CompTIA PenTest+ (PT0-001) Practice Certification Exams (Jason Dions 1of6) Flashcards

Question

Which of the following is NOT a valid reason to conduct reverse engineering? A.To commit industrial espionage B.To determine how a piece of malware operates C.TO allow the software developer to spot flaws in their source code D.To allow an attacker to exploit vulnerabilities in an executable

Answer 1

C.TO allow the software developer to spot flaws in their source code Explanation: OBJ-2.1: If a software developer has a copy of their source code, there is no need to reverse engineer it since they can directly examine the code. Doing this is known as static code analysis, not reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing a system's or application's structure to reveal more about how it functions. In malware, examining the code that implements its functionality can provide you with information about how the malware propagates and its primary directives. Reverse engineering is also used to conduct industrial espionage since it can allow a company to figure out how a competitor's application works and develop its own version. An attacker might use reverse engineering of an application or executable to identify a flaw or vulnerability in its operation and then exploit that flaw as part of their attack.

Answer 2

A.Analyze packet captures Explanation: OBJ-2.1: Captured packets show you the information that was traveling through certain files, etc. Packet sniffers detail the information they’ve received, so working through those shows if the external network shows or details software versions.

Answer 3

A.Web application vulnerability scan Explanation: OBJ-2.2: Since Apache is being run on the scanned server, this indicates a web server. Therefore, a web application vulnerability scan would be the most likely to provide valuable information. A network vulnerability scan or port scan can provide valuable information against any network-enabled server. Since an Apache server doesn’t contain a database by default, running a database vulnerability scan is not likely to provide any valuable information to the analyst.

Answer 4

C.Returns all web pages containing an email address affiliated with diontraining.com Explanation: OBJ-2.1: Google interprets this statement as @diontraining.com and understands that the user is searching for email addresses since %40 is the hex code for the @ symbol. The * is a wild card character meaning that any text could be substituted for the * in the query. This type of search would provide an attacker with a list of email addresses associated with diontraining.com, which could be used as part of a spear-phishing campaign. To return all web pages hosted at diontraining.com, you should use the "site:" modifier in the query. To return all web pages with the text diontraining.com, enter "diontraining.com" into the Google search bar with no modifiers to return those results.

Answer 5

B.SIEM systems Explanation: OBJ-2.1: Vulnerability scans should never take place in a vacuum. Analysts should correlate scan results with other information sources, including logs, SIEM systems, and configuration management systems. DMARC (domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance) and DKIM (domain keys identified mail) are configurations performed on a DNS server to verify whether an email is sent by a third-party are verified to send it on behalf of the organization. For example, if you are using a third-party mailing list provider, they need your organization to authorize them to send an email on your behalf by setting up DMARC and DKIM in your DNS records. While this is an important security configuration, it would not be a good source of information to validate the results of an analyst's vulnerability scans on a domain controller.

Answer 6

A.Rainbow Table Explanation: OBJ-2.4: A rainbow table is a tool for speeding up attacks against Windows passwords by precomputing possible hashes. A rainbow table is used to authenticate users by comparing the hash value of the entered password against the one stored in the rainbow table. Using a rainbow table makes password cracking a lot faster and easier for an attacker.

Answer 7

C.Brute force occurs within 11,000 combinations Explanation: OBJ-3.3: The most prominent attack against WPS enabled wireless networks involves brute-forcing the 8-digit PIN that client uses to enroll their devices without knowing the pre-shared key. WPS checks each half of the PIN individually, reducing the number of possible combinations from a maximum of 100,000,000 to only 11,000. This only takes a few minutes to crack on most modern computers, as long as the WAP doesn't have a lockout after a certain number of failures. The lockout mechanism may also be triggered based on the client's MAC, so you can often spoof MAC to bypass this defense.

Answer 8

B.Familiarity Explanation: OBJ-3.1: Familiarity is a social engineering technique that relies on assuming a widely known organization's persona. For example, in the United States, nearly 25% of Americans have a Bank of America account. For this reason, phishing campaigns often include emails pretending to be from Bank of America since 1 in 4 people who receive the email in the United States are likely to have an account. This makes them familiar with the bank name and is more likely to click on the email link. This email appears to be untargeted since it was sent to both customers and non-customers of this particular bank; it is best classified as phishing. Spear phishing requires the attack to be more targeted and less widespread.

