begins a fake online relationship to obtain confidential information about the target company. In this technique, the victim is an insider who possesses critical information about the target organization.

Baiting is a technique in which attackers offer end users something alluring in exchange for

important information such as login details and other sensitive data. This technique relies on

the curiosity and greed of the end-users. Attackers perform this technique by leaving a physical

device such as a USB flash drive containing malicious files in locations where people can easily

find them, such as parking lots, elevators, and bathrooms. This physical device is labeled with a

legitimate company's logo, thereby tricking end-users into trusting it and opening it on their

systems. Once the victim connects and opens the device, a malicious file downloads. It infects

the system and allows the attacker to take control.

For example, an attacker leaves some bait in the form of a USB drive in the elevator with the

label "Employee Salary Information 2019" and a legitimate company's logo. Out of curiosity and

greed, the victim picks up the device and opens it up on their system, which downloads the

bait. Once the bait is downloaded, a piece of malicious software installs on the victim's system,

giving the attacker access.

Client-side controls, such as JavaScript validation and CAPTCHA enforcement, are explicitly described in CEH v13 as inherently untrustworthy, since they run on the user’s device. The most effective way to bypass them is by intercepting and modifying HTTP requests after client-side validation but before server-side processing.

Using a proxy tool (such as Burp Suite) allows the tester to manipulate parameters invisibly, without disabling JavaScript or injecting code that could raise alarms. This makes Option B the most stealthy and effective method.

Disabling JavaScript (Option A) is noisy and easily detected. Injecting JavaScript (Option C) may trigger client-side protections. Reverse-engineering encryption (Option D) is complex and unnecessary.

CEH v13 emphasizes proxy-based manipulation as the preferred technique for bypassing client-side security mechanisms. Therefore, Option B is correct.

A digital signature is created by hashing the document and encrypting that hash with the sender’s private key. Since the hash is specific to the original content, any change to the document invalidates the signature, making it non-transferable to another document.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 20: Cryptography

Quote:

“Digital signatures are based on hashing the document and signing the digest with the private key. This makes each signature unique to the document and ensures tamper resistance.”

Incorrect Options:

B. Incorrect — signature is tied to one document.

C. Hashes are not plain; they are encrypted.

D. Keys can be reused, but signatures are document-specific.

The most probable subsequent action from the attacker based on the Cyber Kill Chain Methodology is to exploit the malicious payload delivered to the target organization and establish a foothold. This option works as follows:

The Cyber Kill Chain Methodology is a framework that describes the stages of a cyberattack from the perspective of the attacker. It helps defenders to understand the attacker’s objectives, tactics, and techniques, and to design effective countermeasures. The Cyber Kill Chain Methodology consists of seven stages: reconnaissance, weaponization, delivery, exploitation, installation, command and control, and actions on objectives12.

The delivery stage is the third stage in the Cyber Kill Chain Methodology, and it involves sending or transmitting the weaponized payload to the target system. The delivery stage can use various methods, such as email attachments, web links, removable media, or network protocols. The delivery stage aims to reach the target system and bypass any security controls, such as firewalls, antivirus, or email filters12.

The exploitation stage is the fourth stage in the Cyber Kill Chain Methodology, and it involves executing the malicious payload on the target system. The exploitation stage can use various techniques, such as buffer overflows, code injection, or privilege escalation. The exploitation stage aims to exploit a vulnerability or a weakness in the target system and gain access to its resources, such as files, processes, or memory12.

The installation stage is the fifth stage in the Cyber Kill Chain Methodology, and it involves installing a backdoor or a malware on the target system. The installation stage can use various tools, such as rootkits, trojans, or ransomware. The installation stage aims to establish a foothold on the target system and maintain persistence, which means to survive reboots, updates, or scans12.

Therefore, the most probable subsequent action from the attacker based on the Cyber Kill Chain Methodology is to exploit the malicious payload delivered to the target organization and establish a foothold, because:

This action follows the logical sequence of the Cyber Kill Chain Methodology, as it is the next stage after the delivery stage.

This action is consistent with the attacker’s goal, as it allows the attacker to gain access and control over the target system and prepare for further actions.

This action is feasible, as the attacker has already delivered the malicious payload to the target system and may have bypassed some security controls.

The other options are not as probable as option B for the following reasons:

A. The attacker will attempt to escalate privileges to gain complete control of the compromised system: This option is possible, but not the most probable, because it is not the next stage in the Cyber Kill Chain Methodology, but rather a technique that can be used in the exploitation stage or the installation stage. Privilege escalation is a method of increasing the level of access or permissions on a system, such as from a normal user to an administrator. Privilege escalation can help the attacker to gain complete control of the compromised system, but it is not a mandatory step, as the attacker may already have sufficient privileges or may use other techniques to achieve the same goal12.

C. The attacker will initiate an active connection to the target system to gather more data: This option is possible, but not the most probable, because it is not the next stage in the Cyber Kill Chain Methodology, but rather a technique that can be used in the command and control stage or the actions on objectives stage. An active connection is a communication channel that allows the attacker to send commands or receive data from the target system, such as a remote shell or a botnet. An active connection can help the attacker to gather more data from the target system, but it is not a necessary step, as the attacker may already have enough data or may use other techniques to obtain more data12.

D. The attacker will start reconnaissance to gather as much information as possible about the target: This option is not probable, because it is not the next stage in the Cyber Kill Chain Methodology, but rather the first stage. Reconnaissance is the process of collecting information about the target, such as its IP address, domain name, network structure, services, vulnerabilities, or employees. Reconnaissance is usually done before the delivery stage, as it helps the attacker to identify the target and plan the attack. Reconnaissance can be done again after the delivery stage, but it is not the most likely action, as the attacker may already have enough information or may focus on other actions12.

To ensure both confidentiality and non-repudiation for secure email communication, you need to use a combination of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography. Symmetric encryption is a method of encrypting and decrypting data using the same secret key, which is faster and more efficient than asymmetric encryption. Asymmetric encryption is a method of encrypting and decrypting data using a pair of keys: a public key and a private key, which are mathematically related but not identical. Asymmetric encryption can provide authentication, integrity, and non-repudiation, as well as key distribution.

The cryptographic technique that would best serve the purpose is to apply asymmetric encryption with RSA and use the private key for signing. RSA is a widely used algorithm for asymmetric encryption, which is based on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. RSA can be used to encrypt data, as well as to generate digital signatures, which are a way of proving the identity and authenticity of the sender and the integrity of the message.

The steps to implement this technique are as follows1:

Generate a pair of keys for each user: a public key and a private key. The public key can be shared with anyone, while the private key must be kept secret and protected by the user.

When a user wants to send an email to another user, they first encrypt the email content with a symmetric key, such as AES, which is a strong and efficient algorithm for symmetric encryption. The symmetric key is then encrypted with the recipient’s public key, using RSA. The encrypted email and the encrypted symmetric key are then sent to the recipient.

The sender also generates a digital signature for the email, using their private key and a hash function, such as SHA-256, which is a secure and widely used algorithm for generating hashes. A hash function is a mathematical function that takes any input and produces a fixed-length output, called a hash or a digest, that uniquely represents the input. A digital signature is a hash of the email that is encrypted with the sender’s private key, using RSA. The digital signature is then attached to the email and sent to the recipient.

When the recipient receives the email, they first decrypt the symmetric key with their private key, using RSA. They then use the symmetric key to decrypt the email content, using AES. They also verify the digital signature by decrypting it with the sender’s public key, using RSA, and comparing the resulting hash with the hash of the email, using the same hash function. If the hashes match, it means that the email is authentic and has not been tampered with.

Using this technique, the email communication is secure because:

The confidentiality of the email content is ensured by the symmetric encryption with AES, which is hard to break without knowing the symmetric key.

The symmetric key is also protected by the asymmetric encryption with RSA, which is hard to break without knowing the recipient’s private key.

The non-repudiation of the email is ensured by the digital signature with RSA, which is hard to forge without knowing the sender’s private key.

The digital signature also provides authentication and integrity of the email, as it proves that the email was sent by the sender and has not been altered in transit.

This attack is a classic example of Piggybacked SQL Injection, covered in CEH v13 Web Application Hacking. Piggybacked queries allow attackers to append additional malicious SQL commands to an existing query using a delimiter such as a semicolon.

The payload executes the original query followed by a destructive command (DROP TABLE). UNION-based injections retrieve data, Boolean-based injections infer logic, and error-based injections rely on error messages—not destructive execution.

CEH v13 explicitly describes piggybacked queries as capable of data destruction and privilege escalation, making Option A correct.

Passive OS fingerprinting involves observing traffic from a remote host and analyzing it to infer details about the operating system without actively sending packets or probes. This is useful in stealthy reconnaissance where avoiding detection is critical.

tcpdump is a packet analyzer that captures traffic in real time. By analyzing certain TCP/IP header fields such as TTL (Time-To-Live), window size, TCP options, and DF (Don't Fragment) flags, attackers can passively deduce the operating system of the target host.

CEH v13 Guide states:

“Passive fingerprinting tools like tcpdump and Wireshark allow the attacker to capture packets and analyze them for OS-specific traits, making it possible to identify the OS without sending packets to the target system.”

Reference – CEH v13 Study Guide:

Module 02: Footprinting and Reconnaissance, Section: “OS Fingerprinting Techniques”, Subsection: “Passive OS Fingerprinting”

Incorrect Options Explained:

A: nmap is primarily an active scanning tool (though it has limited passive capabilities).

C: tracert is used for tracing packet routes, not OS fingerprinting.

D: ping checks host availability and latency, not OS details.

‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒

When standard protections such as HTTPS, HTTP-only flags, and session regeneration are properly implemented, CEH teaches that predictable session identifiers become one of the few remaining avenues for session hijacking. Session token prediction involves analyzing entropy, randomness, or generation patterns within session IDs to mathematically infer future or valid tokens. If the application uses weak randomization algorithms, insufficient entropy sources, or predictable sequences, attackers may generate a valid session ID without direct interception. Techniques such as MitM interception or CSRF manipulation do not bypass strong transport-layer protections and cookie restrictions. Session fixation fails because the application regenerates the session ID upon login, invalidating pre-set identifiers. Therefore, the advanced and CEH-aligned method to hijack a protected session is predicting session IDs through side-channel or pattern analysis.

Telnetting into port 25 allows users to manually issue SMTP commands. While not necessarily malicious, it can be abused (e.g., for spamming or probing).

You don’t want to shut down SMTP (as that’s required for email), and you can’t block port 25 entirely. The best approach is to secure the service by requiring:

SMTP authentication (username/password)

Possibly TLS encryption

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 5: Vulnerability Analysis

Module 20: Secure Protocols

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“To prevent unauthorized SMTP access, require SMTP AUTH. This allows only authenticated users to send email, mitigating abuse of open mail relays.”

Incorrect Options:

A: Blocks all SMTP, affecting email functionality.

B: Disables mail service entirely.

D: Switching platforms doesn’t solve the underlying issue.

E: Not appropriate—there is a clear solution.

CEH cloud modules explain that side-channel attacks exploit indirect information leakage based on hardware characteristics—such as CPU timing, power usage, cache access patterns, or electromagnetic emissions. In virtualized cloud environments, multiple tenants share the same physical hardware, creating opportunities for attackers to extract sensitive data from neighboring virtual machines. By placing a malicious VM on the same host as the victim, an attacker can measure minute differences in timing during cryptographic operations, allowing them to infer private keys or sensitive computations. This aligns precisely with CEH’s definition of a side-channel attack. Cryptojacking involves unauthorized cryptocurrency mining, CPDoS targets caching layers rather than key extraction, and metadata spoofing manipulates cloud metadata endpoints. Only side-channel analysis matches the described attack behavior.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

To identify inconsistencies in secure asset records and confirm that systems meet baseline security standards, vulnerability scanning and checking data items (e.g., configuration settings, software versions) is essential. This helps the analyst discover gaps between expected and actual system states.

From CEH v13 Official Curriculum:

Module 5: Vulnerability Assessment → Security Assessment Techniques

“Automated vulnerability scanners and asset inventories help validate that systems are compliant with security baselines.”

The SOA (Start of Authority) record is a DNS record that defines the authoritative information about a domain. Its format includes the following fields:

(domain) IN SOA (Primary Name Server) (Responsible Email)

(Serial) (Refresh) (Retry) (Expire) (Minimum TTL)

Given:

Rutgers.edu. SOA NS1.Rutgers.edu ipad.college.edu (200302028 3600 3600 604800 2400.)

Field values:

Serial: 200302028 (→ This is the version number of the zone file.)

Refresh: 3600 seconds

Retry: 3600 seconds

Expire: 604800 seconds

Minimum TTL: 2400 seconds

These values represent key configurations and are all part of the SOA record's operational data.

A: 200302028 = Serial/version (correct)

B: 3600 = Refresh (correct)

C: 604800 = Expire (correct)

D: 2400 = Minimum TTL (correct)

Incorrect Options:

E and F (60, 4800): Not part of the SOA record shown.

Wireless network assessment determines the vulnerabilities in an organization’s wireless networks. In the past, wireless networks used weak and defective data encryption mechanisms. Now, wireless network standards have evolved, but many networks still use weak and outdated security mechanisms and are open to attack. Wireless network assessments try to attack wireless authentication mechanisms and gain unauthorized access. This type of assessment tests wireless networks and identifies rogue networks that may exist within an organization’s perimeter. These assessments audit client-specified sites with a wireless network. They sniff wireless network traffic and try to crack encryption keys. Auditors test other network access if they gain access to the wireless network.

Expanding your network capabilities are often done well using wireless networks, but it also can be a source of harm to your data system . Deficiencies in its implementations or configurations can allow tip to be accessed in an unauthorized manner.This makes it imperative to closely monitor your wireless network while also conducting periodic Wireless Network assessment.

It identifies flaws and provides an unadulterated view of exactly how vulnerable your systems are to malicious and unauthorized accesses.

Identifying misconfigurations and inconsistencies in wireless implementations and rogue access points can improve your security posture and achieve compliance with regulatory frameworks.

According to CEH v13 Security Operations and Incident Response, zero-day vulnerabilities pose one of the highest operational risks because exploits exist before official remediation is available. When active exploitation is observed and no vendor patch exists, immediate compensating controls must be deployed.

The first and most effective action is implementing virtual patching, typically through a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Prevention System (IPS). CEH v13 defines virtual patching as a security measure that blocks exploitation attempts at the network or application layer without modifying the vulnerable software. This approach allows organizations to maintain service availability while reducing exposure.

Shutting down the server (Option A) may prevent exploitation but introduces unacceptable business disruption and is not recommended as a first response. Backups and incident response planning (Option C) are critical but do not actively prevent exploitation. Passive monitoring (Option D) allows attackers to continue exploiting the vulnerability unchecked.

CEH v13 emphasizes that virtual patching is the preferred first response for zero-day threats, especially when systems are mission-critical. It provides immediate risk reduction while allowing time for vendor patch development and controlled deployment.

In CEH v13 Module 03: Scanning Networks, the behavior of firewalls in response to ACK scans is described in detail, especially regarding stateful vs. stateless firewalls.

An ACK scan (nmap -sA) is primarily used for firewall rule analysis. Here’s how it works:

When you send a TCP ACK segment:

If the port is closed and no firewall is present, the target should respond with a TCP RST packet.

If a stateless (non-stateful) firewall is used, it typically allows or blocks packets based only on rules about IP addresses, ports, and protocol type, without tracking session state.

If a stateful firewall is used, it keeps track of connection states. Therefore:

An unsolicited ACK packet (not part of any established session) will be silently dropped, because it doesn’t correspond to any active connection.

No RST is sent back because the firewall suppresses it, recognizing it as potentially malicious or out of context.

Therefore:

No RST response = packet was silently dropped.

Silent dropping of unsolicited ACK packets = Stateful Firewall Behavior.

Option Analysis:

A. There is no firewall in place

❌ Incorrect. If there were no firewall, an RST would be sent from the closed port.

B. This event does not tell you anything about the firewall

❌ Incorrect. The lack of a response is actually meaningful and implies stateful filtering behavior.

C. It is a stateful firewall

Correct. A stateful firewall inspects the packet, sees no valid session, and drops it silently.

D. It is a non-stateful firewall

❌ Incorrect. A non-stateful firewall would typically not inspect session state, and you'd still expect to see a response (likely an RST).

Reference from CEH v13 Study Guide and Courseware:

Module 03 – Scanning Networks, Section: Nmap Scanning Techniques → TCP ACK Scan

CEH Engage Labs – Network Scanning Phase: Firewall Rule Detection using ACK Scans

Server-side request forgery (also called SSRF) is a net security vulnerability that allows an assaulter to induce the server-side application to make http requests to associate arbitrary domain of the attacker’s choosing.

In typical SSRF examples, the attacker might cause the server to make a connection back to itself, or to other web-based services among the organization’s infrastructure, or to external third-party systems.

Another type of trust relationship that often arises with server-side request forgery is where the application server is able to interact with different back-end systems that aren’t directly reachable by users. These systems typically have non-routable private informatics addresses. Since the back-end systems normally ordinarily protected by the topology, they typically have a weaker security posture. In several cases, internal back-end systems contain sensitive functionality that may be accessed while not authentication by anyone who is able to act with the systems.

In the preceding example, suppose there’s an body interface at the back-end url https://192.168.0.68/admin. Here, an attacker will exploit the SSRF vulnerability to access the executive interface by submitting the following request:

POST /product/stock HTTP/1.0

Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Content-Length: 118

stockApi=http://192.168.0.68/admin

The scenario describes a hybrid encryption solution based on the OpenPGP standard that uses both symmetric and asymmetric encryption. The key phrase in the question is “a free implementation of the OpenPGP standard,” which directly refers to GPG.

GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) is a free, open-source implementation of the OpenPGP standard.

It combines symmetric encryption for data encryption (fast and efficient) and asymmetric encryption for secure key exchange (using public/private key pairs).

GPG is widely used to secure emails, files, and messages, often in conjunction with tools like Thunderbird or command-line utilities.

Incorrect Options:

A. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is the original proprietary implementation of OpenPGP, not free/open-source by default.

B. S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is another email encryption standard but does not implement OpenPGP.

C. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a mail transport protocol, not an encryption method.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 20: Cryptography

Section: “Hybrid Encryption and Email Encryption Tools”

Subsection: “GPG and OpenPGP-Based Encryption”

=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subnetwork

As we can see, we have an IP address of 10.1.4.0 with a subnet mask of /23. According to the question, we need to determine which IP address will be included in the range of the last 100 IP addresses.

The available addresses for hosts start with 10.1.4.1 and end with 10.1.5.254. Now you can clearly see that the last 100 addresses include the address 10.1.5.200.

According to CEH v13 Module 06: Malware Threats, when analyzing suspicious system behavior or investigating a suspected Trojan infection, a common and effective approach is to:

Monitor system activity and network behavior using tools like netstat, Wireshark, and TCPView.

Trojans often create covert channels or backdoors for remote access, which can be identified through unexpected or unauthorized outgoing connections to remote IP addresses or domains.

Using netstat -an or netstat -ano helps identify open ports and active connections, and checking these against known IPs can indicate whether a Trojan is communicating with a Command and Control (C&C) server.

Analysis of Each Option:

A. Use ExifTool and check for malicious content

Incorrect. ExifTool is primarily used for extracting metadata from files, especially images and documents. It is not effective for analyzing executable malware or system behavior post-execution.

B. You do not check; rather, you immediately restore a previous snapshot of the operating system

Incorrect. While restoring from a snapshot might eventually be required, immediate restoration without diagnosis is not a recommended or forensically sound first step. It also prevents root cause analysis.

