100+ Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers in 2024

17 min read

According to the IBM Report, data breaches cost businesses $4.24 million per incident on average, the highest in the 17 years of history. However, the demand for cyber security professionals exceeded and created exciting job opportunities. So, I wrote this wonderful blog on cyber security interview questions and answers for all those opportunity seekers who are willing to secure their future in a well-reputed organization as a cybersecurity analyst.

This digital world enclosed by cyber-attacks requires fully trained and professional cyber security engineers to foresee, notice, and limit the possible threats by utilizing their best possible efforts. 

Table of Contents

Introduction To Cyber Security

Introduction To Cyber Security

Cybersecurity is a proactive method to safeguard computing devices connected to the internet, including personal computers, web hosting servers, handheld devices, electronic systems, IT networks, and data from malicious attacks.

To understand, let’s break the word cybersecurity into two subparts: cyber and security. The term “cyber” points to a wide range of technologies such as IT networks, data, and computing systems. On the other hand, security is concerned with protecting systems, IT networks, data, and related applications. 

It depends on the criteria of the companies either they can go with cyber security MCQ questions and answers, assign you a practical task to fix it within the allowed time, or verbally ask you the technical questions. Download the network security questions and answers pdf file and complete the theoretical part first. Visit different websites that offer online quizzes of interview questions on cyber security. 

In simple words, cybersecurity is the name of multiple techniques, methods, technologies, and practices to protect against cyber-attacks, modification, theft, or unauthorized access to any computing devices, programs, networks, and data. 

Importance of Cyber Security

Our society is more technologically reliant than ever in this digital era because the internet, and computing devices, including laptops, tablets, and electronic gadgets and software programs, are essential parts of our daily lives. 

Whether you’re an individual, company, or a multinational organization such as banking systems, hospitals, and governments, you can never ignore the importance of computing to run your business activities. When they manipulate or store important data such as customers’ details, intellectual property, or credit card details, they are vulnerable to hackers, which could result in severe penalties. 

All businesses have already shifted to the internet or plan to maintain their presence and ROI value soon. However, they have to implement vulnerability management techniques to secure their online business.  

There are many reasons that attackers (or hackers) steal the data; they can use this valuable information to sell it on the dark web, penetrate it for financial gain, political reasons, extortion, or simply destruction. Whatever the reason is, you can implement tight networking security and follow proper guidelines to avoid security breaches. 

As online shopping is getting valued, every traditional business is shifting to the internet or planning to secure its presence within a couple of days. When businesses develop their web applications or software, they need to secure their confidential and clients’ data to maintain trust. They need network security experts to maintain their reputation in the market. So, the job ratio is increasing, but it is necessary to get the basic knowledge to get selected in any well-reputed organization. In this article, you will learn the most frequently asked cyber security interview questions and answers for newbies and experienced candidates.

Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers

What is Cyber Security?

Cyber security is the process of protecting hardware, software, and data from hackers. The primary purpose of implementing these cyber security techniques is to protect against different cyberattacks such as changing, accessing, or destroying sensitive data.

What Are The Fundamental Elements of Cyber Security?

The following are the main elements of cyber security:

  • Information security
  • End-user education
  • Operational security
  • Application security
  • Network security
  • Business continuity planning

What are The Main Advantages of Cyber Security?

  • It protects the business against unauthorized access, including ransomware, social engineering, malware, and phishing.
  • Protects end-users and improves the business continuity management
  • Improves stakeholder confidence
  • Provide adequate protection for both data as well as networks
  • Increase recovery time after any breach

What Do You Mean By Cryptography?

Cryptography is the technique used to protect confidential information from third parties called adversaries. It allows both the sender and receiver of any message to read its details.

What is The Main Difference between IDS and IPS?

As the name indicates, IDS (Intrusion Detection System) detects intrusions, and an administrator prevents the intrusion carefully. In the IPS (Intrusion Prevention System), the system finds the intrusion and prevents it for better protection.

Explain The CIA Model

Explain The CIA Model

CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability) is a common model to develop a security policy. It consists of the following concepts:

  • Confidentiality: Ensure that confidential and private data is accessed only by authorized users.
  • Integrity: It means the information is in the right format.
  • Availability: Ensure the data and other required resources are available to those users who need them.