Answer 9

B.Changing hidden form values Explanation: OBJ-3.4: Since there are no indications in the IDS logs, the database, or the server, it is most likely that the hacker changed hidden form values to change the items' price in the shopping cart. A buffer overflow is an anomaly that occurs when a program overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory locations while writing data to a buffer. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks are a type of injection in which malicious scripts are injected into otherwise benign and trusted websites. XSS attacks occur when an attacker uses a web application to send malicious code, generally in a browser side script, to a different end-user. SQL injection is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications. Malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution, such as dumping the database contents to the attacker.

Answer 10

A.SNMP Exploit Explanation: OBJ-3.2: SNMP provides a lot of information about different target devices on the network. Based on the output shown, you should identify that this is an SNMP scan based on the "community string" keyword. From your Network+ and Security+ studies, you should remember that SNMP uses community strings as a basic authentication mechanism before allowing you to access a network device's statistics. In this scan, two devices are found on this network with default public and private community strings. This makes these devices vulnerable to an SNMP attack for further exploitation.

Answer 11

D.An attacker cannot see any of the display errors with information about the injection during a blind attack Explanation: OBJ-3.4: Blind SQL injection is a type of SQL injection attack that asks the database true or false questions and determines the answer based on the application's response. This attack is often used when the web application is configured to show generic error messages but has not mitigated the code that is vulnerable to SQL injection.

Answer 12

B.TCP ACK Explanation: OBJ-3.2: TCP ACK scans can be used to determine what services are allowed through a firewall. An ACK scan sends TCP packets with only the ACK bit set. Whether ports are open or closed, the target is required to respond with an RST packet. Firewalls that block the probe usually make no response or send back an ICMP destination unreachable error. This distinction allows Nmap to report whether the ACK packets are being filtered. A TCP SYN scan can sometimes be used to determine what ports are filtered. Still, if the firewall is configured to drop packets for disallowed ports instead of sending an RST packet, then a TCP SYN scan will not be able to determine if a firewall was there or if the port was simply unavailable. A target sends a TCP RST packet in response to a TCP ACK scan, but a TCP RST is not a valid type of scan itself. An XMAS Tree scan will set the FIN, PSH, and URG flags in the TCP packet. This is a noisy type of scan and not useful for probing firewall rules.

Answer 13

C.Removable media Explanation: OBJ-3.1: Airgaps are designed to remove connections between two networks to create a physical segmentation between them. The only way to cross an airgap is to have a physical device between these systems, such as using a removable media device to transfer files between them. A directory traversal is an HTTP attack that allows attackers to access restricted directories and execute commands outside of the web server's root directory. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks are a type of injection in which malicious scripts are injected into otherwise benign and trusted websites. A session hijacking attack compromises the session token by stealing or predicting a valid session token to gain unauthorized access to the Web Server. A directory traversal, cross-site scripting, or session hijacking attack cannot by itself cross an airgap.

Answer 14

A.MAC filtering Explanation: OBJ-3.2: Wireless access points can utilize MAC filtering to ensure only known network interface cards are allowed to connect to the network. If the hacker changes their MAC address to a trusted MAC address, they can easily bypass this security mechanism. MAC filtering is considered a good security practice as part of a larger defense-in-depth strategy, but it won't stop a skilled hacker for long. MAC addresses are permanently burned into the network interface card by the manufacturer and serve as the device's physical address. WEP is the Wired Equivalent Privacy encryption standard, which is considered obsolete in modern wireless networks. WEP can be broken using a brute force attack within just a few minutes by an attacker. Another security technique is to disable the SSID broadcast of an access point. While this prevents the SSID broadcast, a skilled attacker can still find the SSID using discovery scanning techniques. WPS is the WiFi Protected Setup. WPS is used to connect and configure wireless devices to an access point easily.