C. Upload the file to VirusTotal

Partially correct but not sufficient. While uploading the file to VirusTotal is a good step to confirm if the file is known malware, it does not identify whether the machine is currently infected or actively compromised.

D. Use netstat and check for outgoing connections to strange IP addresses or domains

Correct. This method helps detect if the system is making suspicious external connections that are common in Trojan infections.

Reference from CEH v13 Study Guide and Course Materials:

CEH v13 Official Module 06 – Malware Threats, Section: Types of Malware – Trojans, and System Monitoring Tools

CEH v13 eCourseware Lab Manual: "Detecting Trojan Activity using netstat and TCPView"

CEH Engage Range: Malware Investigation Phase – Trojan Behavior Detection

CEH IoT security modules describe insecure network services as vulnerabilities arising when IoT devices communicate over unencrypted channels, use unauthenticated update mechanisms, or expose services that fail to validate data integrity. When operational commands and firmware updates are transmitted over HTTP without cryptographic safeguards, attackers can intercept, replay, or modify the data stream. Firmware integrity verification is a critical component of secure device lifecycle management. Without it, adversaries can perform firmware injection, allowing them remote control, persistent compromise, or sabotage of device functionality. This aligns directly with insecure network services, which CEH defines as improperly protected communication mechanisms and service interactions within IoT ecosystems. Insecure ecosystem interfaces generally relate to cloud APIs and web dashboards, insecure default settings involve weak credentials or factory configurations, and insufficient privacy protection relates to data confidentiality rather than command manipulation. The described scenario most clearly fits insecure network services.

This Google dork uses advanced operators:

site:target.com — restricts results to pages within the target.com domain

-site:Marketing.target.com — excludes results from the marketing.target.com subdomain

accounting — the keyword to be matched

So, it returns pages from target.com (excluding the marketing subdomain) that include the word "accounting".

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 2: Footprinting and Reconnaissance

Quote:

“Advanced search operators like site:, inurl:, intitle:, and the minus (-) operator help to include or exclude specific domains or pages when gathering public information via Google.”

Incorrect Options:

A. Opposite logic — this excludes marketing.target.com

B. Too general

C. Incorrect because marketing.target.com is excluded

=

In CEH’s web application and mobile security modules, improper session management is defined as a failure to enforce session expiration, token invalidation, or secure session lifecycle controls. When an application does not invalidate a session token after logout, attackers can exploit this by performing a replay attack: reusing previously captured session identifiers to impersonate the user and gain unauthorized access. CEH teaches that replaying a live token is the simplest and most direct exploitation method because it does not require guessing or stealing new tokens—the attacker simply reuses a valid one that should have been invalidated. CSRF relies on exploiting a user’s active session and is not required when the attacker already possesses a reusable token. Brute-forcing session tokens is computationally expensive and unnecessary. SQL injection is unrelated to session lifecycle flaws unless token storage is directly exposed. Therefore, a replay attack is the correct exploitation method.

A Stealth or Tunneling Virus is designed specifically to evade detection by antivirus software and system monitoring tools. These viruses work by intercepting and modifying the operating system’s service call interrupts (such as INT 13h and INT 21h in DOS systems), which are used to access files or system services.

By hooking into these interrupts, the virus can return clean or forged data to antivirus scanners, thus hiding its malicious presence from detection tools.

Tunneling viruses may also operate at a lower level to evade even more advanced antivirus detection methods, making them particularly dangerous and hard to detect.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 6: Malware Threats

Section: Types of Viruses

Quote:

“Tunneling viruses attempt to avoid detection by antivirus programs by installing themselves in the interrupt handler chain. These viruses intercept operating system calls to conceal their activities.”

Incorrect Options Explained:

A. Macro viruses target applications like Microsoft Word/Excel and use embedded macros, but do not alter service call interrupts.

C. Cavity viruses insert code into empty spaces in files without changing the file size but do not modify interrupts.

D. Polymorphic viruses mutate their code to avoid signature-based detection but do not typically interfere with system interrupts directly.

In a Windows network, nongovernmental organization (New Technology) local area network Manager (NTLM) could be a suite of Microsoft security protocols supposed to produce authentication, integrity, and confidentiality to users.NTLM is that the successor to the authentication protocol in Microsoft local area network Manager (LANMAN), Associate in Nursing older Microsoft product. The NTLM protocol suite is enforced in an exceedingly Security Support supplier, which mixes the local area network Manager authentication protocol, NTLMv1, NTLMv2 and NTLM2 Session protocols in an exceedingly single package. whether or not these protocols area unit used or will be used on a system is ruled by cluster Policy settings, that totally different|completely different} versions of Windows have different default settings. NTLM passwords area unit thought-about weak as a result of they will be brute-forced very simply with fashionable hardware.

NTLM could be a challenge-response authentication protocol that uses 3 messages to authenticate a consumer in an exceedingly affiliation orientating setting (connectionless is similar), and a fourth extra message if integrity is desired.

First, the consumer establishes a network path to the server and sends a NEGOTIATE_MESSAGE advertising its capabilities.

Next, the server responds with CHALLENGE_MESSAGE that is employed to determine the identity of the consumer.

Finally, the consumer responds to the challenge with Associate in Nursing AUTHENTICATE_MESSAGE.

The NTLM protocol uses one or each of 2 hashed word values, each of that are keep on the server (or domain controller), and that through a scarcity of seasoning area unit word equivalent, that means that if you grab the hash price from the server, you’ll evidence while not knowing the particular word. the 2 area unit the lm Hash (a DES-based operate applied to the primary fourteen chars of the word born-again to the standard eight bit laptop charset for the language), and also the nt Hash (MD4 of the insufficient endian UTF-16 Unicode password). each hash values area unit sixteen bytes (128 bits) every.

The NTLM protocol additionally uses one among 2 a method functions, looking on the NTLM version. National Trust LanMan and NTLM version one use the DES primarily based LanMan a method operate (LMOWF), whereas National TrustLMv2 uses the NT MD4 primarily based a method operate (NTOWF).

Spear-phishing is a targeted form of phishing that uses personalized and context-rich information to increase credibility. CEH emphasizes that referencing specific internal projects, financial data, or organizational events significantly raises the success rate when attacking high-value targets such as executives. This tailored approach avoids suspicion and exploits trust more effectively than broad or generic phishing attempts.

Sniffing attacks are a type of network attack that involves intercepting and analyzing data packets as they travel over a network. Sniffing attacks can be used to steal sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, etc. Sniffing attacks can also be used to perform reconnaissance, spoofing, or man-in-the-middle attacks.

The IT department of the company has implemented some security measures to prevent or mitigate sniffing attacks, such as:

Adding the MAC address of the gateway to the ARP cache: This prevents ARP spoofing, which is a technique that allows an attacker to redirect network traffic to their own device by sending fake ARP messages that associate their MAC address with the IP address of the gateway.

Switching to IPv6 instead of IPv4: This reduces the risk of IP spoofing, which is a technique that allows an attacker to send packets with a forged source IP address, pretending to be another device on the network.

Using encrypted sessions such as SSH instead of Telnet, and Secure File Transfer Protocol instead of FTP: This protects the data from being read or modified by an attacker who can capture the packets, as the data is encrypted and authenticated using cryptographic protocols.

However, these measures are not enough to completely eliminate the threat of sniffing, as an attacker can still use other techniques, such as:

Passive sniffing: This involves monitoring the network traffic without injecting any packets or altering the data. Passive sniffing can be done on a shared network, such as a hub, or on a switched network, using techniques such as MAC flooding, port mirroring, or VLAN hopping.

Active sniffing: This involves injecting packets or modifying the data to manipulate the network behavior or gain access to more traffic. Active sniffing can be done using techniques such as DHCP spoofing, DNS poisoning, ICMP redirection, or TCP session hijacking.

Therefore, the next step to enhance network security is to implement network scanning and monitoring tools, which can help detect and prevent sniffing attacks by:

Scanning the network for unauthorized devices, such as rogue access points, hubs, or sniffers, and removing them or isolating them from the network.

Monitoring the network for abnormal traffic patterns, such as excessive ARP requests, DNS queries, ICMP messages, or TCP connections, and alerting the network administrators or blocking the suspicious sources.

Analyzing the network traffic for malicious content, such as malware, phishing, or exfiltration, and filtering or quarantining the infected or compromised devices.

CEH v13 explains that WPA3 introduces SAE (Simultaneous Authentication of Equals), which resists traditional offline dictionary and brute-force attacks by removing crackable handshake material. Because WPA3 prevents attackers from capturing a reusable handshake, the most practical offensive method is to force a downgrade attack, tricking clients into associating using WPA2 instead of WPA3. Once the victim reconnects under WPA2-PSK, the attacker captures the standard 4-way handshake, which can then be cracked offline using dictionary or GPU-accelerated brute-force methods. CEH discusses downgrade attacks as a significant real-world threat when mixed-mode configurations are enabled or when access points fail to enforce strict WPA3-only operation. Options B and C are ineffective because WPA3 handshake materials cannot be brute-forced offline. Option D is unrelated to Wi-Fi encryption. Downgrading to WPA2 is the most effective and widely documented attack path.

This scenario clearly aligns with a Pulse Wave DDoS attack, a sophisticated denial-of-service technique described in CEH v13 Network and Perimeter Hacking. Unlike traditional volumetric DDoS attacks that rely on sustained flooding, pulse wave attacks deliver short, extremely high-volume bursts of traffic, followed by periods of inactivity.

The defining characteristics described—intermittent spikes exceeding 300 Gbps, regular intervals (every 10 minutes), and temporary recovery—are hallmark indicators of pulse wave attacks. CEH v13 explains that attackers use this method to overwhelm server resources, trigger auto-scaling failures, exhaust mitigation thresholds, and evade detection systems that rely on sustained traffic baselines.

Option A is incorrect because UDP floods are continuous. Option B (HTTP GET flood) targets the application layer with sustained requests. Option C (PDoS) permanently damages hardware, which does not match the recurring pattern.

Pulse wave attacks are particularly effective against large platforms like streaming services because they:

Exploit elasticity limits of cloud infrastructure

Confuse rate-based detection systems

Cause repeated service degradation without long attack durations

CEH v13 emphasizes that pulse wave attacks are difficult to mitigate without adaptive, behavior-based DDoS protection. Therefore, Option D is the correct and CEH-aligned answer.

Twofish is an encryption algorithm designed by Bruce Schneier. It’s a symmetric key block cipher with a block size of 128 bits, with keys up to 256 bits. it’s associated with AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) and an earlier block cipher called Blowfish. Twofish was actually a finalist to become the industry standard for encryption, but was ultimately beaten out by the present AES.

Twofish has some distinctive features that set it aside from most other cryptographic protocols. For one, it uses pre-computed, key-dependent S-boxes. An S-box (substitution-box) may be a basic component of any symmetric key algorithm which performs substitution. within the context of Twofish’s block cipher, the S-box works to obscure the connection of the key to the ciphertext. Twofish uses a pre-computed, key-dependent S-box which suggests that the S-box is already provided, but depends on the cipher key to decrypt the knowledge .

How Secure is Twofish?

Twofish is seen as a really secure option as far as encryption protocols go. one among the explanations that it wasn’t selected because the advanced encryption standard is thanks to its slower speed. Any encryption standard that uses a 128-bit or higher key, is theoretically safe from brute force attacks. Twofish is during this category.

Because Twofish uses “pre-computed key-dependent S-boxes”, it are often susceptible to side channel attacks. this is often thanks to the tables being pre-computed. However, making these tables key-dependent helps mitigate that risk. There are a couple of attacks on Twofish, but consistent with its creator, Bruce Schneier, it didn’t constitute a real cryptanalysis. These attacks didn’t constitue a practical break within the cipher.

Products That Use Twofish

GnuPG: GnuPG may be a complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880 (also referred to as PGP). GnuPG allows you to encrypt and sign your data and communications; it features a flexible key management system, along side access modules for all types of public key directories.

KeePass: KeePass may be a password management tool that generates passwords with top-notch security. It’s a free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager with many extensions and plugins.

Password Safe: Password Safe uses one master password to stay all of your passwords protected, almost like the functionality of most of the password managers on this list. It allows you to store all of your passwords during a single password database, or multiple databases for various purposes. Creating a database is straightforward , just create the database, set your master password.

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy): PGP is employed mostly for email encryption, it encrypts the content of the e-mail . However, Pretty Good Privacy doesn’t encrypt the topic and sender of the e-mail , so make certain to never put sensitive information in these fields when using PGP.

TrueCrypt: TrueCrypt may be a software program that encrypts and protects files on your devices. With TrueCrypt the encryption is transparent to the user and is completed locally at the user’s computer. this suggests you’ll store a TrueCrypt file on a server and TrueCrypt will encrypt that file before it’s sent over the network.

Ethical hacking, as defined throughout CEH courseware, is the authorized and legitimate process of identifying vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and misconfigurations in information systems. The primary objective is to strengthen security by discovering issues before malicious actors can exploit them. Ethical hackers follow strict legal guidelines, obtain written permission, and operate within a defined scope to ensure their activities contribute positively to the organization’s security posture. Unlike malicious hacking, the intent is not to steal data, cause harm, or disrupt operations. Ethical hackers use the same tools, techniques, and methodologies that attackers use, but with the purpose of remediation and risk reduction. CEH emphasizes that ethical hacking supports defense-in-depth strategies by enabling organizations to harden their environments and proactively mitigate threats. Therefore, identifying and fixing vulnerabilities is the central mission of ethical hacking.

PHI stands for Protected Health info. The HIPAA Privacy Rule provides federal protections for private health info held by lined entities and provides patients an array of rights with regard to that info. under HIPAA phi is considered to be any identifiable health info that’s used, maintained, stored, or transmitted by a HIPAA-covered entity – a healthcare provider, health plan or health insurer, or a aid clearinghouse – or a business associate of a HIPAA-covered entity, in relation to the availability of aid or payment for aid services.

It is not only past and current medical info that’s considered letter under HIPAA Rules, however also future info concerning medical conditions or physical and mental health related to the provision of care or payment for care. phi is health info in any kind, together with physical records, electronic records, or spoken info.

Therefore, letter includes health records, medical histories, lab check results, and medical bills. basically, all health info is considered letter once it includes individual identifiers. Demographic info is additionally thought of phi underneath HIPAA Rules, as square measure several common identifiers like patient names, Social Security numbers, Driver’s license numbers, insurance details, and birth dates, once they square measure connected with health info.

The eighteen identifiers that create health info letter are:

Names

Dates, except year

phonephone numbers

Geographic information

FAX numbers

Social Security numbers

Email addresses

case history numbers

Account numbers

Health arrange beneficiary numbers

Certificate/license numbers

Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers together with license plates

Web URLs

Device identifiers and serial numbers

net protocol addresses

Full face photos and comparable pictures

Biometric identifiers (i.e. retinal scan, fingerprints)

Any distinctive identifying variety or code

One or a lot of of those identifiers turns health info into letter, and phi HIPAA Privacy Rule restrictions can then apply that limit uses and disclosures of the data. HIPAA lined entities and their business associates will ought to guarantee applicable technical, physical, and body safeguards are enforced to make sure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of phi as stipulated within the HIPAA Security Rule.

White Hat Hacking is defined in CEH v13 as ethical hacking performed with explicit authorization to identify and remediate vulnerabilities. White hat hackers operate within legal frameworks and contractual agreements.

Grey hats act without permission but without malicious intent. Black hats conduct illegal attacks. Blue hats are external testers invited to find bugs before product release.

Thus, Option C is correct.

YARA rules are a powerful way to detect and classify malware based on patterns, signatures, and behaviors. They can be used to complement Snort rules, which are mainly focused on network traffic analysis. However, writing YARA rules manually can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially when dealing with large and diverse malware samples. Therefore, using a tool that can automate or assist the generation of YARA rules can be very helpful for ethical hackers.

Among the four options, yarGen is the best choice for this purpose, because it generates YARA rules from strings identified in malware files while removing strings that also appear in goodware files. This way, yarGen can reduce the false positives and increase the accuracy of the YARA rules. yarGen also supports various features, such as whitelisting, scoring, wildcards, and regular expressions, to improve the quality and efficiency of the YARA rules.

The other options are not as suitable as yarGen for this purpose. AutoYara is a tool that automates the generation of YARA rules from a set of malicious and benign files, but it does not perform any filtering or optimization of the strings, which may result in noisy and ineffective YARA rules. YaraRET is a tool that helps in reverse engineering Trojans to generate YARA rules, but it is limited to a specific type of malware and requires manual intervention and analysis. koodous is a platform that combines social networking with antivirus signatures and YARA rules to detect malware, but it is not a tool for generating YARA rules, rather it is a tool for sharing and collaborating on YARA rules. References:

yarGen - A Tool to Generate YARA Rules

YARA Rules: The Basics

Why master YARA: from routine to extreme threat hunting cases

The CEH IDS/IPS Evasion module describes packet fragmentation as a common evasion technique used to bypass signature-based detection.

Option B is correct.

Other options represent different attack categories.

CEH highlights reassembly normalization as a countermeasure.

Zone transfers (AXFR) are DNS operations that replicate zone data from a primary server to a secondary server. These can be abused during DNS enumeration if improperly secured.

CEH v13 recommends using the following tools for attempting or testing zone transfers:

A. NSLookup – supports AXFR using set type=any or set type=AXFR

C. Dig – dig @ns.example.com example.com AXFR

D. Sam Spade – GUI tool capable of DNS zone transfer

E. Host – command-line tool used for DNS lookups and AXFR

Incorrect Tools:

B. Finger – used for user enumeration, not DNS

F. Netcat – general-purpose networking tool, not specific to DNS

G. Neotrace – used for traceroute/path tracing, not DNS

Rating CVSS Score

None 0.0

Low 0.1 - 3.9

Medium 4.0 - 6.9

High 7.0 - 8.9

Critical 9.0 - 10.0

https://www.first.org/cvss/v3.0/specification-document

The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is an open framework for communicating the characteristics and severity of software vulnerabilities. CVSS consists of three metric groups: Base, Temporal, and Environmental. The Base metrics produce a score ranging from 0 to 10, which can then be modified by scoring the Temporal and Environmental metrics. A CVSS score is also represented as a vector string, a compressed textual representation of the values used to derive the score. Thus, CVSS is well suited as a standard measurement system for industries, organizations, and governments that need accurate and consistent vulnerability severity scores. Two common uses of CVSS are calculating the severity of vulnerabilities discovered on one's systems and as a factor in prioritization of vulnerability remediation activities. The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) provides CVSS scores for almost all known vulnerabilities.

Qualitative Severity Rating Scale

For some purposes, it is useful to have a textual representation of the numeric Base, Temporal and Environmental scores.

Social engineering is a non-technical attack that manipulates human behavior to gain access to systems or data. It often involves deception (e.g., phishing, pretexting, baiting) and requires no technical expertise or tools, making it a low-tech yet highly effective method.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 9: Social Engineering

Quote:

“Social engineering exploits human psychology and trust to gain unauthorized access. It is considered a low-tech method because it does not require technical means.”

Incorrect Options Explained:

B. Eavesdropping may require technical tools to intercept data.

C. Scanning involves active use of tools to find vulnerabilities.

D. Sniffing is technical and requires tools to capture network traffic.

Split DNS (also known as Split-Horizon DNS) is a configuration where internal users and external users receive different DNS responses. Typically, one DNS server resides in the DMZ for public access, and another is inside the network for internal name resolution.

???? Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide, Module 9: System Hacking / Perimeter Security

“Split DNS allows different DNS records to be presented based on whether the requester is from inside or outside the organization’s network.”