Define The Firewall

In simple words, the firewall is a network security device that is mainly designed to monitor incoming and outgoing traffic and block data based on security rules. Firewalls are considered the best option to protect the network from worms, malware, viruses, remote access, and content filtering.

What is Traceroute and How Can We Check It?

Traceroute is the network diagnostic tool used to track the real path of any data packet on an IP address from its source to its destination. It reports all IP addresses of routers and records the time taken for each hop. Traceroute is mostly used to check out the connection breaks to identify the point of failure.

Go to the command prompt (cmd), write “tracert”, and enter any domain name after a single space, as you can view in the picture given below:

How to check traceroute using tracert

What is The Difference Between HIDS and NIDS?

Parameter HIDS NIDS
Usage Detect the intrusions Used for the network
Monitoring It monitors suspicious system activities and traffic of any specific device. It monitors the traffic of all devices on the network
Performance Must be installed on every host It can monitor multiple hosts at a time
https://www.temok.com/blog/nids-vs-hids/

What is SSL and Why Do We Need To Use It?

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a technology used to create encrypted connections between web servers and browsers. It is now compulsory for every website to be ranked on the first page of Google and is commonly used to protect online transactions, users’ data, and digital payments.

Define Data Leakage

It is the name of unauthorized data transmission from a network (within the organization) to an external network or destination. Data leakage can occur via email, optical media, USB keys, or laptops.

What is The Brute Force Attack and How to Prevent it?

The brute force attack is trial-and-error to guess login information, encryption keys, or PIN. In this case, hackers make all the possible ways and try to guess the credentials one by one. Brute force attacks are automated and use a password dictionary that contains millions of words that can be used as a password. So, you can try to minimize the brute force risk by adopting the following ways:

  • Set password length
  • Use a complex password
  • Set limits on login failures

Define Port Scanning

Port scanning is the name of identification of the open ports and services available on any particular host. So, attackers use this technique to find out information for malicious purposes.

Enlist The Names of OSI Model Layers

Enlist The Names of OSI Model Layers

There are seven layers of the OSI Model:

  1. Physical Layer
  2. Data Link Layer
  3. Network Layer
  4. Transport Layer
  5. Session Layer
  6. Presentation Layer
  7. Application Layer

What is a VPN?

VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a network connection method used to create a secure and encrypted connection. VPN protects you from snooping, censorship, and interference. Virtual Private Networks secure the public internet connection with the help of encryption techniques and provide shielding to your online activity from cybercriminals and even your Internet Service Provider.

Who are The Black Hat Hackers?

Black hat hackers are those people who have good knowledge of breaching network security, and they can generate malware for personal financial gain or malicious activities. They are clever and break into a network to modify or destroy data and are unavailable for authorized users.

Who are The Black Hat Hackers

Who are White Hat Hackers?

White hat hackers are also known as security specialists specializing in penetration testing and helping the organization protect its confidential and secure information from attackers. In other words, you can also call them ethical hackers who perform hacking activities to improve network security. If you want to become an ethical hacker, you need to go through cyber security interview questions and answers to grab a golden opportunity.

Who are Grey Hat Hackers?

It is the combination of white and black hat hacking techniques in which the grey hat hackers sometimes violate ethical standards, but they don’t have any malicious intent.

How To Reset The Password-protected BIOS Configuration?

There are different ways to reset the BIOS password, but a few of them are given below:

  • Remove CMOS battery
  • By utilizing the software
  • Using a motherboard jumper
  • By utilizing MS-DOS

Do You Know About MITM Attack?

Do You Know About MITM Attack

MITM (Man In The Middle) is an attack where the attacker intercepts the communication between two networks or persons. MITM is working on the primary intent to access confidential information.

What is ARP and How it works?

ARP is a protocol that works as an interface between the OSI network and OSI link layer and is used to find out the MAC address associated with the IPv4 address. What does ARP Stand for in Accenture: Robotics Process Automation – Accenture.

Define Botnet

A botnet is the number of internet-connected devices like laptops, servers, IoT, mobile devices, and PCs controlled or infected by malware.

