We are living in a rapidly developing technology world. With a high increase in cyber threats, employers increasingly need experienced cybersecurity professionals in many cybersecurity fields such as security analysts, penetration testers, SOC, and Digital Forensics experts.
Certificates will not make you stand out as much as showing your expertise, you must show to the employer that you are knowledgeable enough and have adequate qualifications for the position, especially since cybersecurity positions pay high compared to most IT positions.
In this blog, we will list the top interview questions that employers ask cybersecurity candidates and we will provide the ideal answers for each of those questions to help you stand out.
Cybersecurity Interview Questions
1) What is the CIA Triad?
The CIA stands for Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability, and it is a model for Information Security policies and is also a reference to measure the impact of a security loophole or misconfiguration, the assets should have the CIA model in place to achieve the highest security, and the detailed CIA triad as follows:
- Confidentiality: The information should only be accessible by the authorized entity by implementing secure logins, data encryption, and mitigating all information leakage vulnerabilities.
- Integrity: The information or apps should not be tampered with, modified, or replaced while it is being transferred, shared, or at rest. The data should be only modified by authorized personnel, and to implement integrity, there should be strong encryption of the information or data and robust authorization mechanisms.
- Availability: The data or asset should be always available to the authorized user whenever he/she is authenticated to have access to it, the availability could be affected by any misconfiguration, cyber attack or at least losing that data. To achieve the availability standard, there should be strong protection against cyber attacks and DoS attacks, regular backups of the data or assets, and network bottlenecks.
2) What is the difference between the VA, PT, and RT?
The VA stands for Vulnerability Assessment, and it is all about finding the security loopholes and performing vulnerability scanning to the security issues and fixing them.
The PT stands for Penetration Testing includes the VA however the PT is processed through 4 main phases as follows:
- Information gathering and reconnaissance: It is the process of gathering and revealing information about the target, the more info the more hacking scenarios will be.
- Vulnerability Assessment or Gathering: It is the process of gathering and discovering all possible vulnerabilities about the target through automated scanning and manual testing.
- Exploitation: This is the phase to work on the discovered information and vulnerabilities and perform exploitation workaround to compromise the target assets.
- Post Exploitation: This is the phase that comes after having access to the target asset and performing exploitation such as changing directories, opening files, or even performing privilege escalation.
The RT stands for Red Teaming, and it is very similar to the PT however it is broader and simulates real-world scenarios and performs more post-exploitation attacks and exploits development.
3) What is the difference between the IDS and IPS?
The IDS is the system that only detects the cyber attack or intrusions and the admin is the one who is responsible for taking the action, however, the IPS is the system that detects and takes action automatically against intrusions.
4) What are the most common ports and their services?
The most common ports are port 80 for HTTP unencrypted web traffic, 443 for HTTPs for secure and encrypted web traffic, port 21 for FTP (File Transfer Protocol), port 22 for SSH (Secure Shell), port 23 for Telnet, port 53 for DNS (Domain Name System), port 25 for SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), port 110 for POP3 (Post Office Protocol v3), port 143 for IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), port 445 for SMB (Server Message Block) for file sharing, port 3389 for RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol), port 3306 for MySQL Database, port 5432 for PostgreSQL Database, port 1521 for Oracle Database, and port 5900 for VNC (Virtual Network Computing).
5) What is the AI Security?
AI Security is protecting the AI systems and the data that they use from cyber threats to ensure the CIA.
6) What are the challenges of AI Security?
The challenges of AI Security are as follows:
- Complexity and Transparency: the AI models are complex and it is hard to understand how they are attacked and how to defend them.
- Rapid Development: The fast development of AI causes new vulnerabilities and more possible cyber attacks.
- Integration with IT infrastructure: Many AI systems are integrated with legacy IT infrastructure which causes more security risks.
7) What are the DKIM, SPF, and DMARC?
The DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail is a protocol that validates domain name identity that is associated with a message delivery with cryptographic authentication, it adds a digital signature to the email header, the signature is created using the private key and will be verified by the recipient’s public key that is published in the DNS and if the signature is valid, then it confirms that the message has not been tampered with in transit and it is sent by the domain owner.
- The SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework, it mainly allows the owner of the domain to specify which mail server or servers to send emails on their behalf.
- The DMARC stands for Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance, it is a record to be configured how how to handle emails that failed DKIM and SPF checks and also provide reports for monitoring purposes.
All or some of the above questions will be mainly asked by employers to check your basic knowledge of Cybersecurity and it depends on the job positions and requirements.
If you are preparing for an interview, our mission is to support your success in any interview. Our cybersecurity-certified experts are ready to assist you in achieving your career goals. Simply share the job description with us. We will conduct a simulated interview, mirror the experience, and provide you with detailed feedback, personalized recommendations, and ideal responses to help you address any gaps and stand out in the interview. Reach out to us today, and let’s work together to secure your success.
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