❌ Incorrect options:

A. DynDNS is a dynamic DNS provider.

B. DNS Scheme is a non-standard term.

C. DNSSEC is a security extension for DNS, not a deployment model.

WPA2-Enterprise networks authenticate clients through 802.1X using a RADIUS server. A common attack method described in CEH training is to create an evil-twin access point broadcasting the same SSID as the legitimate one. Combined with de-authentication frames, clients are forced off the real AP and automatically reconnect to the stronger rogue AP. This allows the attacker to capture authentication exchanges for later misuse, including credential harvesting or EAP-based downgrade attacks.

Social engineering is the term used for a broad range of malicious activities accomplished through human interactions. It uses psychological manipulation to trick users into making security mistakes or giving away sensitive information.

Social engineering attacks typically involve some form of psychological manipulation, fooling otherwise unsuspecting users or employees into handing over confidential or sensitive data. Commonly, social engineering involves email or other communication that invokes urgency, fear, or similar emotions in the victim, leading the victim to promptly reveal sensitive information, click a malicious link, or open a malicious file. Because social engineering involves a human element, preventing these attacks can be tricky for enterprises.

According to the CEH System Hacking and Web Application Security modules, Man-in-the-Browser (MitB) attacks are among the most sophisticated and difficult session-hijacking techniques to detect. In MitB attacks, malware operates inside the victim’s browser, allowing attackers to intercept, modify, or inject transactions after authentication has occurred.

CEH documentation highlights that MitB attacks bypass:

Multi-factor authentication

Encrypted cookies

HTTPS/TLS protections

Because the malicious activity occurs at the browser level, security controls perceive transactions as legitimate.

Option B is correct.

Option A (XSS) is detectable via content security policies.

Option C is mitigated by regenerating session IDs.

Option D is ineffective against encrypted sessions.

CEH emphasizes MitB attacks as a critical threat to online banking systems.

The CEH Enumeration module explains that SMTP supports commands such as VRFY, EXPN, and RCPT TO, which can be abused to enumerate valid email users if not properly restricted.

In this scenario, the smtp-enum-users Nmap script successfully uses EXPN and RCPT, indicating that the server responds differently to valid and invalid usernames.

Option C is correct because unrestricted SMTP user verification allows attackers to harvest usernames for further attacks such as phishing or brute force.

Option A involves authentication, not enumeration.

Option B affects confidentiality, not user discovery.

Option D is unrelated to SMTP enumeration.

CEH strongly recommends disabling or restricting these SMTP commands.

GINA stands for Graphical Identification and Authentication. It is a Windows component (a DLL) that provides the user interface for logging into a Windows system.

Located in msgina.dll (in legacy Windows)

Handles the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen

Collects credentials (username/password) and passes them to the Local Security Authority (LSA)

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 6: Malware Threats

Module 4: Windows Authentication Internals

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“The Graphical Identification and Authentication (GINA) is a DLL that implements the authentication UI for Windows systems. Malicious actors can create custom GINA DLLs to capture login credentials.”

According to CEH v13 Network Scanning and Enumeration, ICMP Echo Requests (ping) are commonly filtered by firewalls and intrusion prevention systems to reduce network reconnaissance exposure. When ICMP Echo Replies are not returned but other services remain operational, the most likely explanation is ICMP filtering rather than host unavailability or compromise.

CEH v13 explicitly states that many organizations configure firewalls to block ICMP Echo Requests while allowing other ICMP types or higher-layer protocols. This practice helps prevent attackers from easily mapping live hosts during the reconnaissance phase.

The other options are incorrect because:

Unused IPs would not necessarily have active services.

A breach would typically present additional symptoms.

Network congestion would affect multiple protocols, not just ICMP.

Thus, blocked ICMP is the correct interpretation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_injection#Blind_SQL_injection

Blind SQL injection is used when a web application is vulnerable to an SQL injection but the results of the injection are not visible to the attacker. The page with the vulnerability may not be one that displays data but will display differently depending on the results of a logical statement injected into the legitimate SQL statement called for that page. This type of attack has traditionally been considered time-intensive because a new statement needed to be crafted for each bit recovered, and depending on its structure, the attack may consist of many unsuccessful requests. Recent advancements have allowed each request to recover multiple bits, with no unsuccessful requests, allowing for more consistent and efficient extraction.

Patch management is that the method that helps acquire, test and install multiple patches (code changes) on existing applications and software tools on a pc, enabling systems to remain updated on existing patches and determining that patches are the suitable ones. Managing patches so becomes simple and simple.

Patch Management is usually done by software system firms as a part of their internal efforts to mend problems with the various versions of software system programs and also to assist analyze existing software system programs and discover any potential lack of security features or different upgrades.

Software patches help fix those problems that exist and are detected solely once the software’s initial unharness. Patches mostly concern security while there are some patches that concern the particular practicality of programs as well.

The TTL (Time-To-Live) and TCP window size are commonly used values for passive OS fingerprinting. Different operating systems set default values for these fields in IP and TCP headers.

From CEH v13 Official Courseware and tools like Nmap and Netcraft:

A TTL of 64 and TCP window size of 5840 is a strong indicator of a Linux-based operating system.

This combination is one of the signature responses used in tools such as Nmap and p0f to fingerprint OS remotely.

Here’s a general reference table:

OS

Default TTL

TCP Window Size

Windows

128

8192/65535

Linux

64

5840

Solaris

255

8760

Mac OS

64

65535

Therefore, TTL: 64 + Window Size: 5840 = Linux OS

Incorrect Options:

A. Solaris typically has a TTL of 255 and a different window size.

B. Windows defaults to TTL 128.

C. Mac OS uses TTL 64 but has a window size of 65535.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 03: Scanning Networks

Section: “OS Detection Using TTL and TCP Window Size”

Tools: Nmap OS Fingerprinting, Xprobe2

CEH iLab: OS Fingerprinting with TCP/IP Stack Behavior

=

A SYN flood attack is a type of denial-of-service (DoS) attack that exploits the TCP handshake process by sending a large number of SYN requests to the target server, without completing the connection. This consumes the connection state tables on the server, preventing it from accepting new connections. The attacker has crafted an automated botnet to simultaneously send ‘s’ SYN packets per second to the server. The server can handle ‘f’ SYN packets per second without any performance issues. If ‘s’ exceeds ‘f’, the network infrastructure begins to show signs of overload. The system’s response time increases exponentially (24k), where ‘k’ represents each additional SYN packet above the ‘f’ limit.

Considering ‘s=500’ and different ‘f’ values, the scenario that is most likely to cause the server to experience overload and significantly increased response times is the one where ‘f=420’. This is because ‘s’ is greater than ‘f’ by 80 packets per second, which means the server cannot handle the incoming traffic and will eventually run out of resources. The response time shoots up (2480 = 281,474,976,710,656 times the normal response time), indicating a system overload.

The other scenarios are less likely or less severe than the one where ‘f=420’. Option A has ‘f=510’, which is greater than ‘s’, so the system stays stable and the response time remains unaffected. Option B has ‘f=495’, which is less than ‘s’ by 5 packets per second, so the response time drastically rises (245 = 32 times the normal response time), indicating a probable system overload, but not as extreme as option D. Option C has ‘f=505’, which is less than ‘s’ by 5 packets per second, so the response time increases but not as drastically (245 = 32 times the normal response time), and the system might still function, albeit slowly. References:

SYN flood DDoS attack | Cloudflare

SYN flood - Wikipedia

What Is a SYN Flood Attack? | F5

What is a SYN flood attack and how to prevent it? | NETSCOUT

A hybrid attack combines a dictionary and brute-force approach. Given that:

Passwords are required to be complex

Users still often choose predictable variations (e.g., Password123!, Welcome@2024)

A hybrid attack is best suited because it applies common mutations to known words—much faster than full brute force and more effective than a plain dictionary attack.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 6: Password Cracking → Attack Techniques

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“Hybrid attacks combine the speed of dictionary attacks with some of the thoroughness of brute-force. It’s ideal when users use complex but predictable passwords.”

Incorrect Options:

A: Online attacks are slow and may trigger account lockouts.

B: Plain dictionary attacks won’t cover variations like “P@ssw0rd!”

C: Brute-force would be too slow for complex passwords.

In a session donation attack, the attacker donates their own session ID to the target user. In this

attack, the attacker first obtains a valid session ID by logging into a service and later feeds the same session ID to the target user. This session ID links a target user to the attacker's account page without disclosing any information to the victim. When the target user clicks on the link and enters the details (username, password, payment details, etc.) in a form, the entered

details are linked to the attacker's account. To initiate this attack, the attacker can send their

session ID using techniques such as cross-site cooking, an MITM attack, and session fixation. A

session donation attack involves the following steps.

A Wireless Intrusion Prevention System (WIPS) is a network device that monitors the radio spectrum for the presence of unauthorized access points (intrusion detection), and can automatically take countermeasures (intrusion prevention).

Error-based SQL Injection is a type of in-band SQL Injection attack that relies on error messages thrown by the database server to obtain information about the structure of the database. In some cases, error-based SQL injection alone is enough for an attacker to enumerate an entire database.

The ethical hacker is likely to use this type of SQL Injection attack because the application responds to logically incorrect queries with detailed error messages that divulge the underlying database’s structure. This means that the attacker can craft malicious SQL queries that trigger errors and reveal information such as table names, column names, data types, etc. The attacker can then use this information to construct more complex queries that extract data from the database.

For example, if the application uses the following query to display the username of a user based on the user ID:

SELECT username FROM users WHERE id = '$id'

The attacker can inject a single quote at the end of the user ID parameter to cause a syntax error:

SELECT username FROM users WHERE id = '1'

The application might display an error message like this:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''1'' at line 1

This error message reveals that the database server is MySQL and that the user ID parameter is enclosed in single quotes. The attacker can then use other techniques such as UNION, subqueries, or conditional statements to manipulate the query and retrieve data from other tables or columns.

WEP encryption is an outdated and insecure method of protecting wireless networks from unauthorized access and eavesdropping. WEP uses a static key that can be easily cracked by various tools and techniques, such as capturing the initialization vectors, brute-forcing the key, or exploiting the weak key scheduling algorithm1. Therefore, you should recommend a more secure encryption method to enhance the security of the company’s wireless network.

One of the most suitable replacements for WEP encryption is WPA2-PSK with AES encryption. WPA2 stands for Wi-Fi Protected Access 2, which is a security standard that improves upon the previous WPA standard. WPA2 uses a robust encryption algorithm called AES, which stands for Advanced Encryption Standard. AES is a block cipher that uses a 128-bit key and is considered to be very secure and resistant to attacks2.

WPA2-PSK stands for WPA2 Pre-Shared Key, which is a mode of WPA2 that uses a passphrase or a password to generate the encryption key. The passphrase or password must be entered by the users who want to connect to the wireless network. The key is then derived from the passphrase or password using a function called PBKDF2, which stands for Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2. PBKDF2 adds a salt and a number of iterations to the passphrase or password to make it harder to crack3.

WPA2-PSK with AES encryption offers several advantages over WEP encryption, such as:

It uses a dynamic key that changes with each session, instead of a static key that remains the same.

It uses a stronger encryption algorithm that is more difficult to break, instead of a weaker encryption algorithm that is more vulnerable to attacks.

It uses a longer key that provides more security, instead of a shorter key that provides less security.

It uses a more secure key derivation function that adds complexity and randomness, instead of a simple key generation function that is predictable and flawed.

Therefore, you should recommend WPA2-PSK with AES encryption as a suitable replacement to enhance the security of the company’s wireless network.

In CEH v13 Module 14: Cryptography, CAST-128 is defined as a symmetric block cipher based on a Feistel structure with:

Block size of 64 bits

12 or 16 rounds, depending on key size

Uses 8×32-bit S-boxes with complex structures (including bent functions)

Operates with modular addition/subtraction, XOR, key-dependent rotations, and masking keys (Km) and rotation keys (Kr)

All features described in the scenario match the CAST-128 algorithm.

Option Clarification:

B. AES: Operates on 128-bit blocks, uses Substitution-Permutation Network (SPN), not Feistel.

C. GOST: Russian block cipher, also Feistel-based, but structure and key use differ.

D. DES: Feistel cipher with 64-bit block size, but uses 16 rounds and simpler S-boxes.

Correct answer is A. CAST-128

Reconnaissance is the first phase of ethical hacking and also part of the cyber kill chain. It involves gathering publicly available information about a target, such as employee names, company structure, and branding, which is later used in social engineering or phishing attacks.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 2: Footprinting and Reconnaissance

Quote:

“Reconnaissance involves gathering information from public sources such as websites, social networks, and press releases. This is used to craft targeted phishing messages or exploit organizational weaknesses.”

Incorrect Options Explained:

A & B. Not formal terms in ethical hacking.

D. Enumeration involves interacting with systems to extract technical data.

In CEH v13 Network Scanning, a SYN scan—also known as a half-open scan—is one of the most common and reliable techniques used to identify open TCP ports. This method involves sending a TCP SYN packet to a target port and analyzing the response without completing the full three-way handshake.

When a scanner sends a SYN packet:

SYN/ACK response → The port is OPEN

RST response → The port is CLOSED

No response or ICMP unreachable → The port is FILTERED

In this scenario, the receipt of a SYN/ACK packet clearly indicates that the target system is willing to establish a TCP connection on that port. The scanner typically responds with a RST packet instead of an ACK to avoid completing the connection, thereby remaining stealthy.

Option B is therefore correct and aligns exactly with CEH v13 definitions.

Option A is incorrect because unreachable hosts do not respond with SYN/ACK.

Option C is incorrect because filtered ports usually do not respond or return ICMP errors.

Option D is incorrect because closed ports respond with RST, not SYN/ACK.

CEH v13 emphasizes SYN scanning as a preferred method due to its balance of accuracy and reduced logging. Understanding TCP flag behavior is fundamental for interpreting scan results correctly.

A hybrid encryption system is a system that combines the advantages of both asymmetric and symmetric encryption algorithms. Asymmetric encryption, such as RSA, uses a pair of keys: a public key and a private key, which are mathematically related but not identical. Asymmetric encryption can provide key exchange, authentication, and non-repudiation, but it is slower and less efficient than symmetric encryption. Symmetric encryption, such as AES, uses a single key to encrypt and decrypt data. Symmetric encryption is faster and more efficient than asymmetric encryption, but it requires a secure way to share the key.

In a hybrid encryption system, RSA encryption is used for key exchange, and AES encryption is used for data encryption. This way, the system can benefit from the security of RSA and the speed of AES. However, the system also depends on the key sizes of both algorithms, which affect the security and performance of the system.

The key size of RSA encryption determines the number of bits in the public and private keys. The larger the key size, the more secure the encryption, but also the slower the key generation and encryption/decryption processes. The time complexity of generating an RSA key pair is O(n*2), where n is the key size in bits. This means that the time required to generate an RSA key pair increases quadratically with the key size. For example, if it takes 1 second to generate a 1024-bit RSA key pair, it will take 4 seconds to generate a 2048-bit RSA key pair, and 16 seconds to generate a 4096-bit RSA key pair.

The key size of AES encryption determines the number of bits in the symmetric key. The larger the key size, the more secure the encryption, but also the more rounds of encryption/decryption are needed. The time complexity of AES encryption is O(n), where n is the key size in bits. This means that the time required to encrypt/decrypt data increases linearly with the key size. For example, if it takes 1 second to encrypt/decrypt data with a 128-bit AES key, it will take 2 seconds to encrypt/decrypt data with a 256-bit AES key, and 4 seconds to encrypt/decrypt data with a 512-bit AES key.

An attacker has developed a quantum algorithm with time complexity O((log n)*2) to crack RSA encryption. This means that the time required to break RSA encryption decreases exponentially with the key size. For example, if it takes 1 second to break a 1024-bit RSA encryption, it will take 0.25 seconds to break a 2048-bit RSA encryption, and 0.0625 seconds to break a 4096-bit RSA encryption. This makes RSA encryption vulnerable to quantum attacks, unless the key size is very large.

Given n=4000 and variable AES key size, the scenario that is likely to provide the best balance of security and performance is C. AES key size=192 bits. This configuration is a compromise between options A and B, providing moderate security and performance. Option A, AES key size=128 bits, provides less security than option C, but RSA key generation and AES encryption will be faster. Option B, AES key size=256 bits, provides more security than option C, but RSA key generation may be slow. Option D, AES key size=512 bits, provides the highest level of security, but at a significant performance cost due to the large AES key size.

A service-based solution offered by an auditing firm would be the most appropriate type of vulnerability assessment solution for the large e-commerce organization, given their requirements. A service-based solution is a type of vulnerability assessment that is performed by external experts who have the skills, tools, and experience to conduct a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the target system or network. A service-based solution can imitate the outside view of attackers, as the experts are not familiar with the internal details or configurations of the organization. A service-based solution can also perform well-organized inference-based testing, which is a type of testing that uses logical reasoning and deduction to identify and exploit vulnerabilities based on the information gathered from the target. A service-based solution can scan automatically against continuously updated databases, as the experts have access to the latest security intelligence and threat feeds. A service-based solution can also support multiple networks, as the experts can use different techniques and tools to scan different types of networks, such as wired, wireless, cloud, or hybrid12.

The other options are not as appropriate as option B for the following reasons:

A. Inference-based assessment solution: This option is not a type of vulnerability assessment solution, but a type of testing method that can be used by any solution. Inference-based testing is a testing method that uses logical reasoning and deduction to identify and exploit vulnerabilities based on the information gathered from the target. Inference-based testing can be performed by service-based, product-based, or tree-based solutions, depending on the scope, objectives, and resources of the assessment3.

C. Tree-based assessment approach: This option is not a type of vulnerability assessment solution, but a type of testing method that can be used by any solution. Tree-based testing is a testing method that uses a hierarchical structure to organize and prioritize the vulnerabilities based on their severity, impact, and exploitability. Tree-based testing can be performed by service-based, product-based, or inference-based solutions, depending on the scope, objectives, and resources of the assessment4.

D. Product-based solution installed on a private network: This option is a type of vulnerability assessment solution, but it may not meet all the requirements of the large e-commerce organization. A product-based solution is a type of vulnerability assessment that is performed by using software or hardware tools that are installed on the organization’s own network. A product-based solution can scan automatically against continuously updated databases, as the tools can be configured to download and apply the latest security updates and patches. However, a product-based solution may not imitate the outside view of attackers, as the tools may have limited access or visibility to the external network or the internet. A product-based solution may also not perform well-organized inference-based testing, as the tools may rely on predefined rules or signatures to detect and report vulnerabilities, rather than using logical reasoning and deduction. A product-based solution may also not support multiple networks, as the tools may be designed or optimized for a specific type of network, such as wired, wireless, cloud, or hybrid .

According to CEH v13 Security Operations and Incident Response, backdoors are stealth mechanisms that allow attackers persistent access. Indicators such as unexplained outbound traffic, unauthorized file modifications, and irregular reboots strongly suggest post-compromise persistence mechanisms.

CEH v13 recommends a behavioral and host-based detection approach for backdoor identification. Continuous monitoring of system and file activity helps detect unauthorized binaries, registry changes, and scheduled tasks. Anomaly detection identifies deviations from normal system behavior, which is critical for uncovering hidden backdoors that evade signature-based detection.

Additionally, advanced anti-malware tools with heuristic and memory analysis capabilities are essential to identify sophisticated backdoors that traditional antivirus may miss. These tools can detect rootkits, fileless persistence, and covert communication channels.