What are The Major Differences Between SSL and TLS?

TLS is a secure channel between two clients, whereas SSL helps track the person we communicate with because it verifies the sender’s identity.

What is The Abbreviation of CSRF?

Cross-Site Request Forgery

What is 2FA? How To Implement It For A Public Website?

2FA stands for two-factor authentication, and it is a security process used to identify the person accessing an online account. The user will get access after giving evidence to the authentication device.

What Is The Difference Between Asymmetric And Symmetric Encryption?

Asymmetric encryption uses a different key for encryption and decryption, whereas symmetric requires the same key for both encryption and decryption.

XSS Stands For?

cross-site scripting

Do You Know About WAF?

Do You Know About WAF

A web Application Firewall (WAF) is used to protect the application by filtering and monitoring all incoming and outgoing traffic between the application and the internet.

What is Hacking?

Hacking is a technique used to discover weaknesses in a private network or computer to exploit its weaknesses and gain access. In simple words, it is the name of using password-cracking techniques to gain access to the system.

Who are The Hackers?

Hackers are those people who find and exploit the weaknesses in any network or computing device to gain access. They are experienced programmers with a great knowledge of computer security.

What is Network Sniffing?

What is Network Sniffing

It is a tool to analyze data packets sent over a network using specialized software and hardware equipment. Sniffing can be used for:

  • Capturing sensitive and confidential data such as password
  • Eavesdropping on chat messages
  • Monitoring data package over a network

Why Is DNS Monitoring Important?

Newly registered domains are easily infected with malicious software, so the DNS monitoring tools identify malware.

What Is The Process Of Salting And Why It Is Used?

Salting is a process in which password length is extended using special characters. To use it more efficiently, you need to understand the entire mechanism of salting. It is an efficient way to safeguard your passwords because it also prevents attackers from testing known words across the system. For example, (“QxLUF1bgIAdeQX”) is added to each password to protect passwords.

What is SSH?

Secure Socket Shell (also known as Secure Shell) is a utility suite that the system administrators use to secure access to the data on a network.

Is SSL Protocol Enough for Network Security?

SSL is not an all-in-one security solution because it does not provide security once the data is transferred to the server. So, it is a proactive approach to use server-side encryption and hashing to protect against any data breach. For advanced study, you may consider searching cryptography and network security viva questions to be a successful network security engineer.

Define Black Box Testing And White Box Testing

Define Black Box Testing And White Box Testing
  • Black box testing is a software testing technique in which an application’s internal structure or program code is hidden.
  • White box testing: It is a software testing way the tester knows the internal structure or program.

Explain Vulnerabilities In Network Security

Vulnerabilities refer to any weak point in the applications or software code that an attacker can exploit. It is commonly found in SaaS (Software as a Service) applications.

What Is TCP Three-way handshake?

The three-way handshake is the process of connecting local hosts and servers in the network. This process requires the client and server to exchange the synchronization and acknowledgment packets before communicating data.

What Is Residual Risk and How To Deal With It?

What Is Residual Risk and How To Deal With It

Residual risk is a threat that balances the risk exposure after eliminating threats, so we can deal with the risk by choosing the following ways:

  1. Reduce it
  2. Avoid it
  3. Accept it

Can You Define Exfiltration?

It is the name of unauthorized data transfer from a computer system. Anyone with physical access to computing devices may carry this transmission out.

Do You Know About Exploits in Network Security?

It is a method used by hackers to access data in an unauthorized way. An exploit is incorporated into malware.

What is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing is the name of checking exploitable vulnerabilities on the target. It is used to augment the web application firewall in web security.

Enlist The Most Common Cyber-Attacks

Enlist The Most Common Cyber-Attacks

When preparing cyber security interview questions and answers, consider the commonly used cyber-attacks. Following are the popular types of cyber-attacks:

  • Malware
  • Phishing
  • Password attacks
  • DDoS
  • Man-in-the-middle
  • Drive-by downloads
  • Rogue software
  • Malvertising (malicious advertising)

What is The Name Of the Protocol That Broadcasts the Information Across All The Devices?

IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) is a communication protocol used in gaming or video streaming and facilitates communication devices, including routers, to send packets.