Answer 15

B.SMS messages may be accessible to attackers via VoIP or other systems Explanation: OBJ-3.4: NIST’s SP 800-63-3 recommends that SMS messages be deprecated as a means of delivering a second factor for multifactor authentication because they may be accessible to attackers. SMS is unable to be encrypted (at least without adding additional applications to phones). A third factor is typically not a user-friendly recommendation and would be better handled by replacing SMS with the proposed third factor. SMS is not a costly method since it can be deployed for less than $20/month at scale.

Answer 16

A.schtasks /create /tn beacon /tr C:\temp\beacon.bat /sc MINUTE /mo 20 /ru SYSTEM Explanation: OBJ-3.7: A scheduled task or scheduled job is an instance of execution, like initiating a process or running of a script, that the system performs on a set schedule. Once the task executes, it can prompt the user for interaction or run silently in the background; it all depends on what the task is set up to do. Scheduled tasks in Windows use the schtasks command. The correct answer for this persistence is to enter the command "schtasks /create /tn beacon /tr C:\temp\beacon.bat /sc MINUTE /mo 20 /ru SYSTEM" that will create a task called "beacon" that runs the script at "C:\temp\beacon.bat every 20 minutes as the SYSTEM level user. The other variant of schtasks is incorrect because it used a Linux-based file directory structure to reference the script location and would fail to run in Windows. The crontab options are used in Linux, not in Windows.

Answer 17

A.Evil Twin Explanation: OBJ-3.3: An evil twin is meant to mimic a legitimate hotspot provided by a nearby business, such as a coffee shop that provides free Wi-Fi access to its patrons. The evil twin is the wireless LAN equivalent of the phishing scam. This type of attack may be used to steal the passwords of unsuspecting users by monitoring their connections or phishing, which involves setting up a fraudulent web site and luring people there.

Answer 18

D.Perform an SSL stripping attack Explanation: OBJ-3.3: An SSL stripping attack, also known as an HTTP downgrade attack, forces the client to communicate with the webserver in plain text (unencrypted) over HTTP instead of HTTPS. Both SSL downgrade and SSL stripping attacks are used to force the victim into using a weaker encryption mechanism (SSL downgrade to SSL-based HTTPS) or no encryption (SSL stripping to HTTP) for its web traffic.

Answer 19

A.Encryption E.Physical accessibility Explanation: OBJ-3.3: Most wireless networks utilize end-to-end encryption, whereas wired networks do not. Physical accessibility is another major difference between wireless and wired networks since wireless networks can be accessed from a distance using powerful antennas. Authentication, MAC filtering, and network access control (NAC) can be implemented equally on wired and wireless networks. Port security is only applicable to wired networks.

Answer 20

C.A request to issue the command "cat /etc/passwd" occurred but additional analysis is required to verify if the file was downloaded Explanation: OBJ-3.2: This is a post request to run the "cat /etc/passwd" command from an outside source. It is not known from the evidence provided if this command were successful or not, but it should be analyzed further as this is not what would be expected, normal traffic. While the browser's default language was configured for Chinese (zh), this is easily changed and cannot be used to draw authoritative conclusions about the threat actor's true location or persona. The User-Agent used is listed as Mozilla, which is used by both Firefox and Google Chrome. For an in-depth analysis of the full attack this code snippet was taken from, please visit https://www.rsa.com/content/dam/en/solution-brief/asoc-threat-solution-series-webshells.pdf. This 6-page article is definitely worth your time to look over and learn how a remote access web shell is used as an exploit.

Answer 21

A. id = "1' OR '1'=='1" and certification = "cysa' OR '1'=='1" Explanation: OBJ-3.4: ID and certification must be crafted so that when substituted for the “.getparameter” fields, the SQL statement formed is still complete and will return a Boolean value of true for the ENTIRE statement every time it is evaluated. The AND in the middle of the WHERE clause indicates that both the courseID and certification portion must be true to be true in every case. When this occurs, the entire table of courses would be returned. The only string that would ensure both halves of the WHERE clause always return true would be

Answer 22

D.Cross-site scripting Explanation: OBJ-3.4: This is a form of Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications. XSS enables attackers to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users. Attackers may use a cross-site scripting vulnerability to bypass access controls such as the same-origin policy. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF or XSRF) is a malicious exploit of a website where unauthorized commands are transmitted from a user that the web application trusts. There are many ways in which a malicious website can transmit commands, such as specially-crafted image tags, hidden forms, and JavaScript XMLHttpRequests can all work without the user's interaction or even knowledge. A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt normal traffic of a targeted server, service, or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic. A buffer overflow is an anomaly that occurs when a program overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory locations while writing data to a buffer.