The other options are preventative but not investigative. Immediate reboots may destroy volatile evidence, while password policies and ACLs do not detect existing compromises. Therefore, option B provides the most effective and CEH-aligned response.

https://nmap.org/book/man-output.html

-oX - Requests that XML output be directed to the given filename.

In CEH v13 Module 11: Hacking Wireless Networks, Wardriving is explained as the practice of driving around with a Wi-Fi-enabled device to detect open or vulnerable wireless networks.

Key Characteristics of Wardriving:

Involves using laptops, smartphones, or specialized devices with Wi-Fi antennas.

Tools like NetStumbler, Kismet, or WiGLE may be used.

Often includes GPS tagging of discovered networks.

Used to identify unsecured access points for later exploitation.

Option Clarification:

A. GPS mapping: May be used with wardriving, but not the act itself.

B. Spectrum analysis: Measures RF spectrum usage; not network discovery.

C. Wardriving: Correct – searching for Wi-Fi networks while driving.

D. Wireless sniffing: Captures traffic; can happen during wardriving, but broader in scope.

Static Network Address Translation (Static NAT) allows a single private IP address to be mapped to a single public IP address. This one-to-one mapping ensures that the same internal machine is always reachable through the same external IP address, which is crucial for "server publishing" — making internal servers (e.g., web servers, FTP servers) accessible from the internet.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 03: Scanning Networks

Topic: Network Address Translation

Section: Types of NAT

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“Static NAT provides a fixed translation of a private IP address to a public IP address. It is commonly used when an internal server must always be accessible from the Internet using a consistent IP address — this is known as server publishing.”

Incorrect Options:

A. Overloading PAT: Multiple private IPs share a single public IP using port numbers — not suited for static mappings.

B. Dynamic PAT: Similar to overloading; used for outbound traffic only.

C. Dynamic NAT: Assigns a public IP from a pool; the mapping can change, not suitable for server publishing.

JXplorer could be a cross platform LDAP browser and editor. it’s a standards compliant general purpose LDAP client which will be used to search, scan and edit any commonplace LDAP directory, or any directory service with an LDAP or DSML interface.

It is extremely flexible and can be extended and custom in a very number of the way. JXplorer is written in java, and also the source code and source code build system ar obtainable via svn or as a packaged build for users who wish to experiment or any develop the program.

JX is is available in 2 versions; the free open source version under an OSI Apache two style licence, or within the JXWorkBench Enterprise bundle with inbuilt reporting, administrative and security tools.

JX has been through a number of different versions since its creation in 1999; the foremost recent stable release is version 3.3.1, the August 2013 release.

JXplorer could be a absolutely useful LDAP consumer with advanced security integration and support for the harder and obscure elements of the LDAP protocol. it’s been tested on Windows, Solaris, linux and OSX, packages are obtainable for HPUX, AIX, BSD and it should run on any java supporting OS.

Increase your web site’s performance and grow! Add Web-Stat to your site (it’s free!) and watch individuals act together with your pages in real time.

Learn how individuals realize your web site. Get details concerning every visitor’s path through your web site and track pages that flip browsers into consumers.

One-click install. observe locations, in operation systems, browsers and screen sizes and obtain alerts for new guests and conversions

Bollards are short vertical posts installed to control or direct road traffic, but more importantly, they act as physical security controls to prevent vehicle-ramming attacks or unauthorized vehicle entry into sensitive or secure areas such as building entrances. They are often reinforced and strategically placed to withstand high-speed collisions.

This is a physical security control described in CEH v13 Module 01 (Introduction to Ethical Hacking) and further discussed in physical security best practices for preventing unauthorized physical access.

Incorrect Options:

B. Receptionist is a human control, not a physical barrier for vehicles.

C. Mantrap is used to control personnel access, not vehicle access.

D. Turnstile controls pedestrian entry, not vehicles.

In CEH v13 Module 12: Hacking Web Applications, Burp Suite is introduced as a powerful proxy-based tool used for intercepting, modifying, and analyzing HTTP/S traffic between a client and a web application.

Key Features of Burp Suite:

Captures all HTTP requests and responses.

Allows for manual testing of input parameters, headers, and cookies.

Includes tools such as Intruder, Repeater, Scanner, and Decoder.

Helps detect vulnerabilities such as XSS, SQLi, CSRF, and insecure session handling.

Option Review:

A. Maskgen: Used for generating masks, not a web proxy.

B. Dimitry: A footprinting tool, not used for request/response testing.

C. Burpsuite: Correct. Designed for web application vulnerability analysis.

D. Proxychains: Used to chain proxies for anonymity, not for HTTP traffic analysis.

CEH training emphasizes that mobile applications frequently mishandle local storage, leaving sensitive data such as tokens, passwords, API keys, or personal information unencrypted within SQLite databases, shared preferences, or flat-file storage. When encryption is absent or improperly implemented, attackers can directly access this data through filesystem extraction, Android Debug Bridge (ADB) access, physical device access, or rooted environments. CEH identifies “Insecure Data Storage” as one of the most critical mobile vulnerabilities because it bypasses server-side defenses entirely. Since the vulnerability specifically concerns data at rest, the most direct and effective exploitation method is to retrieve the locally stored unencrypted data. SQL injection (Option B) evaluates backend security, not device storage. XSS (Option C) is a web attack and unrelated to local encryption. Brute-forcing credentials (Option D) is unnecessary when sensitive information is already stored insecurely. Therefore, accessing local storage is the correct exploitation method.

In CEH v13, IDS effectiveness is closely tied to proper signature tuning and sensitivity thresholds. When IDS alerts are triggered by legitimate user behavior, the most common cause is overly sensitive configuration, resulting in false positives.

False positives occur when normal traffic patterns match intrusion signatures. CEH v13 emphasizes that IDS systems must be calibrated to the organization’s baseline traffic profile. Without tuning, IDS logs become noisy and reduce analyst effectiveness.

Firewall issues (Option A) and outdated IDS signatures (Option B) can cause missed detections, not excessive alerts. Users unintentionally triggering protocols (Option D) is not a root cause but a symptom of misconfiguration.

Thus, excessive IDS sensitivity is the correct explanation.

Tailgating, as defined in CEH v13 Social Engineering, is a physical social engineering attack where an unauthorized individual gains access by following an authorized person into a restricted area.

The attacker exploits human courtesy rather than technical vulnerabilities. Options B, C, and D describe phishing, pretexting, and baiting respectively.

Thus, option A is the correct representation of tailgating.

Verbose failure messages are detailed error messages that reveal too much information about authentication failures. In the described scenario, the web application specifies whether the username or password is incorrect. This behavior enables attackers to:

Enumerate valid usernames by submitting random inputs and observing which error message is returned.

Use the valid usernames to conduct targeted attacks such as brute-force attempts or social engineering.

According to CEH v13:

Authentication mechanisms should provide generic error messages such as “Invalid username or password” to avoid exposing system behavior.

Verbose error messages violate the principle of "fail securely."

Incorrect Options:

A. Insecure transmission relates to credentials being sent over unencrypted channels (e.g., HTTP instead of HTTPS).

C. User impersonation involves taking on the identity of another user, not enumeration.

D. Password reset mechanisms are a different component of authentication, not mentioned in this context.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 14: Hacking Web Applications

Section: “Authentication Bypass Techniques”

Subsection: “Enumeration via Verbose Error Messages”

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Vulnerability-Management Life Cycle The vulnerability management life cycle is an important process that helps identify and remediate security weaknesses before they can be exploited. 4.Remediation - applying fixes on vulnerable systems in order to reduce the impact and severity of vulnerabilities. (P.515/499)

According to the CEH Network and Perimeter Security module, one of the most effective and widely used firewall evasion techniques is the use of encrypted communication channels. When traffic is encrypted using protocols such as HTTPS, TLS, or VPN tunnels, traditional firewalls and packet-inspection tools may be unable to inspect payload contents unless SSL/TLS inspection is explicitly enabled.

CEH documentation explains that attackers commonly encrypt command-and-control (C2) traffic to:

Blend in with legitimate encrypted traffic

Bypass content-based inspection

Evade signature-based detection

Option B is therefore correct.

Option A (IP spoofing) is less effective against stateful firewalls.

Option C is a human-focused attack, not firewall evasion.

Option D has no relevance to firewall bypass techniques.

CEH highlights encryption misuse as a major blind spot in perimeter defenses.

In CEH v13 Information Security and Ethical Hacking Overview, a penetration tester is defined as a trusted, authorized security professional hired to simulate real-world attacks in order to identify and exploit vulnerabilities with explicit permission.

The primary objectives of a penetration tester are:

Identify weaknesses in systems, networks, and applications

Demonstrate real-world impact of vulnerabilities

Help organizations improve their security posture

Unlike malicious hackers (Option A) or malware authors (Options B and D), penetration testers operate under strict legal and ethical guidelines, following scopes of engagement and reporting findings responsibly.

CEH v13 emphasizes that penetration testing is proactive defense, not crime. Therefore, Option C accurately defines the role.

IoT devices that transmit data without encryption expose all communication to interception. CEH explains that attackers can position themselves between the IoT device and cloud service to manipulate or capture traffic. A MitM attack enables interception of commands, credentials, and firmware data due to the absence of TLS protections.

A NULL scan is a type of TCP stealth scan where no flags are set in the TCP header. It is used to identify open or closed ports based on how the target responds to this unexpected packet.

Behavior:

If the port is closed → Target responds with RST (Reset)

If the port is open → No response (on compliant systems like Unix-based OSes)

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 03: Scanning Networks

Topic: TCP Flag Scanning

Subsection: NULL Scan

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“In a NULL scan, if a target port is closed, the system responds with an RST packet as per RFC 793. If the port is open, it typically does not respond, which allows stealthy enumeration of services.”

Incorrect Options:

A. SYN: Initiated by a SYN scan.

B. ACK: Used in ACK scans.

C/D: Not applicable for NULL scans.

F. No response occurs for open ports, not closed ones.

Wireshark is the primary packet-sniffing tool covered in CEH v13 Network Sniffing. It captures and analyzes live traffic, allowing analysts to view plaintext HTTP packets.

Nessus is a vulnerability scanner, Nmap is for scanning, Netcat is a networking utility. None provide protocol-level inspection like Wireshark.

Thus, Option D is correct.

According to CEH v13 Module 09: Social Engineering, both pharming and phishing are forms of fraud that direct users to malicious websites. However, their techniques differ:

Pharming involves modifying DNS entries or the victim's host file to silently redirect users to a malicious site without needing user interaction.

Phishing involves sending links via emails or messages where the URL is visually deceptive (misspelled, similar domain names, homoglyph attacks).

While the question as shown appears slightly misformatted, this closely resembles the Windows command:

ping -t 192.168.0.101

Here:

-t means to ping continuously until manually stopped.

In the question: ping -* 6 192.168.0.101, the * is most likely a placeholder or typographical error. Based on CEH format questions and how command-line flags work in ping, -t is the correct flag.

Option A. t – Correct (ping continuously)

Why Others Are Incorrect:

B. s: Not a valid option in Windows ping.

C. a: Used to resolve the hostname from an IP (not related to this).

D. n: Specifies the number of echo requests to send.

CEH v13 emphasizes that well-secured applications use HTTPS, secure cookies, and session regeneration to defend against common session hijacking techniques. In such hardened environments, traditional attacks like session fixation or simple XSS-based token theft often fail because session IDs change at login and secure flags prevent exposure. The remaining viable approach is session token prediction, an advanced attack that analyzes statistical patterns, entropy weaknesses, or timing issues in session ID generation algorithms. CEH discusses that weak pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs) or predictable sequences can allow attackers to compute a valid session ID without intercepting traffic. This method bypasses cookie security and does not rely on manipulating user input, making it suitable for environments with strong defenses. MITM attacks (Option A) require certificate compromise, which is impractical. Session fixation (Option B) fails because the application regenerates tokens. XSS (Option D) is ineffective when secure flags prevent JavaScript access to cookies. Thus, token prediction is the correct answer.

Hootsuite may be a social media management platform that covers virtually each side of a social media manager’s role.

With only one platform users area unit ready to do the easy stuff like reverend cool content and schedule posts on social media in all the high to managing team members and measure ROI.

There area unit many totally different plans to decide on from, from one user set up up to a bespoken enterprise account that’s appropriate for much larger organizations.

Conducting location search on social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook helps attackers to detect the geolocation of the target. This information further helps attackers to perform various social engineering and non-technical attacks. Many online tools such as Followerwonk, Hootsuite, and Sysomos are available to search for both geotagged and non-geotagged information on social media sites. Attackers search social media sites using these online tools using keywords, usernames, date, time, and so on...

CEH v13 explains that NTP (UDP port 123) can leak sensitive network information if misconfigured. When an NTP daemon allows unrestricted external queries (e.g., monlist or ntpq commands), attackers can enumerate internal IP addresses and hostnames.

This exposure is a known reconnaissance weakness and has been exploited in both information disclosure and amplification attacks. CEH v13 strongly recommends restricting NTP query access using access control lists.

DNS poisoning and honeypots do not explain legitimate NTP enumeration responses. Therefore, option D is correct.

This scenario demonstrates a classic case of Session Fixation, a session hijacking technique explicitly covered under the CEH v13 Web Application Hacking module. Session fixation occurs when an attacker sets or predicts a valid session identifier and forces a victim to authenticate using that same session ID.

In the given question, two critical vulnerabilities are highlighted:

The session ID is embedded in the URL

The application does not regenerate the session ID after login

According to CEH v13, secure applications must regenerate session identifiers after successful authentication to prevent fixation attacks. If this does not occur, an attacker can craft a URL containing a known session ID and trick the victim into clicking it. Once the victim logs in, the attacker reuses the same session ID to gain unauthorized access.

CEH documentation states that session fixation is particularly effective when:

Session IDs are passed via URL parameters

Sessions persist across authentication

Secure cookie attributes are not enforced

Other options are incorrect because:

XSS-based cookie theft requires client-side script injection.

DNS cache poisoning is unrelated to session management.

CSRF exploits user trust but does not directly hijack sessions.

Thus, Session Fixation by pre-setting the token in a URL is the most effective attack in this case.

Passive reconnaissance is emphasized throughout CEH as an essential method for gathering intelligence without alerting monitoring systems. When the tester cannot interact with the live site, they must rely entirely on third-party archives or cached content stored by search engines or internet archival services. Google’s cache function provides previously stored versions of web pages exactly for this purpose. CEH explains that attackers frequently use cached content to retrieve outdated login portals, administrative pages, exposed directories, or other sensitive elements that may no longer appear on the live web server. Unlike operators such as intext or intitle, which query live indexed metadata, the cache operator retrieves historical snapshots without accessing the target website. The link operator identifies backlinks but does not provide historical page content. Only the cache operator directly supports viewing previous versions of pages passively, aligning perfectly with the requirement to avoid detection while gathering intelligence on legacy web content.

According to the CEH Network Scanning module, Idle Scanning (Zombie Scanning) is one of the most stealthy reconnaissance techniques. In this method, the attacker uses an idle third-party host (zombie) to probe the target indirectly.

Because all scan packets appear to originate from the zombie system, the true attacker remains hidden. CEH highlights that idle scans:

Are extremely stealthy

Generate minimal traffic from the attacker

Make attribution very difficult

Option B is correct.

Option A (FIN scan) is stealthy but still traceable.

Option C is noisy and easily detected.

Option D describes a Xmas scan, which is detectable.

CEH classifies idle scanning as one of the hardest scanning techniques to trace.

CEH v13 defines the five phases of ethical hacking as a structured methodology that mirrors real-world attack progression:

Reconnaissance – Information gathering

Scanning – Identifying live hosts, ports, and vulnerabilities

Gaining Access – Exploiting vulnerabilities

Maintaining Access – Establishing persistence

Covering Tracks – Removing evidence

Option C matches this exact sequence. CEH v13 emphasizes that understanding this order is critical for both attackers and defenders, as it enables systematic testing and effective mitigation strategies.

All other options misplace phases and contradict the CEH methodology.

The SSID (service set identifier) is the name of your wireless network. SSID broadcast is how your router transmits this name to surrounding devices. Its primary function is to make your network visible and easily accessible. Most routers broadcast their SSIDs automatically. To disable or enable SSID broadcast, you need to change your router’s settings.

Disabling SSID broadcast will make your Wi-FI network name invisible to other users. However, this only hides the name, not the network itself. You cannot disguise the router's activity, so hackers can still attack it.

With your network invisible to wireless devices, connecting becomes a bit more complicated. Just giving a Wi-FI password to your guests is no longer enough. They have to configure their settings manually by including the network name, security mode, and other relevant info.

Disabling SSID might be a small step towards online security, but by no means should it be your final one. Before considering it as a security measure, consider the following aspects:

- Disabling SSID broadcast will not hide your network completely

Disabling SSID broadcast only hides the network name, not the fact that it exists. Your router constantly transmits so-called beacon frames to announce the presence of a wireless network. They contain essential information about the network and help the device connect.

- Third-party software can easily trace a hidden network

Programs such as NetStumbler or Kismet can easily locate hidden networks. You can try using them yourself to see how easy it is to find available networks – hidden or not.

- You might attract unwanted attention.

Disabling your SSID broadcast could also raise suspicion. Most of us assume that when somebody hides something, they have a reason to do so. Thus, some hackers might be attracted to your network.

The command in question:

wget 192.168.0.15 -q -S

wget is a command-line utility used to retrieve files via HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP.

-q (quiet mode): Suppresses output, except for errors.

-S: Displays the server response headers (even in quiet mode).

In this case, wget is being used to connect to the specified web server (192.168.0.15) and retrieve the HTTP response headers — such as the Server field (e.g., Apache, Nginx), HTTP status codes, and other metadata.

This is a classic example of banner grabbing — the process of capturing metadata (often from headers) to identify the software, version, or configuration of a service.

Incorrect Options:

A. Content enumeration would require directory brute-forcing tools like DirBuster or Gobuster.

C. DoS attacks require high volumes of traffic or specially crafted packets; wget with a single request does not perform flooding.

D. Downloading full site contents would involve options like -r (recursive) or --mirror, which are not used in this command.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 03: Scanning Networks

Section: “Banner Grabbing”

Tool Reference: wget, netcat, telnet, curl for banner enumeration

CEH v13 explains that steganography-based exfiltration hides data within benign-looking files, making it extremely difficult to detect via firewalls or IPS alone. Blocking all outbound traffic is impractical, and IPS systems are not designed to analyze file content deeply for hidden data.

The most effective countermeasure is steganalysis, which involves inspecting files for statistical anomalies, altered pixel distributions, or hidden payload patterns. CEH v13 identifies steganalysis tools as the only reliable method to detect and decode hidden data.

Traffic monitoring (Option C) helps identify suspicious transfers but cannot confirm steganography. Therefore, Option D is correct.

Comprehensive Explanation from CEH v13 Courseware:

CEH v13 explains that TOCTOU (Time-of-Check Time-of-Use) vulnerabilities arise when a system checks a condition (such as file permissions) and then later uses the resource based on that assumption. If there is even a tiny gap between the validation and the actual use, attackers can exploit this race condition by replacing or modifying the resource after validation but before execution. This is common in file-handling operations involving temporary files, symbolic links, or shared directories. CEH emphasizes that TOCTOU attacks often lead to privilege escalation, unauthorized execution, or tampering with data because the system trusts the earlier validation step. The attacker swaps the file at precisely the right moment, taking advantage of a race window. The other options—certificate validation, integer overflow, and null pointer dereference—do not involve timing-based race conditions. The scenario exactly matches CEH’s description of TOCTOU exploitation, where attackers manipulate file access in the interval between validation and execution.