How Can We Protect Email Messages?

A cipher algorithm is highly recommended to protect email, credit card information, and confidential data.

What is Data Encryption and Why It Is Important In Network Security?

Data encryption is a technique used to secure data by converting it into code. So, only authorized users can access this code or converted form of data. It is important for network security because your data can be breached at any stage in the network if it is not encrypted. In the cyber security interview questions and answers, your most questions should be on the encryption and decryption techniques and secure the network.

What is The Main Difference Between Diffie-Hellman and RSA?

Diffie-Helman is a protocol used whenever the key is exchanged between two parties, and RSA is an encryption algorithm that takes the keys (public and private) to do the encryption and decryption.

What is The Remote Desktop Protocol?

Microsoft developed RDP and provides GUI (graphical user interface) to connect two devices over a network. The user will use RDP client software to get successful communication, and other devices must run RDP server software. RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) is dedicatedly designed for remote management and virtual access applications, computers, or terminal servers.

Do You Know About Forward Secrecy?

Forward secrecy is a security measure used to confirm the integrity of the unique session key if the long-term key is compromised.

Explain The Concept of IV in Encryption

IV (Initial Vector) is an arbitrary number used to ensure that identical text is encrypted to different ciphertexts. The encryption program uses an IV program only once per session. The preparation of cyber security interview questions and answers is highly recommended if you’re seriously willing to secure your job in a well-reputed firm.

What is The Difference Between Stream Cipher and Block Cipher?

What is The Difference Between Stream Cipher and Block Cipher
Block cipher

Parameter Stream Cipher Block Cipher
Working Operates on small plaintext Works on large data blocks
Code requirements Less code required More code required
Usage of keys Only once Reuse of key is possible
Application Secure Socket layer File encryption and database
Usage Used to implement hardware Used to implement software

Enlist Some Examples of A Symmetric Encryption Algorithm

Following are the examples of symmetric encryption algorithms:

  • RCx
  • Rijndael (AES)
  • DES
  • Blowfish

What is The Abbreviation of ECB and CBC?

ECB stands for Electronic Codebook, and CBC stands for Cipher Block Chaining.

Can You Define Spyware?

It is a type of malware used to steal data about a company or person. Spyware can damage the computer systems of companies or organizations.

Do You Know About Impersonation?

Yes, it is a mechanism used to assign the user account to an unknown user.

What is SRM?

SRM (Security Reference Monitor) is a Microsoft Windows system used to implement security in Windows. It determines whether access to a resource is allowed or not. MSFT Access Token is used for the verification of all user actions.

What is The Computer Virus?

It is malicious software executed on the system without users’ consent and consumes computing resources such as CPU time and memory. In some special cases, this malicious software changes other computer programs and inserts its code to harm the computer system. Different computer viruses may be used to:

  • Access user ID and passwords
  • Corrupt data in the computer
  • Log the users’ keystrokes
  • Show annoying messages

What Do You Mean By Authenticode?

It is a technology used to identify the publisher of Authenticode sign software. With the help of Authenticode, every user can verify that the software is genuine or contains any malicious program.

Define CryptoAPI

As the name indicates, CryptoAPI collects encryption APIs that allow the developers to create a project on a protected and secure network.

What are The Steps To Secure a Web Server?

Following are the simple steps to secure your web server:

  • Update the ownership of the file
  • Keep your webserver up-to-date
  • Disable all extra modules
  • Delete default scripts

What is MBSA?

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is a graphical and command-line interface that finds missing security updates and misconfigurations.

What is Ethical Hacking?

It is a type of hacking in which attackers understand the weak points and improve overall security. Ethical hackers get the help of different tools and fix vulnerabilities in computers or networks.

Explain Social Engineering and Enlist its Attacks

The term social engineering is used to convince people to reveal confidential information, and it has three types: Human-based, mobile-based, and computer-based.

  • Human-based attack: Attackers may pretend to be a genuine user who requests higher authority to reveal the organization’s confidential information.
  • Computer-based attack: In this type of attack, attackers send fake emails to harm the computer and ask them to forward such emails.
  • Mobile-based attack: They may send SMS to others and collect private information. If any user downloads a malicious application, it can be misused to grant access to confidential information.