Answer 23

B.Cross-site scripting Explanation: OBJ-3.4: This scenario is a perfect example of the effects of a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack. If your website's HTML code does not perform input validation to remove scripts that may be entered by a user, then an attacker can create a popup window that collects passwords and uses that information to compromise other accounts further. A cross-site request forgery (CSRF) is an attack that forces an end user to execute unwanted actions on a web application in which they are currently authenticated. An XSS will allow an attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript within the victim's browser (such as creating pop-ups). A CSRF would allow an attack to induce a victim to perform actions they do not intend to perform. A rootkit is a set of software tools that enable an unauthorized user to control a computer system without being detected. SQL injection is the placement of malicious code in SQL statements via web page input. None of the things described in this scenario would indicate a CSRF, rootkit, or SQL injection.

Answer 24

C.Unquoted service path Explanation: OBJ-3.7: An alternate data stream (ADS) is a feature of Microsoft's NT File System (NTFS) that enables multiple data streams for a single file name by forking one or more files to another. ADS can be abused by hiding one file into another, as shown in this scenario. Once received in her email, she could access the database by opening the file as "beachpic.png:exams.db".

Answer 25

D.SMTP Exploit Explanation: OBJ-3.2: If you see a question like this, don't let it confuse you. Look for keywords and phrases that you recognize to answer the question. As you look at the command issued in the first line, you may not recognize it. That is because this is an older exploit script that is being run with the parameters of support (the user account we are trying to exploit), DionTraining (our penetration testing machine's name), and RedHat (our target/victim server). Ignoring this line, look at the second line where you see a keyword that you should recognize: Sendmail. Sendmail is a service that runs on Linux machines to "send mail" using the SMTP protocol over port 25. This is the key to answering this question. As you continue through the script, you see it performed a DNS name resolution from RedHat to the server's IP, connected to the server, and successfully sent the exploit. This exploit conducts a buffer overflow against a vulnerable Sendmail server resulting in the server providing a remote callback to a listening port on the attacker's machine (port 2525). This is why the attacker then telnets into their localhost over port 2525 and runs the whoami command to determine what user they are connected to the victimized server as. In this case, they are reported as the root user, which means this SMTP exploit was successful.:

Answer 26

D.Call the CTOs assistant using a pretext tot gather information about their schedule Explanation: OBJ-3.1: Vishing (voice phishing) is a phishing attack in which an attacker entices their victim through a traditional telephone system or IP-based voice communications like Voice over IP (VoIP). If the attack is being carried out using the attacker's voice over a telephone, it is usually considered vishing.

Answer 27

B.Directory traversal OBJ-3.4: A directory traversal attack aims to access files and directories stored outside the webroot folder. By manipulating variables or URLs that reference files with “dot-dot-slash (../)” sequences and its variations or using absolute file paths, it may be possible to access arbitrary files and directories stored on the file system, including application source code or configuration and critical system files. The example output provided comes from a remote code execution vulnerability being exploited in which a directory traversal is used to access the files. XML Injection is an attack technique used to manipulate or compromise an XML application or service's logic. SQL injection is the placement of malicious code in SQL statements via web page input. Password spraying attempts to crack various user's passwords by attempting a compromised password against multiple user accounts.

Answer 28

D.Likeness Explanation: OBJ-3.1: Likeness is the social engineering motivational technique that relies on people being more willing to help people who look and sounds like themselves. In this scenario, the social engineer started talking sports and acting like the victim he sought to exploit. He then started making jokes about different server types to see if he could gain some information from the victim.

Answer 29

D.Brute-force Explanation: OBJ-3.4: Brute-force attack when an attacker uses a set of predefined values to attack a target and analyze the response until he succeeds. Success depends on the set of predefined values. It will take more time if it is larger, but there is a better probability of success. In a traditional brute-force attack, the passcode or password is incrementally increased by one letter/number each time until the right passcode/password is found.