Jamming and scrambling are attacks targeting the physical layer of the OSI model, often affecting wireless communication by generating interference to disrupt signal transmission. To mitigate such attacks, one advanced countermeasure is the use of Cognitive Radios.

According to CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Cognitive radios are intelligent radio systems capable of sensing the radio frequency (RF) environment and dynamically adjusting their operating parameters (e.g., frequency, modulation) to avoid interference and jamming.

They enable dynamic spectrum access and help in improving spectrum efficiency and resilience against jamming.

This approach falls under physical-layer security mechanisms.

Incorrect Options:

A. gets and strcpy are unsafe functions vulnerable to buffer overflow, not relevant to DoS protection.

B. Allowing all types of packets increases risk and is not a mitigation.

D. TCP SYN cookies protect against SYN flood attacks and disabling them weakens security.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 10: Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attacks

Section: “Defensive Strategies Against Jamming and DoS Attacks”

Subsection: “Physical Layer Countermeasures”

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

Phishing is a type of social engineering attack often used to steal user data, including login credentials and credit card numbers. It occurs when an attacker, masquerading as a trusted entity, dupes a victim into opening an email, instant message, or text message. The recipient is then tricked into clicking a malicious link, which can lead to the installation of malware, the freezing of the system as part of a ransomware attack, or the revealing of sensitive information.

An attack can have devastating results. For individuals, this includes unauthorized purchases, the stealing of funds, or identify theft.

Moreover, phishing is often used to gain a foothold in corporate or governmental networks as a part of a larger attack, such as an advanced persistent threat (APT) event. In this latter scenario, employees are compromised in order to bypass security perimeters, distribute malware inside a closed environment, or gain privileged access to secured data.

An organization succumbing to such an attack typically sustains severe financial losses in addition to declining market share, reputation, and consumer trust. Depending on the scope, a phishing attempt might escalate into a security incident from which a business will have a difficult time recovering.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) is covered in CEH v13 Module 12: Hacking Web Applications. It occurs when an attacker tricks a victim’s browser into making unintended, authenticated requests to a web application where the victim is already logged in.

Example:

User logs in to a banking site.

While logged in, the attacker sends the user a crafted link that submits a transaction via a hidden request.

Since the user’s session cookies are valid, the bank processes the request.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

A. Session hijacking: Steals session tokens but doesn’t involve forcing browser actions.

B. SSRF: Server sends a request to an internal service, not via user's browser.

D. XSS: Executes scripts in the user’s browser but doesn't force HTTP requests under the user’s identity.

The Security Account Manager (SAM) file on Windows contains user account information, including password hashes. Hackers target this file to extract credentials for offline cracking using tools like L0phtCrack or Cain & Abel.

From CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 6: Malware Threats

Module 4: Enumeration

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“The SAM file stores hashed user credentials. If attackers gain access to it, they can extract password hashes and perform brute-force or dictionary attacks offline.”

Common locations:

C:\Windows\System32\config\SAM

C:\Windows\Repair\SAM

According to CEH v13 Social Engineering, social engineering attacks manipulate human trust rather than technical vulnerabilities. Option A describes a classic pretexting attack, where the attacker impersonates IT staff and fabricates a false issue to trick a victim into revealing credentials.

This scenario aligns perfectly with CEH definitions because:

The attacker relies on authority impersonation

The victim is socially manipulated

No technical exploitation is required

Option B is a legitimate security activity.

Option C is accidental malware introduction, not social engineering.

Option D is physical negligence exploitation, not direct social engineering interaction.

CEH v13 stresses that pretexting attacks are extremely effective against new employees who lack familiarity with procedures. Therefore, Option A is correct.

MX (Mail Exchange) records in DNS define the mail servers responsible for receiving email for a domain. Each MX record has a priority value.

Important concept:

A lower number indicates a higher priority.

Email servers attempt delivery to the mail server with the lowest priority first.

For example:

If MX records are:

10 mail1.example.com

20 mail2.example.com

Then mail1 will be tried first. If it fails, mail2 will be used.

So the statement “MX record priority increases as the number increases” is false.

In the context of security testing, test automation plays a critical role in improving the speed and consistency of testing activities. However, it cannot entirely replace manual testing because certain security vulnerabilities—especially logic flaws or issues with session management—often require human intuition and contextual understanding.

According to CEH v13 Official Courseware – Module 05 (Vulnerability Analysis), and confirmed in the CEH v13 Study Guide, automated testing is best suited for:

Repetitive benchmark tests

Regression testing

Scanning for known vulnerabilities

Ensuring consistency across environments

However, manual testing is still essential for:

Business logic testing

Security misconfiguration identification

Discovering zero-day flaws

The Heartbleed vulnerability (CVE-2014-0160) is a critical buffer over-read flaw in OpenSSL’s implementation of the TLS heartbeat extension. It allows attackers to read portions of memory from a server using vulnerable versions of OpenSSL.

This exposed sensitive data including:

Usernames and passwords

Session tokens

Private encryption keys

From CEH v13 Study Guide – Module 5: Vulnerability Analysis and Module 6: Malware Threats:

“The Heartbleed vulnerability allowed attackers to extract memory contents from the OpenSSL process, including sensitive materials such as private SSL keys. These private keys are used in the TLS protocol to encrypt and decrypt secure communications. Once compromised, attackers could decrypt communications or impersonate the server.”

Private keys being compromised allow attackers to decrypt HTTPS traffic, impersonate trusted servers, and conduct MITM (Man-in-the-Middle) attacks.

Incorrect Options:

A. Public: Public keys are already shared and not a security risk if disclosed.

C. Shared: Vague term not applicable here.

D. Root: Heartbleed doesn’t directly expose root keys; rather, it leaks application memory including private SSL/TLS keys.

A stealth virus may be a sort of virus malware that contains sophisticated means of avoiding detection by antivirus software. After it manages to urge into the now-infected machine a stealth viruses hides itself by continually renaming and moving itself round the disc.

Like other viruses, a stealth virus can take hold of the many parts of one’s PC. When taking control of the PC and performing tasks, antivirus programs can detect it, but a stealth virus sees that coming and can rename then copy itself to a special drive or area on the disc, before the antivirus software. Once moved and renamed a stealth virus will usually replace the detected ‘infected’ file with a clean file that doesn’t trigger anti-virus detection. It’s a never-ending game of cat and mouse.

The intelligent architecture of this sort of virus about guarantees it’s impossible to completely rid oneself of it once infected. One would need to completely wipe the pc and rebuild it from scratch to completely eradicate the presence of a stealth virus. Using regularly-updated antivirus software can reduce risk, but, as we all know, antivirus software is additionally caught in an endless cycle of finding new threats and protecting against them.

https://www.techslang.com/definition/what-is-a-stealth-virus/

18 U.S.C. §1030, also known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), is a broad federal statute that criminalizes unauthorized access to computers and related fraudulent activities—including phishing and email scams.

From CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 1: Introduction to Ethical Hacking

Topic: U.S. Laws Related to Cybercrime

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“Email-based frauds such as phishing, spoofing, and other social engineering attacks fall under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. §1030), which criminalizes unauthorized access and fraudulent behavior in computing systems.”

Incorrect Options:

B: Relates to credit cards and access devices.

C: Covers interference with government communication systems.

D: Covers illegal wiretapping and eavesdropping.

Operational Threat Intelligence provides insights into specific attacker methodologies, motivations, and campaigns. It involves gathering contextual information from real-world attacks, open-source intelligence (OSINT), social media, dark web forums, chat rooms, and human intelligence (HUMINT).

As per CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Operational intelligence is primarily used by security teams to anticipate specific incoming attacks.

It helps provide actionable information such as:

Who is attacking?

Why are they attacking?

What methods are they using?

What infrastructure is involved?

Incorrect Options:

A. Strategic Threat Intelligence is high-level, focusing on long-term trends and business risks.

B. Tactical Threat Intelligence is focused on TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) of known threats, primarily for defenders and analysts.

D. Technical Threat Intelligence includes IoCs like IPs, hashes, and URLs, often short-lived and used for detection systems.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 01: Introduction to Ethical Hacking

Section: "Types of Threat Intelligence"

Table: “Strategic vs Tactical vs Operational vs Technical Intelligence”

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An evil twin may be a fraudulent Wi-Fi access point that appears to be legitimate but is about up to pay attention to wireless communications.[1] The evil twin is that the wireless LAN equivalent of the phishing scam.

This type of attack could also be wont to steal the passwords of unsuspecting users, either by monitoring their connections or by phishing, which involves fixing a fraudulent internet site and luring people there.

The attacker snoops on Internet traffic employing a bogus wireless access point. Unwitting web users could also be invited to log into the attacker’s server, prompting them to enter sensitive information like usernames and passwords. Often, users are unaware they need been duped until well after the incident has occurred.

When users log into unsecured (non-HTTPS) bank or e-mail accounts, the attacker intercepts the transaction, since it’s sent through their equipment. The attacker is additionally ready to hook up with other networks related to the users’ credentials.

Fake access points are found out by configuring a wireless card to act as an access point (known as HostAP). they’re hard to trace since they will be shut off instantly. The counterfeit access point could also be given an equivalent SSID and BSSID as a close-by Wi-Fi network. The evil twin are often configured to pass Internet traffic through to the legitimate access point while monitoring the victim’s connection, or it can simply say the system is temporarily unavailable after obtaining a username and password.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

In TCP session hijacking or spoofing:

An attacker sends a spoofed packet with the ACK bit set and a guessed (or predicted) sequence number to fool the receiver into thinking it's a legitimate continuation of an existing session.

Fred is simulating this by sending a TCP packet with the ACK bit and using his own IP as the source, trying to trick the switch into believing it's part of an already established session.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 11: Session Hijacking

These types of attacks occur when faults or glitches are INJECTED into the Power supply that can be used for remote execution.

One may append the comment “–” operator along with the String for the username and whole avoid executing the password segment of the SQL query. Everything when the — operator would be considered as comment and not dead.

To launch such an attack, the value passed for name could be ’OR ‘1’=‘1’ ; —

Statement = “SELECT * FROM ‘CustomerDB’ WHERE ‘name’ = ‘ ”+ userName + “ ‘ AND ‘password’ = ‘ ” + passwd + “ ‘ ; ”

Statement = “SELECT * FROM ‘CustomerDB’ WHERE ‘name’ = ‘ ’ OR ‘1’=‘1‘;– + “ ‘ AND ‘password’ = ‘ ” + passwd + “ ‘ ; ”

All the records from the customer database would be listed.

Yet, another variation of the SQL Injection Attack can be conducted in dbms systems that allow multiple SQL injection statements. Here, we will also create use of the vulnerability in sure dbms whereby a user provided field isn’t strongly used in or isn’t checked for sort constraints.

This could take place once a numeric field is to be employed in a SQL statement; but, the programmer makes no checks to validate that the user supplied input is numeric.

Variation is an evasion technique whereby the attacker can easily evade any comparison statement. The attacker does this by placing characters such as “' or '1'='1'” in any basic injection statement such as “or 1=1” or with other accepted SQL comments.

Evasion Technique: Variation Variation is an evasion technique whereby the attacker can easily evade any comparison statement. The attacker does this by placing characters such as “' or '1'='1'” in any basic injection statement such as “or 1=1” or with other accepted SQL comments. The SQL interprets this as a comparison between two strings or characters instead of two numeric values. As the evaluation of two strings yields a true statement, similarly, the evaluation of two numeric values yields a true statement, thus rendering the evaluation of the complete query unaffected. It is also possible to write many other signatures; thus, there are infinite possibilities of variation as well. The main aim of the attacker is to have a WHERE statement that is always evaluated as “true” so that any mathematical or string comparison can be used, where the SQL can perform the same.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Cryptographic hash functions provide:

Integrity: Any change in the input changes the output hash.

Collision Resistance: It is computationally infeasible to find two inputs that produce the same hash.

This ensures data is not altered during transmission.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 10: Cryptography → Hashing Functions (e.g., SHA-256, MD5)

The Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Cloud Computing and Data Protection module emphasizes the importance of resilient backup strategies to protect against data tampering, ransomware, and unauthorized modification.

The 3-2-1 backup model is a widely recommended best practice referenced in CEH materials. It requires maintaining:

3 copies of data

Stored on 2 different media types

With 1 copy stored offsite

This approach ensures that even if cloud backups are compromised or altered, clean and uncompromised versions remain available. CEH documentation highlights this model as a core defense against data integrity attacks in cloud environments.

Option D directly mitigates the risk of backup tampering.

Options A, B, and C address unrelated security concerns and do not protect backup integrity.

Infoga may be a tool gathering email accounts informations (ip,hostname,country,…) from completely different public supply (search engines, pgp key servers and shodan) and check if email was leaked using haveibeenpwned.com API. is a really simple tool, however very effective for the first stages of a penetration test or just to know the visibility of your company within the net.

Operation Cloud Hopper was an in depth attack and theft of data in 2017 directed at MSP within the uk (U.K.), us (U.S.), Japan, Canada, Brazil, France, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, South Africa , India, Thailand, South Korea and Australia. The group used MSP as intermediaries to accumulate assets and trade secrets from MSP client engineering, MSP industrial manufacturing, retail, energy, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and government agencies.

Operation Cloud Hopper used over 70 variants of backdoors, malware and trojans. These were delivered through spear-phishing emails. The attacks scheduled tasks or leveraged services/utilities to continue Microsoft Windows systems albeit the pc system was rebooted. It installed malware and hacking tools to access systems and steal data.

CEH v13 defines a white hat hacker as a security professional with explicit authorization to perform penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, and exploitation attempts within legal and contractual boundaries. Their objective is to strengthen security, not compromise it. White hats follow structured methodologies, document findings, and provide remediation recommendations. A black hat (Option A) acts maliciously and without permission. A grey hat (Option B) operates without authorization but without harmful intent, which is not compliant with corporate penetration testing procedures. Script kiddies (Option C) rely on pre-built tools without deep knowledge and are not employed for legitimate engagements. Therefore, the individual described is a white hat, operating under legal and ethical guidelines with organizational consent.

This scenario clearly indicates a SYN Flood attack, a classic Denial-of-Service technique discussed in CEH v13 Network and Perimeter Hacking. In a normal TCP three-way handshake, a client sends a SYN, the server responds with SYN-ACK, and the client completes the connection with an ACK. In a SYN flood, attackers send a massive number of SYN packets but never complete the handshake.

As described in CEH v13, the server allocates memory and resources for each half-open connection, placing them in the SYN_RECEIVED state. When these connections are not finalized, the server’s connection table becomes saturated, preventing legitimate users from establishing new sessions.

Other options are incorrect:

Smurf attacks rely on ICMP amplification, not TCP handshakes.

Ping of Death uses malformed ICMP packets.

UDP Floods overwhelm ports using UDP, not TCP session states.

CEH v13 emphasizes SYN floods as one of the most common Layer 4 DoS attacks due to their simplicity and effectiveness.

In CEH v13 Module 03: Scanning Networks, Nmap includes timing templates for controlling the speed and stealthiness of scans.

-T5: Insane mode – very fast, highly aggressive, easily detectable.

-T0: Paranoid mode – very slow and stealthy.

-O: Enables OS detection (not related to scan speed).

-A: Enables OS detection, version detection, script scanning, and traceroute (comprehensive but not specifically about speed).

Therefore:

If speed is your goal and you are not concerned about detection, then:

-T5 is the correct answer.

The base metric represents the inherent qualities of a vulnerability, according to the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). CVSS is a framework that numerically characterizes the severity of software vulnerabilities between the range of 0-10. CVSS consists of three metric groups: Base, Temporal, and Environmental. The base metric group captures the characteristics of a vulnerability that are constant over time and across user environments. The base metric group consists of six sub-metrics: Attack Vector, Attack Complexity, Privileges Required, User Interaction, Scope, and Impact. The impact sub-metric further consists of three sub-metrics: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. The base metric group produces a score ranging from 0 to 10, which reflects the intrinsic and fundamental properties of a vulnerability12.

The other options are not correct for the following reasons:

A. Temporal metric represents the inherent qualities of a vulnerability: This option is incorrect because the temporal metric group captures the characteristics of a vulnerability that change over time due to events external to the vulnerability. The temporal metric group consists of three sub-metrics: Exploit Code Maturity, Remediation Level, and Report Confidence. The temporal metric group modifies the base score to reflect the current state of the vulnerability, such as the availability of exploit code, the existence of patches or workarounds, and the degree of verification of the vulnerability report12.

C. Environmental metric involves the features that change during the lifetime of the vulnerability: This option is incorrect because the environmental metric group captures the characteristics of a vulnerability that are relevant and unique to a user’s environment. The environmental metric group consists of three sub-metrics: Modified Attack Vector, Modified Attack Complexity, and Modified Privileges Required. The environmental metric group also allows the user to assign importance values to the impact sub-metrics: Confidentiality Requirement, Integrity Requirement, and Availability Requirement. The environmental metric group modifies the base and temporal scores to reflect the impact of the vulnerability on the user’s specific environment, such as the network configuration, the security objectives, and the asset value12.

D. Temporal metric involves measuring vulnerabilities based on a specific environment or implementation: This option is incorrect because the temporal metric group does not involve measuring vulnerabilities based on a specific environment or implementation, but rather on the factors that change over time due to events external to the vulnerability. The environmental metric group, not the temporal metric group, involves measuring vulnerabilities based on a specific environment or implementation, as explained in option C.

Incident Handling and Response Incident handling and response (IH&R) is the process of taking organized and careful steps when reacting to a security incident or cyberattack. Steps involved in the IH&R process: 3.Incident Triage - The IH&R team further analyzes the compromised device to find incident details such as the type of attack, its severity, target, impact, and method of propagation, and any vulnerabilities it exploited. (P.84/68)

“Boolean based” we mean that it is based on Boolean values, that is, true or false / true and false. AND Time-based SQL Injection is an inferential SQL Injection technique that relies on sending an SQL query to the database which forces the database to wait for a specified amount of time (in seconds) before responding. The response time will indicate to the attacker whether the result of the query is TRUE or FALSE.

Boolean-based (content-based) Blind SQLi

Boolean-based SQL Injection is an inferential SQL Injection technique that relies on sending an SQL query to the database which forces the application to return a different result depending on whether the query returns a TRUE or FALSE result.

Depending on the result, the content within the HTTP response will change, or remain the same. This allows an attacker to infer if the payload used returned true or false, even though no data from the database is returned. This attack is typically slow (especially on large databases) since an attacker would need to enumerate a database, character by character.

Time-based Blind SQLi

Time-based SQL Injection is an inferential SQL Injection technique that relies on sending an SQL query to the database which forces the database to wait for a specified amount of time (in seconds) before responding. The response time will indicate to the attacker whether the result of the query is TRUE or FALSE.

Depending on the result, an HTTP response will be returned with a delay, or returned immediately. This allows an attacker to infer if the payload used returned true or false, even though no data from the database is returned. This attack is typically slow (especially on large databases) since an attacker would need to enumerate a database character by character.

https://www.acunetix.com/websitesecurity/sql-injection2/

Passive sniffing refers to listening to or capturing network traffic without sending any packets or altering the communication stream. The attacker’s system operates in "promiscuous mode" to monitor all traffic flowing through the network segment. This technique is mostly used in environments like hub-based or unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, where traffic is visible to all systems.

According to the CEH v13 Official Courseware, Module 08: Sniffing, under the subsection "Passive Sniffing", the following capabilities are associated with passive sniffing:

Capturing unencrypted credentials (usernames and passwords)

Identifying protocols, services, IP addresses, and hostnames

Monitoring HTTP sessions, cookies, and other clear-text traffic

Gathering detailed information for fingerprinting and enumeration

Exporting traffic to PCAPs for forensic and offline analysis

However, passive sniffing does not involve any active interference with the traffic. Therefore, actions like “modifying and replaying” packets require an attacker to craft and inject packets into the network — this is considered active sniffing or traffic manipulation, which is out of scope for passive techniques.