What are IP and MAC Addresses?

IP address stands for Internet Protocol address and uniquely identifies any computer or other devices such as printers, or storage disks on a computer network.

MAC address stands for Media Access Control address used to uniquely identify network interfaces for proper communication at the physical layer.

What Do You Mean By A Worm?

The worm is malware that replicates from one computer to another.

What is The Difference Between a Virus and a Worm?

Parameter ` Virus Virus
How do they infect? The virus inserts malicious code into a particular program or file A worm is attached to Instant messages or email copies
Dependency It needs a host program to work There is no need for any host to function correctly
Linked with Virus is linked with .com, .xls, .exe, .doc, and others The worm is linked to any file on a network
Affecting speed It is slower than a worm It is faster than compared to virus

Enlist Some Tools Used For Packet Sniffing

The following tools are used for packet sniffing:

  • Tcpdump
  • Kismet
  • Wireshark
  • NetworkMiner
  • Dsniff

Do You Know About Anti-Virus Sensor Systems?

Yes, it is a tool used to identify, prevent, or remove viruses present in computing devices. Anti-virus sensor systems perform system checks and increase the computer’s security regularly.

What are The Types of Sniffing Attacks?

Following are the types of sniffing attacks:

  • Protocol Sniffing
  • LAN Sniffing
  • ARP Sniffing
  • TCP Session stealing
  • Web password sniffing
  • Application-level sniffing

Explain Distributed Denial-Of-Service Attack (DDoS)

It is a type of attack in which a malicious actor aims to render a computer, server, or network resource to its intended users. In other words, it is a process of disrupting the normal traffic of a targeted server by overwhelming the target.

What is The Concept Of Session Hijacking?

TCP session hijacking is the name of misusing a valid computing session. The most common method of hijacking is IP spoofing, and attackers use IP packets to insert a command between two network nodes.

What are The Different Methods Of Session Hijacking?

The following are the common methods of session hijacking:

  • IP Spoofing
  • Blind Attack
  • Using packet Sniffers
  • Cross-Site Scripting (XSS Attack)

Define Hacking Tools

Hacking tools are programming scripts and computer programs useful for finding and exploiting weaknesses in computer systems, servers, networks, or web applications. Many tools are available in the market, both free and paid solutions for commercial use.

What are The Common Encryption Tools?

The following are the most common encryption tools:

  • RSA
  • AES
  • Twofish
  • Triple DES

Define Backdoor

The backdoor term is used when a security mechanism is bypassed to access a system by adopting a malware technique.

Define Backdoor

Is it a Good Way To Send Login Credentials Through Email?

No, sending your login credentials through email is not recommended because there are solid chances of email attacks.

What is The 80/20 Rule of Networking?

This networking rule is defined based on network traffic, in which 80% of all network traffic should remain local while 20% of traffic should be routed towards a permanent VPN.

What is WEP Cracking?

WEP cracking is a method used for a security breach in wireless networks. Mainly, it is categorized into two types: Active cracking and Passive cracking.

What are The WEP cracking tools?

The following tools are commonly used in WEP cracking:

  • Aircrack
  • Kismet
  • WEPCrack
  • WebDecrypt

Define Security Auditing

It is the internal inspection of operating systems and software applications for security flaws.

The audit can be done through line-by-line code inspection.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is a technique used to obtain confidential information such as username, password, or credit card information.

Can You Define Nano-Scale Encryption?

Nano-scale encryption is a research area that provides robust security to computers and prevents attacks.

What is Security Testing?

It is a type of software testing that ensures the applications and systems are free from any vulnerabilities, risks, or threats that may cause a big loss.

What is Security Scanning?

Security scanning is the name of identifying network and system weaknesses to provide solutions for reducing these risks. It can be done for both manuals as well as automated scanning.

What are The Available Hacking Tools?

Here is a list of useful hacking tools:

  • Acunetix
  • Burp Suite
  • Savvius
  • Probably
  • Netsparker
  • WebInspect
  • Angry IP scanner

What are The Disadvantages of Penetration Testing?