Answer 30

B.Deauthentication Attack Explanation: OBJ-3.3: Deauthentication attacks are used in the service of an evil twin, replay, cracking, denial of service, and other attacks. All 802.11 Wi-Fi protocols include a management frame that a client can use to announce that it wishes to terminate a connection with an access point. The victim's device will be kicked off the access point by spoofing the victim's MAC address and sending the deauthentication frame to the access point. If the user is still using the network, the wireless adapter will automatically reconnect by sending a handshake to the access point. This allows the attacker to capture the handshake during the reconnection.

Answer 31

C.Fear Explanation: OBJ-3.1: Fear is a visceral emotion that can motivate people to act in ways they normally would not. In this scenario, the social engineer tries to convince the victim that their actions must be taken immediately, or bad consequences might occur. This is an attempt to cause fear and anxiety in the victim to hand over their password.

Answer 32

B.The first line starts with !#/bin/bash Explanation: OBJ-4.4: The first line of the script should start with #!/bin/bash. Most shell scripts will end with a .sh by convention, but it is not required. Remember, in Linux, file extensions are only useful to the end-user, but the operating system completely ignores them.

Answer 33

A.Powersploit Explanation: OBJ-4.2: Powersploit is a series of Microsoft PowerShell scripts that pen testers can use in post-exploit scenarios. Empire (PowerShell Empire) is a post-exploitation framework for Windows devices that allows the attacker to run PowerShell agents without needing powershell.exe. It is commonly used to escalate privileges, launch other modules to capture data, extract passwords, and install persistent backdoors. Searchsploit is a tool included in the exploitdb package on Kali Linux that enables you to search the Exploit Database archive. Responder is a fake server and relay tool that is included with Kali Linux. It responds to LLMNR, NBT-NS, POP, IMAP, SMTP, and SQL queries to possibly recover sensitive information such as user names and passwords.

Answer 34

A.Nmap Explanation: OBJ-4.2: The world's most popular open-source port scanning utility is nmap. The Services console (services.msc) allows an analyst to disable or enable Windows services. The dd tool is used to copy files, disk, and partitions, and it can also be used to create forensic disk images. Nessus is a proprietary vulnerability scanner developed by Tenable. While Nessus does contain the ability to conduct a port scan, its primary role is as a vulnerability scanner, and it is not an open-source tool.

Answer 35

A.Fuzzing Explanation: OBJ-4.2: Fuzzing or fuzz testing is an automated software testing technique that involves providing invalid, unexpected, or random data as inputs to a computer program. The program is then monitored for exceptions such as crashes, failing built-in code assertions, or potential memory leaks. User Acceptance Testing is the process of verifying that a created solution/software works for the user. Security regression testing ensures that changes made to a system do not harm its security, are therefore of high significance, and the interest in such approaches has steadily increased. Stress testing verifies the system's stability and reliability by measuring its robustness and error handling capabilities under heavy load conditions.

Answer 36

C.Empire Explanation: OBJ-4.2: Empire (PowerShell Empire) is a post-exploitation framework for Windows devices that allows the attacker to run PowerShell agents without needing powershell.exe. It is commonly used to escalate privileges, launch other modules to capture data, extract passwords, and install persistent backdoors. Powersploit is a series of Microsoft PowerShell scripts that pen testers can use in post-exploit scenarios. Searchsploit is a tool included in the exploitdb package on Kali Linux that enables you to search the Exploit Database archive. Responder is a fake server and relay tool that is included with Kali Linux. It responds to LLMNR, NBT-NS, POP, IMAP, SMTP, and SQL queries to possibly recover sensitive information such as user names and passwords.

Answer 37

D.ZAP Explanation: OBJ-4.2: OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) is the world's most widely used web application scanner. It is free, open-source, and provided by the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). Nessus, Qualys, and OpenVAS are all classified as infrastructure vulnerability scanners.