Thus:

Option A: Valid for passive sniffing (host discovery via captured traffic)

Option B: Invalid for passive sniffing (requires active traffic manipulation)

Option C: Valid (if data is unencrypted)

Option D: Valid (captures traffic for offline review)

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 08: Sniffing

Section: “Passive Sniffing vs Active Sniffing”

Study Guide Pages: Usually found under “Types of Sniffing Techniques”

CEH iLabs/Engage Scenarios: Packet capture and Wireshark lab modules

Vulnerability scanning software is a tool that can help security analysts identify and prioritize known vulnerabilities in their systems and applications. However, it is not a perfect solution and has some limitations that need to be considered. One of the most critical limitations is that vulnerability scanning software is not immune to software engineering flaws that might lead to serious vulnerabilities being missed. This means that the software itself might have bugs, errors, or oversights that could affect its accuracy, reliability, or performance. For example, the software might:

Fail to detect some vulnerabilities due to incomplete or outdated databases, incorrect signatures, or insufficient coverage of the target system or application.

Produce false positives or false negatives due to misinterpretation of the scan results, incorrect configuration, or lack of context or validation.

Cause unintended consequences or damage to the target system or application due to intrusive or aggressive scanning techniques, such as exploiting vulnerabilities, modifying data, or crashing services.

Be vulnerable to attacks or compromise by malicious actors who could exploit its weaknesses, tamper with its functionality, or steal its data.

Therefore, the security analyst should be most cautious about this limitation of vulnerability scanning software, as it could lead to a false sense of security, missed opportunities for remediation, or increased exposure to threats. The security analyst should always verify the scan results, use multiple tools and methods, and update and patch the software regularly to mitigate this risk.

User-directed spidering is a technique that allows the hacker to manually browse the target website and use a proxy or spider tool to capture and analyze the traffic. This way, the hacker can discover hidden or dynamic content that standard web spiders may miss due to a specific file in the root directory, such as robots.txt, that instructs them not to crawl certain pages or directories. User-directed spidering can also help the hacker to bypass authentication or authorization mechanisms, as well as identify vulnerabilities or sensitive information in the target website. User-directed spidering can be performed with tools like Burp Suite and WebScarab, which are web application security testing tools that can intercept, modify, and replay HTTP requests and responses, as well as perform various attacks and scans on the target website.

The other options are not likely to achieve the same results as user-directed spidering. Using Photon to retrieve archived URLs of the target website from archive.org may provide some historical information about the website, but it may not reflect the current state or content of the website. Using the Netcraft tool to gather website information may provide some general information about the website, such as its IP address, domain name, server software, or hosting provider, but it may not reveal the specific files or web pages on the website. Examining HTML source code and cookies may provide some clues about the website’s structure, functionality, or user preferences, but it may not expose the hidden or dynamic content that user-directed spidering can discover. References:

User Directed Spidering with Burp

Web Spidering - What Are Web Crawlers & How to Control Them

Web Security: Recon

Mapping the Application for Penetrating Web Applications — 1

CEH v13 identifies automated patch management as the most secure and scalable approach. Automated tools ensure timely deployment, validation, rollback capability, and compliance reporting.

Manual patching increases human error. Applying patches from unknown sources introduces malware risk. Limiting patches contradicts best practices.

Therefore, Option B is correct.

The Blackjacking attack involves leveraging a compromised BlackBerry device and its connection through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) to tunnel back into the internal corporate network, bypassing perimeter firewalls. The tool used in this method is BBProxy.

BBProxy is installed on the BlackBerry device and establishes a covert tunnel via BES, allowing attackers to pivot into the internal LAN from outside the perimeter.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 17: Hacking Mobile Platforms

Quote:

“Blackjacking is a technique in which attackers use BBProxy to exploit a trusted path from a BlackBerry device to the corporate LAN through BES.”

Incorrect Options Explained:

A. Paros Proxy is a web proxy used for intercepting HTTP/S traffic.

C. Blooover is used for Bluetooth security auditing.

D. BBCrack is used for password recovery on BlackBerry devices, not for tunneling.

=

The VRFY commands enables SMTP clients to send an invitation to an SMTP server to verify that mail for a selected user name resides on the server. The VRFY command is defined in RFC 821.

The server sends a response indicating whether the user is local or not, whether mail are going to be forwarded, and so on. A response of 250 indicates that the user name is local; a response of 251 indicates that the user name isn’t local, but the server can forward the message. The server response includes the mailbox name.

DHCP starvation is a network-level attack in which an attacker sends a massive number of DHCPDISCOVER requests, each appearing to originate from a different MAC address. CEH courseware explains that DHCP servers assign IP leases based on unique MAC addresses, and when the lease pool is exhausted, legitimate clients are unable to obtain valid IP configurations. This disrupts network connectivity and can serve as a precursor to deploying a rogue DHCP server, enabling further attacks such as traffic redirection or credential interception. DHCP starvation is different from ARP spoofing, which manipulates MAC–IP mappings, or DNS poisoning, which corrupts domain resolution. Rogue DHCP relay attacks involve forwarding DHCP packets to unauthorized servers, not depleting leases. The scenario described—rapid MAC address spoofing and exhaustion of DHCP leases—matches the precise definition of DHCP starvation as documented in CEH materials.

Hashing algorithms (such as SHA-256 or MD5) are used to generate a unique digital fingerprint of a file or message. Once the CFO approves the financial statement, generating a hash value for the document ensures that if any modification occurs (even a single bit), the hash value will change, indicating a breach in data integrity.

This solution directly addresses integrity — one of the three components of the CIA triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability). Password protection or transferring via USB does not ensure integrity; they offer access control and delivery security.

Operational Technology and ICS environments often suffer from misconfigurations such as unchanged factory-default passwords. CEH identifies exploiting default credentials as a direct and effective method because ICS devices frequently lack strong authentication controls. Using these built-in credentials grants immediate unauthorized access to supervisory controls, enabling adversaries to manipulate configurations, disrupt processes, or escalate attacks across critical systems.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

TCPView is a Windows Sysinternals utility that provides a real-time graphical view of:

TCP and UDP endpoints on the system

Listening, established, and closing states

Associated process names using the connections

It’s ideal for administrators or analysts looking to monitor and troubleshoot live network activity.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 3: Scanning Networks → Tools for Port and Service Discovery

Incorrect Options:

A. Netstat provides snapshot (static) info, not real-time with process association.

C. Nmap is used for remote scanning, not real-time local monitoring.

D. Loki is a covert channel tool used for stealthy communication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet-in-the-middle_attack

The meet-in-the-middle attack (MITM), a known plaintext attack, is a generic space–time tradeoff cryptographic attack against encryption schemes that rely on performing multiple encryption operations in sequence. The MITM attack is the primary reason why Double DES is not used and why a Triple DES key (168-bit) can be bruteforced by an attacker with 256 space and 2112 operations.

The intruder has to know some parts of plaintext and their ciphertexts. Using meet-in-the-middle attacks it is possible to break ciphers, which have two or more secret keys for multiple encryption using the same algorithm. For example, the 3DES cipher works in this way. Meet-in-the-middle attack was first presented by Diffie and Hellman for cryptanalysis of DES algorithm.

The hacker’s next step to confirm the XSS vulnerability would be to utilize a script hosted on the application’s domain to test the form. This is because the application’s CSP allows scripts from its own domain, but not from inline or external sources. Therefore, the hacker can try to inject a payload that references a script file on the same domain as the application, such as:

<script src="/path/to/script.js"></script>

where script.js contains some benign code, such as alert('XSS') or print('XSS'). If the script executes in the browser, then the hacker has confirmed the XSS vulnerability. Otherwise, the CSP has blocked the script and prevented the XSS attack.

The other options are not feasible or effective for the following reasons:

A. Try to disable the CSP to bypass script restrictions: This option is not feasible because the hacker cannot disable the CSP on the server side, and the browser enforces the CSP on the client side. The hacker would need to modify the browser settings or use a browser extension to disable the CSP, but this would not affect the victim’s browser or the application’s security.

B. Inject a benign script inline to the form to see if it executes: This option is not effective because the application’s CSP disallows inline scripts, meaning scripts that are embedded in the HTML code. Therefore, the hacker would not be able to inject a script tag or an event handler attribute that contains some code, such as:

<script>alert('XSS')</script> or <input type="text" onfocus="alert('XSS')">

The CSP would block these scripts and prevent the XSS attack.

D. Load a script from an external domain to test the vulnerability: This option is not effective because the application’s CSP disallows scripts from external domains, meaning scripts that are loaded from a different domain than the application. Therefore, the hacker would not be able to inject a script tag that references a script file on another domain, such as:

<script src="https://example.com/script.js "></script>

The CSP would block these scripts and prevent the XSS attack.

This scenario demonstrates SMTP Enumeration, a classic enumeration technique described in CEH v13 Network Enumeration. SMTP servers may expose commands such as VRFY, EXPN, and RCPT TO, which can be abused to validate user accounts.

When these commands are enabled without restriction, attackers can enumerate valid usernames without authentication. The Nmap script used explicitly leverages these commands, confirming the misconfiguration.

Option B is incorrect because authentication is not bypassed. Option C concerns DNS routing, not user enumeration. Option D relates to encryption, not enumeration capability.

CEH v13 strongly recommends disabling or restricting SMTP user verification commands. Thus, Option A is correct.

SHA-256 is a cryptographic hash function, and CEH v13 clearly states that hash functions alone provide data integrity, but not authenticity or non-repudiation. If attackers can modify data and recompute the hash, integrity checks will still pass.

The issue arises because SHA-256 does not prove who created or modified the data. To address this weakness, CEH v13 recommends using digital signatures, which combine hashing with asymmetric cryptography. A digital signature ensures:

Integrity (data has not changed)

Authentication (data was signed by a known entity)

Non-repudiation (the signer cannot deny the action)

Digital signatures work by hashing the data and encrypting the hash with the sender’s private key. Any modification to the data invalidates the signature.

Encryption alone (Options A and C) protects confidentiality, not integrity or authenticity. SSL/TLS (Option B) secures data in transit but does not protect stored data from tampering.

CEH v13 explicitly identifies digital signatures as the correct cryptographic control when integrity mechanisms alone are insufficient. Therefore, Option D is correct.

In CEH v13 Module 11: Hacking Wireless Networks, it is explained that disabling SSID broadcast only hides the SSID from casual scanning, not from determined attackers.

When a legitimate client connects to a hidden SSID, the SSID is included in the probe request and association packets, which can be easily sniffed using tools like Wireshark or Kismet.

Leaving authentication open adds no real protection.

Attackers can still capture traffic and use it to determine the SSID and connect to the access point.

CEH v13 follows the Incident Response Lifecycle, which prioritizes identification and analysis before containment, unless there is immediate risk of catastrophic damage. In this scenario, the attacker has escalated privileges, but the organization still needs to understand what actions are being taken, what systems are affected, and whether lateral movement is occurring.

Option C aligns with CEH v13 best practices. Real-time monitoring and documentation allow analysts to:

Identify attacker techniques and tools

Preserve volatile evidence

Understand scope and impact

Implement targeted containment

Immediately powering down the server (Option B) may destroy volatile forensic evidence and disrupt services unnecessarily. Engaging forensic teams (Option A) is important but premature without initial analysis. Running vulnerability scans (Option D) does not address the active threat.

CEH v13 stresses that informed containment is more effective than reactive shutdowns. Therefore, Option C is correct.

The PSH (Push) flag in TCP instructs the sending system to:

Immediately deliver data to the application.

Avoid waiting for additional buffered data to form a full segment.

This is important in interactive communications like Telnet or SSH, where the delay in transmission would degrade the user experience.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 3: Scanning Networks → TCP Flags and Packet Structure

A rootkit is a type of stealth malware designed to hide the existence of certain processes or programs from normal detection methods. It can:

Hide itself and other processes

Conceal files and registry entries

Intercept system calls or keystrokes (keylogging)

Maintain persistent access

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 6: Malware Threats → Rootkits

Incorrect Options:

A: A Trojan may offer remote access but doesn't necessarily hide itself.

C: DoS tools are used to overload systems, not hide.

D: Scanners detect vulnerabilities, not conceal activities.

E: A backdoor may provide unauthorized access, but rootkits focus on hiding.

Tess King is attempting to gather all DNS records from a target zone. This process is referred to as a zone transfer (AXFR), which is typically performed by secondary name servers to synchronize DNS data with the primary. If improperly secured, attackers can initiate unauthorized zone transfers to enumerate valuable information such as:

Hostnames

IP addresses

Mail servers

Name servers

CEH v13 defines a zone transfer as a crucial step in DNS enumeration.

From CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 3: Scanning Networks

Topic: DNS Enumeration → Zone Transfers

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“A zone transfer (AXFR) is a DNS transaction used to replicate DNS databases. Attackers can exploit this feature to extract all DNS information from an improperly secured server.”

Incorrect Options:

A. Zone harvesting is not a formal term.

C. Zone update refers to DNS dynamic update operations (e.g., DDNS).

D. Zone estimate is not a DNS-related process.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From CEH v13 Guide:

The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is used by systems, including Linux servers, to synchronize their clocks with a time server. If NTP fails, time discrepancies may lead to inaccurate log records and affect security monitoring.

CEH v13 Reference:

Module 17: Evading IDS, Firewalls, and Honeypots – Log Tampering

“Accurate timekeeping is essential for proper logging and correlation. NTP ensures system time is synchronized across hosts.”

=

-sA (TCP ACK scan)

This scan is different than the others discussed so far in that it never determines open (or even open|filtered) ports. It is used to map out firewall rulesets, determining whether they are stateful or not and which ports are filtered.

The ACK scan probe packet has only the ACK flag set (unless you use --scanflags). When scanning unfiltered systems, open and closed ports will both return a RST packet. Nmap then labels them as unfiltered, meaning that they are reachable by the ACK packet, but whether they are open or closed is undetermined. Ports that don't respond, or send certain ICMP error messages back (type 3, code 0, 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, or 13), are labeled filtered.

To secure DNS infrastructure, best practices include:

B. Harden DNS Servers: Disable unused services, apply patches, implement secure configurations.

C. Use Split-Horizon DNS: Present different DNS data to internal vs. external users to prevent data leakage.

D. Restrict Zone Transfers: Prevent unauthorized replication of zone data using IP-based access control or TSIG.

E. Subnet Diversity: Place DNS servers on different subnets or networks to enhance resilience.

From CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 3: Scanning Networks

Module 20: Cryptography

Incorrect Option:

A: Hosting DNS on multi-purpose servers increases the attack surface and violates security best practices.

A sheep dip computer is a dedicated device that is used to test inbound files or physical media for viruses, malware, or other harmful content, before they are allowed to be used with other computers. The term sheep dip comes from a method of preventing the spread of parasites in a flock of sheep by dipping the new animals that farmers are adding to the flock in a trough of pesticide. A sheep dip computer is isolated from the organization’s network and has port monitors, file monitors, network monitors, and antivirus software installed. Before initiating the analysis of a potentially malicious program, the analyst should store the program on an external medium, such as a CD-ROM, and then insert it into the sheep dip computer. This way, the analyst can prevent the program from infecting other devices or spreading over the network, and can safely analyze its behavior and characteristics.

The other options are not correct steps to take before initiating the analysis. Running the potentially malicious program on the sheep dip computer may cause irreversible damage to the device or compromise its security. Connecting the sheep dip computer to the organization’s internal network may expose the network to the risk of infection or attack. Installing the potentially malicious program on the sheep dip computer may not be possible or advisable, as the program may require certain dependencies or permissions that the sheep dip computer does not have or allow. 

In CEH v13 Module 13: Hacking Web Applications, this exact payload is an example of an XXE (XML External Entity) Attack.

XXE Attack:

Exploits the way XML parsers process DOCTYPE declarations.

The payload references a local file (/etc/passwd), allowing local file inclusion.

Can result in sensitive file disclosure, SSRF, or Denial of Service (DoS).

Option Clarification:

A. XXE: Correct – targets vulnerable XML parsers.

B. SQLi: Targets SQL databases with ' OR '1'='1-type injections.

C. IDOR: Insecure Direct Object Reference, not related to XML.

D. XSS: Cross-site scripting; this is XML-based, not JavaScript injection.

Active Online Attacks: Hash Injection/Pass-the-Hash (PtH) Attack A hash injection/PtH attack allows an attacker to inject a compromised hash into a local session and use the hash to validate network resources The attacker finds and extracts a logged-on domain admin account hash The attacker uses the extracted hash to log on to the domain controller

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

A Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack aims to overwhelm a system or service with excessive requests, rendering it unavailable to legitimate users. It targets:

Bandwidth (e.g., flooding with traffic)

Resources (CPU, memory, or disk usage)

Applications (exploiting bugs that crash services)

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 9: Denial-of-Service Attacks

Incorrect Options:

B refers to brute-force attacks.

C mischaracterizes password cracking.

D describes impersonation or spoofing, not DoS.

This scenario describes a Slowloris attack, a classic application-layer DoS attack covered in CEH v13 Network and Perimeter Hacking. Slowloris works by opening many HTTP connections and sending data very slowly, preventing the server from closing the connections.

Because the connections appear legitimate, the server keeps them open, eventually exhausting its connection pool. This causes legitimate users to experience timeouts and service unavailability—exactly as described.

ICMP and UDP floods consume bandwidth, which was ruled out. Fragmentation attacks target packet handling, not application-layer sessions.

CEH v13 highlights Slowloris as particularly dangerous because it requires minimal bandwidth and bypasses many traditional DoS defenses. Therefore, Option A is correct.

We have various articles already in our documentation for setting up SNMPv2 trap handling in Opsview, but SNMPv3 traps are a whole new ballgame. They can be quite confusing and complicated to set up the first time you go through the process, but when you understand what is going on, everything should make more sense.

SNMP has gone through several revisions to improve performance and security (version 1, 2c and 3). By default, it is a UDP port based protocol where communication is based on a ‘fire and forget’ methodology in which network packets are sent to another device, but there is no check for receipt of that packet (versus TCP port when a network packet must be acknowledged by the other end of the communication link). 

There are two modes of operation with SNMP – get requests (or polling) where one device requests information from an SNMP enabled device on a regular basis (normally using UDP port 161), and traps where the SNMP enabled device sends a message to another device when an event occurs (normally using UDP port 162). The latter includes instances such as someone logging on, the device powering up or down, or a wide variety of other problems that would need this type of investigation.

This blog covers SNMPv3 traps, as polling and version 2c traps are covered elsewhere in our documentation.

SNMP traps

Since SNMP is primarily a UDP port based system, traps may be ‘lost’ when sending between devices; the sending device does not wait to see if the receiver got the trap. This means if the configuration on the sending device is wrong (using the wrong receiver IP address or port) or the receiver isn’t listening for traps or rejecting them out of hand due to misconfiguration, the sender will never know.

The SNMP v2c specification introduced the idea of splitting traps into two types; the original ‘hope it gets there’ trap and the newer ‘INFORM’ traps. Upon receipt of an INFORM, the receiver must send an acknowledgement back. If the sender doesn’t get the acknowledgement back, then it knows there is an existing problem and can log it for sysadmins to find when they interrogate the device.

Key observations in the packet capture:

Repeated 0x90 values indicate a NOP sled (No Operation instructions), commonly used in buffer overflow payloads to guide execution to the malicious shellcode.