The following are the main disadvantages of testing:

  • Corruption and data loss
  • Higher downtime increases costs
  • It cannot find all vulnerabilities available in the system
  • There are many limitations such as budget, time, scope, and skills of testers

What is a Security Threat?

It is a risk that can steal confidential data and harm computer systems, networks, and organizations.

What are Physical Threats?

It is known as a potential cause of any incident that may result in physical damage to your network or computing systems.

What Are The Examples Of Non-Physical Threats?

Following are the common examples of non-physical threats:

  • Loss of confidential information
  • Corruption or loss of system data
  • Cyber Security Breaches
  • Disrupt business operations
  • Illegal monitoring of activities on computing devices

Do You Know About Trojan Virus?

It is a type of malware used to gain access to any computer using social engineering techniques to execute the trojan virus on the system.

What is SQL Injection?

SQL injection is an attack that poisons malicious SQL statements to the database by taking advantage of poorly designed web applications.

Enlist Security Vulnerabilities As Per Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)

Following are the security vulnerabilities as per OWASP:

  • SQL Injection
  • Cross-site request forgery
  • Insecure cryptographic storage
  • Failure to restrict URL access
  • Insufficient transport layer protection
  • Unvalidated redirects and forwards
  • Broken authentication and session management

What is an Access Token?

An access token is a credential that is used by a system to verify whether the API should be granted to any particular object or not.

What is ARP Poisoning?

What is ARP Poisoning

Address Resolution Protocol poisoning is a type of attack in which the IP address is converted to the physical address on a network device. The host will send an ARP broadcast, and all receivers respond with their physical addresses. In other words, ARP poisoning is the name of sending fake addresses to the switch to associate the fake addresses with the IP address of a computer connected to the network and hijack the traffic.

Enlist The Common Types of Non-Physical Threats:

The following are the common types of non-physical threats:

  • Trojans
  • Adware
  • Worms
  • Spyware
  • DoS Attack
  • Distributed DoS Attacks
  • Virus
  • Key loggers
  • Phishing
  • Unauthorized access to computer systems resources

What is The Sequence of a TCP Connection?

The sequence of a TCP connection (also known as a 3-way handshake) is SYN SYN-ACK ACK.

What is Nmap?

Nmap is a network scanning tool that uses IP packets to identify all the connected devices and deliver information on the operating systems they are running.

What is The Use Of EtterPeak Tool?

It is a network analysis tool used to sniff packets of network traffic.

What are The Types of Cyber-Attacks?

Mainly, there are two types of cyber-attacks: web-based and system-based attacks.

List Out Web-based Attacks

Common web-based attacks are SQL injection, Brute Force attacks, Phishing, DNS Spoofing, DoS, and Dictionary attacks.

Some examples of System-based Attacks

Following are the examples of system-based attacks:

  • Virus
  • Backdoors
  • Bots
  • Worm

List Out The Types of Cyber Attackers

Mainly, there are four types of cyber attackers: Cybercriminals, Hacktivists, Insider threats, and State-sponsored attackers.

Final Words

Thank you for reading this lengthy blog, I would love to add your cyber security interview questions provided in the comment section and appreciate your valuable feedback. Best of Luck.

7 thoughts on

100+ Cyber Security Interview Questions and Answers in 2024

  • Sanjay Mishra

    This is really great information. Thanks for the great tips…

  • S Mishra

    This is a very useful post thanks for sharing your ideas…

  • Jagannath Barman

    I was searching for such information. Thanks for sharing such a helpful post.

  • J Barman

    Thank you for sharing this great information.

  • JBarman

    I’m really impressed with your ideas. Thank you for sharing with us…

  • Charmin Patel

    Thanks for sharing awesome list.

  • Yasmin Amran

    question:
    The protocol is changed as follows:
    1. session resumption is canceled
    2. client must identify himself by certificate
    3. The server side is the one who creates the pre_master_secret.
    4. client and server ill always Send version 1.
    5. In ServerHello and ClientHelllo the sid is not sent.
    6. In Msg1 the client always sends his certificate
    7. In Msg2 the server creates pre_master_secret and sends the client the server_key_exchange
    8. Msg Msg3 of the client is canclesd, Instead, right after Msg2 the server sends the FinishedServer that include encryption and signature on both msgs.

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