Answer 38

A.Hping Explanation: OBJ-4.2: Hping is a handy little utility that assembles and sends custom ICMP, UDP, or TCP packets and then displays any replies. It was inspired by the ping command but offered far more control over the probes sent. It also has a handy traceroute mode and supports IP fragmentation. Hping is particularly useful when trying to traceroute/ping/probe hosts behind a firewall that blocks attempts using the standard utilities. Hping also allows you to map out firewall rule sets. It is also great for learning more about TCP/IP and experimenting with IP protocols. Hping does not support IPv6, though, so the NMAP creators have created Nping to fill this gap and serve as an updated variant of Hping. Traceroute and tracert are computer network diagnostic commands for displaying the route and measuring packets’ transit delays across an Internet Protocol network. Traceroute uses ICMP and not TCP. Broadcast ping is simply pinging the subnet’s broadcast IP using the ping command, but if a regular ping does not work, neither will a broadcast ping. Ptunnel is an application that allows you to reliably tunnel TCP connections to a remote host using ICMP echo request and reply packets, commonly known as ping requests and replies. Ptunnel is used as a covert channel, not to elicit a response from a host using TCP.

Answer 39

D.Brute force Explanation: OBJ-4.3: This is an example of a brute force attack. Unlike password spraying that focuses on attempting only one or two passwords per user, a brute force attack focuses on trying multiple passwords for a single user. The goal of this attack is to crack the user's password and gain access to their account. Password spraying, instead, refers to the attack method that takes a large number of usernames and loops them with a single password. We can use multiple iterations using several different passwords, but the number of passwords attempted is usually low compared to the number of users attempted. This method avoids password lockouts, and it is often more effective at uncovering weak passwords than targeting specific users. In the scenario provided, only one or two attempts are being made to each username listed. This is indicative of a password spraying attack instead of a brute force attempt against a single user. Impersonation is the act of pretending to be another person for fraudulent purposes. Credential stuffing is the automated injection of breached username/password pairs to gain user accounts access fraudulently. This is a subset of the brute force attack category: large numbers of spilled credentials are automatically entered into websites until they are potentially matched to an existing account. The attacker can then hijack for their own purposes.

Answer 40

B.Metasploit Explanation: OBJ-4.1: The Metasploit Project is a computer security project that provides information about security vulnerabilities and aids in penetration testing and IDS signature development. Nessus is a very popular vulnerability scanner. It can be used to check how vulnerable your network is by using various plugins to test for vulnerabilities. Also, Nessus can perform compliance auditing, like internal and external PCI DSS audit scans. The nmap tool is a port scanner. Autopsy is used in digital forensic investigations.

Answer 41

C.443 Explanation: OBJ-4.3: Web-based attacks would likely appear on port 80 (HTTP) or port 443 (HTTPS). An attack against Active Directory is likely to be observed on port 389 LDAP. An attack on an FTP server is likely to be observed on port 21 (FTP). An attack using the remote desktop protocol would be observed on port 3389 (RDP).

Answer 42

A.BeEF Explanation: OBJ-4.2: BeEF (Browser Exploitation Framework) is a penetration testing tool included with Kali Linux that focuses on web browsers. BeEF can be used for XSS and injection attacks against a website. Netcat is an open-source networking utility for debugging and investigating the network, and that can be used to create TCP/UDP connections and investigate them. Nikto is an open-source web server scanner that searches for potentially harmful files, checks for outdated web server software, and looks for problems with some web server software versions. Androzer is a security testing framework for Android apps and devices.

Answer 43

A.Your email server is running on a non standard port Explanation: OBJ-4.1: As shown in the nmap scans' output, only two standard ports being utilized: 22 (SSH) and 80 (HTTP). But, when netcat is run against port 80, the banner provided shows the SMTP server is running on port 80. SMTP is normally run on port 25 by default, so running it on port 80 means your email server (SMTP) runs on a non-standard port.

Answer 44

B.nmap -p80,443 -oL servers.txt -oX results.txt Explanation: OBJ-4.1: The command (nmap -p80,443 -iL servers.txt -oG results.txt) will only perform a nmap scan against ports 80 and 443. The -iL option will scan each of the listed server's IP addresses. The -oX option will save the results in an XML format to the file results.txt while still displaying the normal results to the shell. The option of -sL will only list the servers to scan, and it will not actually scan them. The option of -oG is for outputting the results to a file in a greppable format.