The presence of "/bin/sh" in ASCII indicates that the attacker intends to launch a shell (command-line access) on the victim’s system once the overflow is successful.

The payload likely contains shellcode that spawns a shell, giving the attacker command-line access.

From CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 6: Malware Threats

Module 9: Denial-of-Service

Module 5: Vulnerability Analysis

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“A buffer overflow exploit typically involves injecting a NOP sled followed by shellcode. The string '/bin/sh' is a tell-tale sign of shell-spawning code that aims to give the attacker command access.”

Incorrect Options:

A: There's no evidence the IDS blocked the attack—only that it logged it.

B: Creating a directory would not involve a NOP sled or spawn a shell.

C: We cannot confirm success; only the intent and method are clear.

LAN Manager (LM) hashes are legacy password hashing methods used in older Windows systems (including Windows 2000 for backward compatibility). LM hashing works by:

Converting the password to uppercase.

Padding or truncating it to 14 characters.

Splitting it into two 7-character halves.

Using each half as a DES key to encrypt a known constant ("KGS!@#$%").

Therefore, LM hashing uses the DES (Data Encryption Standard) algorithm.

From CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 6: Malware Threats → Password Storage and LM Hash Structure

CEH identifies spear-phishing as a targeted, context-rich social engineering method tailored to specific individuals or departments. By incorporating accurate insider details, attackers significantly increase trust and likelihood of disclosure.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Nikto is an open-source web server scanner that:

Checks for common vulnerabilities

Detects outdated software versions

Flags insecure configurations and files

It is widely used for quick and comprehensive web vulnerability assessments.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 10: Web Application Hacking → Web Vulnerability Scanning Tools

The hacker could have used the technique of manipulating white spaces in SQL queries to bypass signature detection. This technique involves inserting, removing, or replacing white spaces in SQL queries with other characters or symbols that are either ignored or interpreted as white spaces by the SQL engine, but not by the signature-based IDS. This way, the hacker can alter the appearance of the query and evade the pattern matching of the IDS, while preserving the functionality and logic of the query. For example, the hacker could replace the space character with a tab character, a newline character, a comment symbol, or a URL-encoded value, such as %2012.

The other options are not correct for the following reasons:

A. Utilizing the char encoding function to convert hexadecimal and decimal values into characters that pass-through SQL engine parsing: This option is not feasible because the char encoding function is not supported by all SQL engines, and it may not be able to convert all hexadecimal and decimal values into valid characters. Moreover, the char encoding function may not be able to bypass the signature detection of the IDS, as it may still match the keywords or syntax of the SQL query3.

B. Using the URL encoding method to replace characters with their ASCII codes in hexadecimal form: This option is not effective because the URL encoding method is not applicable to SQL queries, as it is designed for encoding special characters in URLs. The URL encoding method may not be able to replace all characters with their ASCII codes, and it may not be able to preserve the functionality and logic of the SQL query. Furthermore, the URL encoding method may not be able to evade the signature detection of the IDS, as it may still match the keywords or syntax of the SQL query4.

C. Implementing sophisticated matches such as “OR ‘john’ = john" in place of classical matches like “OR 1-1”: This option is not advanced because it is a common and basic SQL injection technique that does not involve any evasion or obfuscation. This technique involves injecting a logical expression that is always true, such as “OR ‘john’ = john” or “OR 1-1”, to bypass the authentication or authorization checks of the SQL query. However, this technique may not be able to bypass the signature detection of the IDS, as it may easily match the keywords or syntax of the SQL query.

http://www.carnal0wnage.com/papers/LSO-Hping2-Basics.pdf

Most ping programs use ICMP echo requests and wait for echo replies to come back to test connectivity. Hping2 allows us to do the same testing using any IP packet, including ICMP, UDP, and TCP. This can be helpful since nowadays most firewalls or routers block ICMP. Hping2, by default, will use TCP, but, if you still want to send an ICMP scan, you can. We send ICMP scans using the -1 (one) mode. Basically the syntax will be hping2 -1 IPADDRESS

[root@localhost hping2-rc3]# hping2 -1 192.168.0.100

HPING 192.168.0.100 (eth0 192.168.0.100): icmp mode set, 28 headers + 0 data bytes

len=46 ip=192.168.0.100 ttl=128 id=27118 icmp_seq=0 rtt=14.9 ms

len=46 ip=192.168.0.100 ttl=128 id=27119 icmp_seq=1 rtt=0.5 ms

len=46 ip=192.168.0.100 ttl=128 id=27120 icmp_seq=2 rtt=0.5 ms

len=46 ip=192.168.0.100 ttl=128 id=27121 icmp_seq=3 rtt=1.5 ms

len=46 ip=192.168.0.100 ttl=128 id=27122 icmp_seq=4 rtt=0.9 ms

— 192.168.0.100 hping statistic —

5 packets tramitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max = 0.5/3.7/14.9 ms

[root@localhost hping2-rc3]#

CEH courseware categorizes hackers based on intent, authorization, and affiliation. State-sponsored hackers are defined as individuals or teams who conduct cyber operations on behalf of a government to advance national interests. These operations often include espionage, cyber warfare, intelligence gathering, and covert offensive actions. Unlike organized hackers or cybercriminal groups, whose motivations may include financial gain or ideological activism, state-sponsored units follow strategic directives issued by government agencies. CEH materials explain that such groups operate with access to advanced tools, long-term funding, and classified intelligence, enabling them to execute highly sophisticated and covert operations targeting foreign governments, corporations, or critical infrastructure. Hacktivists pursue political or social causes, while gray-hat hackers operate without explicit permission but without malicious intent. Only state-sponsored hackers match the scenario where cyber experts are formally trained, resourced, and authorized by a national government to conduct operations that remain undetected. Therefore, the correct classification is state-sponsored hackers.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/ip/access-lists/26448-ACLsamples.html

Since the first line prohibits any TCP traffic (access-list 102 deny tcp any any), the lines below will simply be ignored by the router. Below you will find the example from CISCO documentation.

This figure shows that FTP (TCP, port 21) and FTP data (port 20) traffic sourced from NetB destined to NetA is denied, while all other IP traffic is permitted.

FTP uses port 21 and port 20. TCP traffic destined to port 21 and port 20 is denied and everything else is explicitly permitted.

access-list 102 deny tcp any any eq ftp

access-list 102 deny tcp any any eq ftp-data

access-list 102 permit ip any any

Weaknesses of LM hashes include:

A. Passwords are converted to uppercase before hashing.

B. In older Windows systems, LM hashes were transmitted over the network, sometimes in plaintext (or easily intercepted).

D. Passwords are split into two 7-character chunks, which are hashed independently, reducing entropy.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 6: Malware and Password Threats

Module 4: Windows Enumeration

Incorrect Option:

C: LM uses DES encryption with 56-bit keys (not 32-bit).

The CEH Web Application Attacks module explains tautology-based SQL injection as an attack where input alters a conditional statement to always evaluate as TRUE (e.g., ' OR '1'='1').

Submitting a single quote often breaks query logic and allows attackers to manipulate authentication conditions.

Option D is correct.

Option A extracts data.

Option B relies on error messages.

Option C uses timing delays.

CEH identifies tautology attacks as one of the earliest and most common SQL injection techniques.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subnetwork

This is a fairly simple question. You must to understand what a subnet mask is and how it works.

A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network.The practice of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting.

Computers that belong to the same subnet are addressed with an identical most-significant bit-group in their IP addresses. This results in the logical division of an IP address into two fields: the network number or routing prefix and the rest field or host identifier. The rest field is an identifier for a specific host or network interface.

The routing prefix may be expressed in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation written as the first address of a network, followed by a slash character (/), and ending with the bit-length of the prefix. For example, 198.51.100.0/24 is the prefix of the Internet Protocol version 4 network starting at the given address, having 24 bits allocated for the network prefix, and the remaining 8 bits reserved for host addressing. Addresses in the range 198.51.100.0 to 198.51.100.255 belong to this network. The IPv6 address specification 2001:db8::/32 is a large address block with 296 addresses, having a 32-bit routing prefix.

For IPv4, a network may also be characterized by its subnet mask or netmask, which is the bitmask that when applied by a bitwise AND operation to any IP address in the network, yields the routing prefix. Subnet masks are also expressed in dot-decimal notation like an address. For example, 255.255.255.0 is the subnet mask for the prefix 198.51.100.0/24.

In CEH’s Cloud Computing module, one of the most common real-world causes of cloud data exposure is misconfiguration, especially overly permissive network access controls. Cloud platforms commonly use constructs like security groups / firewall rules / network ACLs to define inbound and outbound access. CEH highlights that exposing sensitive services (databases, storage endpoints, admin panels) to the public internet—whether by “0.0.0.0/0” rules, overly broad ports, or unintended administrative access—frequently results in unauthorized access and data leakage even without sophisticated exploit chains.

Option D is therefore the most likely, because misconfigured security groups can directly expose customer data stores or management interfaces, enabling data theft through normal connectivity rather than exploiting a rare hypervisor flaw.

Option A (hypervisor side-channel attack) is advanced and less common; it typically requires high attacker capability and conditions not implied here. Option B (DoS) impacts availability, not confidentiality, so it doesn’t best explain data exposure. Option C (brute force passwords) is possible, but the question emphasizes an “unknown vulnerability” in the cloud environment—CEH teaching often frames “unknown vulnerability” in cloud incidents as misconfiguration or uncontrolled exposure rather than authentication guessing alone.

CEH countermeasures include least-privilege security group rules, segmentation, continuous configuration monitoring, cloud security posture management, and auditing publicly exposed resources.

When a user encrypts plaintext with PGP, PGP first compresses the plaintext. The session key works with a very secure, fast conventional encryption algorithm to encrypt the plaintext; the result is ciphertext. Once the data is encrypted, the session key is then encrypted to the recipient's public key

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy

Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting texts, e-mails, files, directories, and whole disk partitions and to increase the security of e-mail communications.

PGP encryption uses a serial combination of hashing, data compression, symmetric-key cryptography, and finally public-key cryptography; each step uses one of several supported algorithms. Each public key is bound to a username or an e-mail address.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

Public key encryption uses two different keys. One key is used to encrypt the information and the other is used to decrypt the information. Sometimes this is referred to as asymmetric encryption because two keys are required to make the system and/or process work securely. One key is known as the public key and should be shared by the owner with anyone who will be securely communicating with the key owner. However, the owner’s secret key is not to be shared and considered a private key. If the private key is shared with unauthorized recipients, the encryption mechanisms protecting the information must be considered compromised.

According to CEH v13 Network Scanning Techniques, a FIN scan is a stealth scanning method that sends TCP packets with only the FIN flag set. Its behavior relies on RFC 793, which specifies that closed ports must respond with a TCP RST, while open ports should silently drop the packet.

However, modern firewalls, IDS/IPS systems, and hardened TCP/IP stacks often filter or silently drop FIN packets regardless of port state. Therefore, when a FIN scan results in no response from a large number of ports, it does not conclusively indicate that the ports are open. Instead, CEH v13 stresses that this behavior commonly points to packet filtering by firewalls or security controls.

Option A is incorrect because a lack of response does not definitively mean ports are closed. Option B is an overreaction; stealth scan anomalies alone do not indicate a breach. Option C is unlikely because congestion would impact multiple protocols, not selectively suppress FIN responses.

CEH v13 recommends that when FIN scans produce ambiguous results, analysts should correlate findings using additional scan types (such as SYN scans) and investigate firewall rules and filtering behavior. Thus, option D is the most accurate interpretation and aligns with CEH guidance.

The longer an adversary has this level of access, the greater the impact. Defenders must detect this stage as quickly as possible and deploy tools which can enable them to gather forensic evidence. One example would come with network packet captures, for damage assessment. Only now, after progressing through the primary six phases, can intruders take actions to realize their original objectives. Typically, the target of knowledge exfiltration involves collecting, encrypting and extracting information from the victim(s) environment; violations of knowledge integrity or availability are potential objectives also . Alternatively, and most ordinarily , the intruder may only desire access to the initial victim box to be used as a hop point to compromise additional systems and move laterally inside the network. Once this stage is identified within an environment, the implementation of prepared reaction plans must be initiated. At a minimum, the plan should include a comprehensive communication plan, detailed evidence must be elevated to the very best ranking official or board , the deployment of end-point security tools to dam data loss and preparation for briefing a CIRT Team. Having these resources well established beforehand may be a “MUST” in today’s quickly evolving landscape of cybersecurity threats

A DHCP starvation assault is a pernicious computerized assault that objectives DHCP workers. During a DHCP assault, an unfriendly entertainer floods a DHCP worker with false DISCOVER bundles until the DHCP worker debilitates its stock of IP addresses. When that occurs, the aggressor can deny genuine organization clients administration, or even stock an other DHCP association that prompts a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) assault.

In a DHCP Starvation assault, a threatening entertainer sends a huge load of false DISCOVER parcels until the DHCP worker thinks they’ve used their accessible pool. Customers searching for IP tends to find that there are no IP addresses for them, and they’re refused assistance. Furthermore, they may search for an alternate DHCP worker, one which the unfriendly entertainer may give. What’s more, utilizing a threatening or sham IP address, that unfriendly entertainer would now be able to peruse all the traffic that customer sends and gets.

In an unfriendly climate, where we have a malevolent machine running some sort of an instrument like Yersinia, there could be a machine that sends DHCP DISCOVER bundles. This malevolent customer doesn’t send a modest bunch – it sends a great many vindictive DISCOVER bundles utilizing sham, made-up MAC addresses as the source MAC address for each solicitation.

In the event that the DHCP worker reacts to every one of these false DHCP DISCOVER parcels, the whole IP address pool could be exhausted, and that DHCP worker could trust it has no more IP delivers to bring to the table to legitimate DHCP demands.

When a DHCP worker has no more IP delivers to bring to the table, ordinarily the following thing to happen would be for the aggressor to get their own DHCP worker. This maverick DHCP worker at that point starts giving out IP addresses.

The advantage of that to the assailant is that if a false DHCP worker is distributing IP addresses, including default DNS and door data, customers who utilize those IP delivers and begin to utilize that default passage would now be able to be directed through the aggressor’s machine. That is all that an unfriendly entertainer requires to play out a man-in-the-center (MITM) assault.

Trident is a highly sophisticated spyware tool used in mobile surveillance operations. It exploits multiple zero-day vulnerabilities to jailbreak iPhones remotely and grant full control to the attacker. It is famously associated with the Pegasus spyware, which was able to:

Record calls and ambient sound

Capture screenshots

Read SMS, emails, and contacts

Monitor GPS and application use

As per CEH v13:

Trident uses a chain of exploits to compromise iOS devices without physical access.

It was used in highly targeted attacks against journalists, activists, and government officials.

Incorrect Options:

A. DroidSheep is an Android tool for session hijacking on unsecured Wi-Fi.

B. Androrat is a RAT for Android devices.

C. Zscaler is a cloud security platform, not malware.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 17: Hacking Mobile Platforms

Section: “iOS Malware”

Subsection: “Spyware like Trident and Pegasus”

=

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Host-based Intrusion Detection Systems (HIDS) run on individual hosts and monitor activities like file access, processes, and system logs. HIDS:

Detects attacks missed by NIDS (e.g., insider threats, encrypted traffic)

Monitors integrity of system files

Works in near real-time

Requires no additional network hardware

Can be implemented at low cost

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 13: IDS, Firewalls and Honeypots → Types of IDS (HIDS vs. NIDS)

In a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, an attacker intercepts communication between two parties and can read, alter, or inject data without either party knowing. Susan's actions — intercepting and modifying her boss's session data before relaying it to the server — is the classic MITM pattern.

From CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 8: Sniffing

Module 11: Session Hijacking

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“In a MITM attack, the attacker positions themselves between two communicating parties, relaying and possibly altering communications while maintaining the illusion that the parties are communicating directly.”

Incorrect Options:

A: Sniffing only involves passive listening.

B: Spoofing may involve impersonation but not necessarily interception and relay.

D: DoS is about service disruption, not data interception.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

An Xmas scan is a type of stealth TCP scan that sets the FIN, PSH, and URG flags. According to RFC 793:

If the port is closed, the target responds with a TCP RST (Reset) packet.

If the port is open or filtered, there is no response.

Thus, receiving a RST response indicates a closed port.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 3: Scanning Networks → TCP Flag Scanning Techniques

Side-channel attacks, as explained in CEH v13 OT and SCADA Security, extract sensitive information by observing physical characteristics of a system rather than exploiting software flaws directly. These characteristics may include power consumption, electromagnetic emissions, timing variations, or thermal output.

In SCADA environments, side-channel attacks are especially dangerous because they bypass traditional network defenses. The most reliable way to confirm such an attack is by analyzing hardware-level anomalies—such as unexpected power usage spikes or irregular signal emissions during normal device operations.

Option B directly aligns with CEH v13 guidance.

Options A, C, and D focus on software, cryptography, or network behavior, which are not primary indicators of side-channel exploitation.

Therefore, Option B is correct.

In CEH v13 Module 16: Cloud Computing and Container Security, Cloudborne attacks are described as threats specific to bare-metal cloud infrastructure.

Characteristics of a Cloudborne Attack:

Targets firmware-level vulnerabilities in reused physical servers.

Malware or backdoors can persist even after VM or OS reinstallation.

Can lead to compromise of new tenants or clients once servers are reallocated.

First highlighted in Project X by Eclypsium.

Option Clarification:

A. MITC: Exploits synchronization in cloud storage, not firmware.

B. Cryptojacking: Mining cryptocurrency using cloud resources.

C. Cloudborne attack: Correct — targets firmware on bare-metal cloud servers.

D. Metadata spoofing: Exploits cloud instance metadata services, unrelated to firmware.

In CEH v13 Module 03: Scanning Networks, Nmap's evasion techniques are discussed for bypassing or confusing Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and firewalls.

The -D option in Nmap is used to enable decoy scanning. It inserts false IP addresses in the scan to obfuscate the true origin of the scan.

This technique helps in masking the attacker’s IP and can confuse IDS logs.

Option Clarification:

A. -n/-R: Disables DNS resolution (-n) or uses reverse DNS (-R), does not evade detection.

B. -0N/-0X/-0G: Output formats (normal, XML, grepable), not related to evasion.

C. -T: Controls timing (e.g., -T0 is stealthy, -T5 is aggressive), but not explicitly for IDS evasion.

D. -D: Correct. Used for IDS/firewall evasion by using decoy IPs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an application layer protocol that facilitates communication in text. The chat process works on a client/server networking model. IRC clients are computer programs that users can install on their system or web-based applications running either locally in the browser or on a third-party server. These clients communicate with chat servers to transfer messages to other clients.

IRC is a plaintext protocol that is officially assigned port 194, according to IANA. However, running the service on this port requires running it with root-level permissions, which is inadvisable. As a result, the well-known port for IRC is 6667, a high-number port that does not require elevated privileges. However, an IRC server can also be configured to run on other ports as well.

You can't tell if an IRC server is designed to be malicious solely based on port number. Still, if you see an IRC server running on port a WKP such as 80, 8080, 53, 443, it's almost always going to be malicious; the only real reason for IRCD to be running on port 80 is to try to evade firewalls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_firewall

An application firewall is a form of firewall that controls input/output or system calls of an application or service. It operates by monitoring and blocking communications based on a configured policy, generally with predefined rule sets to choose from. The application firewall can control communications up to the OSI model's application layer, which is the highest operating layer, and where it gets its name. The two primary categories of application firewalls are network-based and host-based.

Application layer filtering operates at a higher level than traditional security appliances. This allows packet decisions to be made based on more than just source/destination IP Addresses or ports. It can also use information spanning across multiple connections for any given host.

Network-based application firewalls

Network-based application firewalls operate at the application layer of a TCP/IP stack. They can understand certain applications and protocols such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Domain Name System (DNS), or Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This allows it to identify unwanted applications or services using a non-standard port or detect if an allowed protocol is being abused.

Host-based application firewalls

A host-based application firewall monitors application system calls or other general system communication. This gives more granularity and control but is limited to only protecting the host it is running on. Control is applied by filtering on a per-process basis. Generally, prompts are used to define rules for processes that have not yet received a connection. Further filtering can be done by examining the process ID of the owner of the data packets. Many host-based application firewalls are combined or used in conjunction with a packet filter.

The CEH Cloud Security module highlights identity and access management (IAM) failures as a major source of cloud breaches. Ensuring timely de-provisioning of user accounts when employees leave is a core security control.

Option C is correct.

Options A and B detect issues but don’t prevent access persistence.

Option D is unrelated to access control.

CEH stresses joiner–mover–leaver (JML) processes.

In CEH v13 Module 03: Scanning Networks, ICMP scan types are covered under host discovery techniques in Nmap/Zenmap.

The -PP option in Nmap is used to perform an ICMP timestamp request scan.

This method sends an ICMP timestamp request and listens for a timestamp reply from the target.

It helps analysts determine the system uptime and verify whether the host is alive (for stealthy discovery).

Option Clarification:

A. -PY: SCTP INIT Ping (used for SCTP-based hosts).

B. -PU: UDP Ping (sends UDP packets).

C. -PP: ICMP Timestamp Ping — correct answer.

D. -Pn: Skips host discovery (treats all hosts as alive), not a ping type.

CEH materials describe RDDoS (Ransom DDoS) attacks as threat-driven extortion campaigns where attackers demand payment and demonstrate capability by launching a short-lived DDoS burst. The purpose is to intimidate the victim into paying before a larger, sustained attack begins. The attack described uses HTTP floods with incomplete POST requests—an application-layer DDoS technique that consumes server resources by forcing the target to hold open connections. This kind of demonstration followed by an extortion email aligns precisely with RDDoS behavior. DRDoS attacks involve reflection/amplification through third-party servers, which is not occurring here. Pulse wave attacks use timed bursts and do not involve extortion, while recursive GET floods do not match the incomplete POST behavior. Therefore, the correct classification is RDDoS.

The Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Cloud Computing module emphasizes that serverless environments rely heavily on granular permission models. Attacks involving compromised APIs often succeed because functions are granted excessive privileges.

Option D is correct because enforcing function-level permissions and the principle of least privilege directly limits what a compromised function can execute. CEH documentation states this is the primary defense against serverless abuse.

Option A is beneficial but reactive.

Option B focuses on SaaS governance rather than FaaS execution control.

Option C provides visibility but does not directly prevent privilege misuse.

CEH highlights identity and access management (IAM) as critical in serverless security.

In CEH v13 Module 06: Malware Threats, stealth viruses are covered as advanced malware that can evade detection by:

Intercepting system calls related to file access.

Masking their presence in files, memory, or on disk.

Restoring original code temporarily to fool signature-based scanners.

These capabilities allow stealth viruses to:

Avoid detection by antivirus scanners.

Operate undisturbed until triggered.

Option Clarification:

A. Cavity virus: Hides in unused file space but doesn't evade as effectively.

C. File-extension virus: Exploits deceptive file names but is often detected.

D. Macro virus: Targets office documents, not highly evasive.

Correct answer is B. Stealth virus.

The described scenario is a textbook example of a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack. In such attacks, the attacker stealthily places themselves between two communicating systems, intercepts their communications, and may even modify the traffic. The communicating parties remain unaware that their traffic is being monitored or altered.

Eric is using the Dsniff toolset, which is well-known for enabling MITM attacks through techniques such as:

ARP spoofing (to redirect traffic)

Credential sniffing

Packet manipulation

From CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 8: Sniffing

Module 11: Session Hijacking

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“In a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, the attacker intercepts and potentially alters the communication between two systems without either party knowing. Tools like Dsniff, Cain & Abel, and Ettercap are commonly used to launch such attacks.”

Incorrect Options:

A: “Interceptor” is not a technical term in cybersecurity.

C: ARP Proxy is a network feature; while ARP spoofing can be part of a MITM attack, it’s not the attack classification itself.

D: Poisoning (like DNS or ARP poisoning) is often a technique used to initiate MITM but not the final classification.

HTTP cookies may store authentication tokens, allowing users to remain logged in. If a browser retains cookies after closing, an attacker with access to the device could hijack active sessions.

Automatically deleting cookies upon termination reduces the window of opportunity for session hijacking.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 11: Hacking Web Applications

Topic: Session Management

Quote:

“Session hijacking exploits persistent cookies or session IDs stored in browsers. Enforcing cookie deletion helps prevent this attack.”

Incorrect Options:

A. SQL databases are unrelated to browser cookies.

C. Browser cookies don’t store OS-level passwords.

D. This may be a secondary concern, but not the primary mitigation.

=

Scammers often impersonate legitimate organizations using free email services like @yahoo.com. "Yahoo Bank" is not a legitimate institution, and a real financial entity would use an official domain (e.g., @yahoobank.com). This is a textbook phishing/smishing attempt.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 9: Social Engineering

Quote:

“Attackers often use free email services and impersonate authority figures to trick users. Always verify the sender’s domain and context.”

Incorrect Options:

B. Irrelevant—legitimate people may be unknown too.

C. Responding increases risk.

D. It is not from a verified organization.

=

Passive reconnaissance focuses on collecting intelligence without interacting with the target's systems. CEH materials emphasize reviewing publicly available information, including leaked documents, breach data, reports, or exposed metadata, as this yields internal network structure details while generating no detectable traffic. This method avoids triggering monitoring systems and aligns with stealth requirements for covert intelligence gathering.

A thin Whois model is a type of data model that is used by some domain registrars for storing and looking up Whois information. In a thin Whois model, the registrar only stores the basic information about the domain, such as the domain name, the registrar name, the name servers, and the registration and expiration dates. The rest of the information, such as the contact details of the domain owner, the administrative contact, and the technical contact, is stored by the registry that manages the top-level domain (TLD) of the domain. For example, the registry for .com and .net domains is Verisign, and the registry for .org domains is Public Interest Registry. When a Whois lookup is performed on a domain that uses a thin Whois model, the registrar’s Whois server only returns the basic information and refers the query to the registry’s Whois server for the complete information1.

As a hacker, if you are unable to gather complete Whois information from the registrar for a particular set of data, it might be because the domain’s registrar is using a thin Whois model and the registry’s Whois server is not responding or providing the information. This could be due to various reasons, such as network issues, server errors, rate limits, privacy policies, or legal restrictions. Therefore, the probable data model being utilized by the domain’s registrar for storing and looking up Whois information is a thin Whois model working correctly.

CEH courseware describes rootkits as specialized malware designed to conceal their presence while providing persistent, unauthorized access to system-level functions. Rootkits typically modify low-level components of the operating system—such as kernel modules, drivers, or system processes—to hide files, processes, registry keys, and network connections. Their primary purpose is to grant attackers administrative privileges without triggering alerts, making them extremely stealthy and dangerous. CEH emphasizes that rootkits often accompany other malware to maintain long-term control after initial compromise. In contrast, viruses replicate by attaching to files, keyloggers record keystrokes but do not hide system-level access, and ransomware encrypts data rather than conceals operations. The defining characteristics in this scenario—cloaking activity, providing admin-level control, persisting undetected—are directly aligned with rootkit behavior as described in CEH training material.

· Identifying operating systems, services, protocols and devices,

· Collecting unencrypted information about usernames and passwords,

· Capturing network traffic for further analysis

are passive network sniffing methods since with the help of them we only receive information and do not make any changes to the target network. When modifying and replaying the captured network traffic, we are already starting to make changes and actively interact with it.

In CEH v13 Cloud Computing, APIs are identified as the primary control plane for managing cloud resources. A vulnerability in a cloud API can allow attackers to bypass authentication, escalate privileges, and manipulate resources.

Unauthorized access may lead to:

Data exposure

Resource abuse

Account takeover

Lateral movement within the cloud environment

Physical security (Option A) and encryption at rest (Option D) are unrelated to API flaws. DDoS attacks (Option C) are possible but not the primary risk of API vulnerabilities.

Thus, Option B is correct.

In the CEH Denial-of-Service and Network Attacks coverage, a SYN flood is a classic TCP-based DoS technique that exploits the TCP connection establishment process. In a normal handshake, the client sends SYN, the server replies SYN/ACK, and the client completes with ACK. A SYN flood deliberately sends a high volume of SYN packets (often spoofed) but never completes the final ACK. As CEH describes, this leaves the server holding many half-open connections in SYN_RECEIVED, consuming memory and connection table resources (backlog queue). When the backlog fills, legitimate clients cannot establish connections, degrading availability.

The indicators in your scenario align exactly with CEH’s SYN flood fingerprints: incomplete handshakes and accumulation of half-open connections. The goal is resource exhaustion at the connection-management layer rather than bandwidth saturation.

Option B (Ping of Death) involves malformed/oversized ICMP packets and does not match SYN_RECEIVED behavior. Option C (UDP flood) targets UDP services/ports and creates different symptoms (high UDP traffic, ICMP unreachable messages, service degradation) without half-open TCP states. Option D (Smurf) is ICMP-based amplification via broadcast addresses—again unrelated to incomplete TCP handshakes.

CEH also notes mitigations such as SYN cookies, increasing backlog, reducing SYN-RECEIVED timers, rate limiting, and upstream filtering—further reinforcing that the described event is a SYN flood.

This technique is known as Boolean-Based Blind SQL Injection, as defined in CEH v13 Web Application Hacking. When applications suppress database errors and return generic responses, attackers use conditional statements to infer database behavior.

By comparing responses to true (1=1) and false (1=2) conditions, the attacker deduces whether injected SQL is being executed successfully.

CEH v13 distinguishes this from:

Error-based SQLi (visible DB errors)

UNION-based SQLi (data extraction)

Time-based SQLi (response delays)

Boolean-based blind SQL injection relies solely on content differences, making option C correct.

This scenario demonstrates a classic social engineering tactic often referred to as “social media quizzes” or “engagement bait”, commonly used in open-source intelligence gathering (OSINT) and pretexting attacks.

From CEH v13 Module 01: Introduction to Ethical Hacking and Module 09: Social Engineering, attackers may create seemingly innocent posts that ask users to share answers to common questions like:

What was your first pet’s name?

What’s your mother’s maiden name?

What city were you born in?

What’s your favorite food?

These questions mirror the types of security questions used by banks and other services for account recovery or authentication. By answering these in public forums or comments, users unknowingly disclose data that can be used to:

Bypass security questions

Reset passwords

Perform targeted account takeovers

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

B. Matt's bank account login information was brute forced.

Unlikely. Most banks implement account lockout policies and multi-factor authentication that would prevent brute force attempts.

C. Matt inadvertently provided his password when responding to the post.

Incorrect. Passwords are not usually asked in public-facing posts. Users are unlikely to provide literal passwords unless heavily tricked by phishing.

D. Matt's computer was infected with a keylogger.

Possible but less likely. The context suggests that the only suspicious behavior was responding to the Facebook post, which doesn't imply malware installation or downloading.

Reference from CEH v13 Study Guide and Course Material:

CEH v13 Official Module 09 – Social Engineering, Slide: Common Social Engineering Techniques (Quizzes, Pretexting)

CEH Engage – Social Engineering Phase

EC-Council iLabs – Performing Social Engineering Attacks Simulation

CEH v13 Courseware Notes – Reconnaissance Using OSINT and Public Social Platforms

CEH v13 outlines a structured approach to vulnerability assessment and exploitation. After identifying a high-severity vulnerability, the next critical step is verification and research, not immediate exploitation. This ensures accuracy, reduces false positives, and avoids unnecessary risk. CEH emphasizes that testers must validate vulnerability details, confirm version applicability, assess exploit availability (e.g., Metasploit, Exploit-DB), and evaluate potential impact. Attempting DoS attacks (Option A) is prohibited unless explicitly scoped and does not align with responsible testing. Brute-force attacks (Option B) are unrelated to software version vulnerabilities. Ignoring the issue (Option D) violates CEH methodology. The correct process is to research and verify—ensuring exploitation is safe, relevant, and authorized. This aligns with CEH’s vulnerability management lifecycle: discovery → verification → prioritization → exploitation (when allowed) → reporting.

In active session hijacking, after identifying a valid session, the attacker must desynchronize the legitimate communication between the client and the server. To do this, Bob should:

Knock one of the parties offline (typically the client).

Then spoof the session by injecting crafted packets using the guessed sequence number.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 11: Session Hijacking

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“After identifying a session and predicting its sequence number, the attacker forces the original user offline, allowing them to assume control over the connection using spoofed packets.”

Incorrect Options:

A: Taking over the session is the ultimate goal, but the necessary step before that is disconnecting the original participant.

B: Sequence prediction is already done.

C: Sequence number has already been guessed.

CEH defines botnets as networks of compromised machines controlled remotely to perform coordinated activities such as DDoS attacks, spam campaigns, and credential theft. Systems showing outbound connections to unknown IPs and participating in mass spam dissemination are characteristic indicators of botnet infection.

Dragonblood allows an attacker in range of a password-protected Wi-Fi network to get the password and gain access to sensitive information like user credentials, emails and mastercard numbers. consistent with the published report:

“The WPA3 certification aims to secure Wi-Fi networks, and provides several advantages over its predecessor WPA2, like protection against offline dictionary attacks and forward secrecy. Unfortunately, we show that WPA3 is suffering from several design flaws, and analyze these flaws both theoretically and practically. Most prominently, we show that WPA3’s Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) handshake, commonly referred to as Dragonfly, is suffering from password partitioning attacks.”

Our Wi-Fi researchers at WatchGuard are educating businesses globally that WPA3 alone won’t stop the Wi-Fi hacks that allow attackers to steal information over the air (learn more in our recent blog post on the topic). These Dragonblood vulnerabilities impact alittle amount of devices that were released with WPA3 support, and makers are currently making patches available. one among the most important takeaways for businesses of all sizes is to know that a long-term fix might not be technically feasible for devices with lightweight processing capabilities like IoT and embedded systems. Businesses got to consider adding products that enable a Trusted Wireless Environment for all kinds of devices and users alike.

Recognizing that vulnerabilities like KRACK and Dragonblood require attackers to initiate these attacks by bringing an “Evil Twin” Access Point or a Rogue Access Point into a Wi-Fi environment, we’ve been that specialize in developing Wi-Fi security solutions that neutralize these threats in order that these attacks can never occur. The Trusted Wireless Environment framework protects against the “Evil Twin” Access Point and Rogue Access Point. one among these hacks is required to initiate the 2 downgrade or side-channel attacks referenced in Dragonblood.

What’s next? WPA3 is an improvement over WPA2 Wi-Fi encryption protocol, however, as we predicted, it still doesn’t provide protection from the six known Wi-Fi threat categories. It’s highly likely that we’ll see more WPA3 vulnerabilities announced within the near future.

To help reduce Wi-Fi vulnerabilities, we’re asking all of you to hitch the Trusted Wireless Environment movement and advocate for a worldwide security standard for Wi-Fi.

A honeypot may be a trap that an IT pro lays for a malicious hacker, hoping that they will interact with it during a way that gives useful intelligence. It’s one among the oldest security measures in IT, but beware: luring hackers onto your network, even on an isolated system, are often a dangerous game.

honeypot may be a good starting place: “A honeypot may be a computer or computing system intended to mimic likely targets of cyberattacks.” Often a honeypot are going to be deliberately configured with known vulnerabilities in situation to form a more tempting or obvious target for attackers. A honeypot won’t contain production data or participate in legitimate traffic on your network — that’s how you’ll tell anything happening within it’s a results of an attack. If someone’s stopping by, they’re up to no good.

That definition covers a various array of systems, from bare-bones virtual machines that only offer a couple of vulnerable systems to ornately constructed fake networks spanning multiple servers. and therefore the goals of these who build honeypots can vary widely also , starting from defense thorough to academic research. additionally , there’s now an entire marketing category of deception technology that, while not meeting the strict definition of a honeypot, is certainly within the same family. But we’ll get thereto during a moment.

honeypots aim to permit close analysis of how hackers do their dirty work. The team controlling the honeypot can watch the techniques hackers use to infiltrate systems, escalate privileges, and otherwise run amok through target networks. These sorts of honeypots are found out by security companies, academics, and government agencies looking to look at the threat landscape. Their creators could also be curious about learning what kind of attacks are out there, getting details on how specific sorts of attacks work, or maybe trying to lure a specific hackers within the hopes of tracing the attack back to its source. These systems are often inbuilt fully isolated lab environments, which ensures that any breaches don’t end in non-honeypot machines falling prey to attacks.

Production honeypots, on the opposite hand, are usually deployed in proximity to some organization’s production infrastructure, though measures are taken to isolate it the maximum amount as possible. These honeypots often serve both as bait to distract hackers who could also be trying to interrupt into that organization’s network, keeping them faraway from valuable data or services; they will also function a canary within the coalpit , indicating that attacks are underway and are a minimum of partially succeeding.

CEH covers advanced cryptanalytic attacks, including Meet-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks, which are especially effective against multi-round symmetric encryption schemes. When an algorithm encrypts data twice using different keys, the naive brute-force method would require testing every possible combination of both keys—a time complexity of 2ⁿ × 2ⁿ. Meet-in-the-Middle dramatically reduces this complexity by splitting the problem in half. Attackers encrypt the plaintext using all potential values of the first key and store the results. They then decrypt the final ciphertext using all possible values of the second key. When an intermediate value matches one in storage, the corresponding key pair is identified. CEH highlights that this approach exploits the lack of key independence between two encryption layers, demonstrating how doubling encryption does not always double security. This attack is well-known for targeting 2DES, one of the historical examples covered in CEH. It is not related to side-channel attacks, brute-force flooding, or permutation reversal; it strictly relies on midpoint matching to reduce computational workload.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

The Snort rule syntax:

alert tcp any any → 192.168.1.0/24 111

This means: Alert on TCP traffic from any IP and any port, going to any host in the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet on destination port 111.

The content "|00 01 86 a5|" identifies a mountd access signature pattern.

Port 111 is used by SunRPC (commonly associated with mountd in UNIX environments).

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 13: IDS, Firewalls and Honeypots → Understanding Snort Rules

Restrict results to those of a certain filetype. E.g., PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPT, etc. Note: The “ext:” operator can also be used—the results are identical.

Example: apple filetype:pdf / apple ext:pdf

DNS poisoning (also known as DNS cache poisoning) occurs when a malicious actor injects false DNS data into a DNS resolver's cache. The poisoned entry will persist for the duration of its TTL (Time To Live), which is defined in the DNS SOA (Start of Authority) record.

The SOA record contains several fields including:

Serial number

Refresh

Retry

Expire

Minimum TTL

The Minimum TTL value in the SOA record determines how long a DNS resolver should cache the DNS data — including any potentially poisoned data.

From CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 3: Scanning Networks

Topic: DNS Enumeration & Poisoning

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“The SOA record includes a minimum TTL value that dictates how long DNS information should be cached by other DNS servers. If DNS cache poisoning occurs, the false information will persist until the TTL expires.”

Incorrect Options:

A: MX (Mail Exchange) defines mail servers, not TTLs.

C: NS (Name Server) specifies authoritative servers, not caching durations.

D: TIMEOUT is not a valid DNS resource record.