Answer 45

C.set type=ns Explanation: OBJ-4.2: The "set type=ns" tells nslookup only reports information on name servers. If you used "set type=mx" instead, you would receive information only about mail exchange servers.

Answer 46

D.Lessons learned report Explanation: OBJ-5.2: The lessons learned report provides you with the details of the incident, its severity, the remediation method, and, most importantly, how effective your response was. Additionally, it provides recommendations for improvements in the future. A forensic analysis report would not provide recommendations for future improvements, even though it provides many of the other details. A trend analysis report describes whether behaviors have increased, decreased, or stayed the same over time. The chain of custody report is the chronological documentation or paper trail that records the custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of physical or electronic evidence.

Answer 47

A.To report indicators of compromise Explanation: OBJ-5.4: If an indicator of a previous compromise is found during a penetration test, the team should pause their work and immediately inform the client's trusted point of contact. The penetration testing team should have a direct communication path with the system owners or their trusted agents during an engagement. If the team discovers any security breaches, current hacking activity, extremely critical findings on a production server, or a production server becomes unresponsive during exploitation, then the team should stop what they are doing and contract their trusted point of contact within the organization to get further guidance. The trusted agents and communication paths should be determined when planning the engagement.

Answer 48

C.gpupdate Explanation: OBJ-5.3: The gpupdate command refreshes a computer's local Group Policy, as well as any Active Directory-based group policies. This command works on Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP. The gpupdate command can be used to restrict access to USB removable storage devices (like USB thumb drives and hard drives). In some organizations, USB storage devices are blocked for security reasons to prevent security leakage of confidential data and the penetration of viruses into the internal corporate network.

Answer 49

A.Application whitelist Explanation: OBJ-5.3: Application whitelisting will only allow a program to execute if it is specifically listed in the approved exception list. All other programs are blocked from running. This makes it the BEST mitigation against a zero-day virus. An intrusion detection system might detect the anomalous activity created by a piece of malware, but it will only log or alert based on the activity, not prevent it. A host-based firewall may prevent a piece of malware from establishing a network connection with a remote server. Still, again, it wouldn't prevent infection or prevent it from executing. An anti-malware solution is a good investment towards improving your security. Since the threat is a zero-day virus, an anti-malware solution will not detect it using its signature database.

Answer 50

A.Layer 7 Firewall Explanation: OBJ-5.3: Layer 7 firewalls are application-filtering firewalls. FTP traffic does not usually travel over port 25 and should travel over port 21. Using a Layer 7 firewall, the device can perform a deep packet inspection (DPI) to identify which application or protocol is actually being used to send traffic over a given port.

Answer 51

A.Indicator of compromise Explanation: OBJ-5.4: An indicator of compromise is an artifact observed on a network or in an operating system that, with high confidence, indicates a computer intrusion. Typical IOCs are virus signatures and IP addresses, MD5 hashes of malware files or URLs, or botnet command and control servers' domain names. SQL injection is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications. Malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution, such as dumping the database contents to the attacker. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF or XSRF) is a malicious exploit of a website where unauthorized commands are transmitted from a user that the web application trusts. There are many ways in which a malicious website can transmit commands, such as specially-crafted image tags, hidden forms, and JavaScript XMLHttpRequests can all work without the user's interaction or even knowledge. A botnet consists of many Internet-connected devices, each of which is running one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send spam, and allows the attacker to access the device and its connection.

Answer 52

D.Management Network Explanation: OBJ-5.3: The management interface should only be exposed to an isolated or dedicated network used for the management and configuration of the network device and platforms only. This would also help reduce the likelihood of an attack against the virtualization platform or the hypervisor itself. The external zone (internet), internal zone (LAN), or DMZ should not have the management interface exposed to them.

Answer 53

A.Full packet capture Explanation: OBJ-5.3: Full packet capture records the complete payload of every packet crossing the network. The other methods will not provide sufficient information to detect a cleartext password being sent. A net flow analysis will determine where communications occurred, by what protocol, to which devices, and how much content was sent. Still, it will not reveal anything about the content itself since it only analyzes the metadata for each packet crossing the network. A SIEM event log being monitored might detect that an authentication event has occurred. Still, it will not necessarily reveal if the password was sent in cleartext, as a hash value, or in the ciphertext. A software design documentation may also reveal the designer's intentions for authentication when they created the application, but this only provides an ‘as designed’ approach for a given software and does not provide whether the ‘as-built’ configuration was implemented securely.

Answer 54

D.Downgrade the server and defer the new feature testing Explanation: OBJ-5.3: Since the vendor stated that the new version introduces vulnerabilities in the environment, it is better to downgrade the server to the older and more secure version until a patch is available.

Answer 55

B.To report critical findings Explanation: OBJ-5.4: If an indicator of a previous compromise is found during a penetration test, the team should immediately inform the client's trusted point of contact unless the scope of work states otherwise. The penetration testing team should have a direct communication path with the system owners or their trusted agents during an engagement. If the team discovers any security breaches, current hacking activity, extremely critical findings on a production server, or a production server becomes unresponsive during exploitation, then the team should stop what they are doing and contract their trusted point of contact within the organization to get further guidance. The trusted agents and communication paths should be determined when planning the engagement.

Answer 56

D.Mitigation Explanation: OBJ-5.1: Risk mitigation is the overall process of reducing exposure to or the effects of risk factors, such as patching a vulnerable system. Transference (or sharing) means assigning risk to a third party (such as an insurance company or a contract with a supplier that defines liabilities). Avoidance means that the company stops doing the activity that is risk-bearing. Acceptance means that no countermeasures are put in place either because the level of risk does not justify the cost or because there will be an unavoidable delay before the countermeasures are deployed.

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D.Detailed list of cost incurred Explanation: OBJ-5.1: A detailed list of costs incurred is not required as part of the final report but instead would be included as part of your invoicing. Your report should contain an executive summary, your methodology used in the assessment, and your findings and prioritized recommendations.

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A.Risk appetite Explanation: OBJ-5.1: Risk appetite describes how much risk an organization is willing to accept. This is a crucial factor both in designing the assessment and determining the recommended mitigations. Risk mitigation is a strategy to prepare for and lessen the effects of threats faced by a data center. Risk mitigation refers to applying security controls to reduce the risk of a known vulnerability. Risk avoidance is the elimination of hazards, activities, and exposures that can negatively affect an organization's assets. Risk acceptance is the act of accepting the identified risk and not taking additional actions to reduce the risk because the risk is low enough. Risk acceptance should only be done once an organization’s risk tolerance is defined and communicated amongst the decision-makers.

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C.To report that a production server is unresponsive Explanation: OBJ-5.4: If a server becomes unresponsive during a penetration test, the team should pause their work and immediately inform the client's trusted point of contact. The penetration testing team should have a direct communication path with the system owners or their trusted agents during an engagement. If the team discovers any security breaches, current hacking activity, extremely critical findings on a production server, or a production server becomes unresponsive during exploitation, then the team should stop what they are doing and contract their trusted point of contact within the organization to get further guidance. The trusted agents and communication paths should be determined when planning the engagement.

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B.Patching Explanation: OBJ-5.3: While patching is a great way to combat threats and protect your systems, it is not effective against zero-day threats. By definition, a zero-day threat is a flaw in the software, hardware, or firmware that is unknown to the party or parties responsible for patching or otherwise fixing the flaw. This attack has no time (or days) between the time the vulnerability is discovered and the first attack, and therefore no patch would be available to combat it. Using segmentation, whitelisting, and threat intelligence, a cybersecurity analyst, can put additional mitigations in place to protect the network even if a zero-day attack was successful.

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C.To remove persistence on the server Explanation: OBJ-5.2: This scenario uses the systemctl command to remove persistence from a Linux server within its shell. The systemd tool is an init system and system manager that has widely become the new standard for Linux distributions. The systemctl is part of systemd. The systemctl is used to manage services, check their status, change their status, and work with the configuration files. By entering "sudo systemctrl stop DionTrainingApp" in the shell, the system will stop the service known as DionTrainingApp. This will remove any persistence gained by running the DionTrainingApp service, which is just a fictional service name used in this example to hide the penetration tester's persistence tools. This service could be named anything the penetration tester deems appropriate during the service's installation.