Top 10 Penetration Testing Interview Questions and Answers

In today's world, cyberattacks pose several threats to many companies. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that trained specialists capable of conducting penetration tests have the knowledge to take the measures required to discover all the security gaps and risks hiding in an IT network or an organization. Now, if you want to work in the field of Penetration Testing, you need to practice Penetration Testing Interview Questions.

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Top 10 Penetration Testing Interview Questions list–

1. What is XPath Injection in penetration testing?
2. What is Hijacking Execution in pen-testing?
3. What is XAMPP?
4. What is John the ripper tool, and how are penetration testers using it?
5. What is Local File Inclusion (LFI)?
6. What is Remote File Inclusion (RFI)?
7. Explain Incognito attacks with Meterpreter?
8. What is Server-Side Request Forgery vulnerability?
9. Can Penetration Testing Be Automated?
10. What is a SQL injection?

Let's move on and get answers to all these questions. Let's Start!

Penetration Testing Interview Questions and Answers

Here are the top 10 Penetration Testing interview questions and answers to help you succeed in your next interview.

Question - What is XPath Injection in penetration testing?

Answer - XPath injection refers to a security flaw when malicious input is utilized to insert unwanted instructions into an XML document. This may be achieved by using specially created elements and attributes or by just inserting any user-supplied string straight into an XPath expression. To exploit software vulnerabilities, injection attacks are mainly used as they allow hackers to run arbitrary code for attack payload.

Question - What is Hijacking Execution in pen-testing?

Answer - In penetration testing, hijacking execution is a tactic used by attackers to obtain access to targeted systems or networks. Using this technique, an attacker may get access to and exploit the full range of capabilities of a hacked system for malicious purposes. Attackers may exploit extant administrator permissions on target devices and user accounts established particularly for reconnaissance or attack operations. By exploiting these vulnerabilities, hijackers can hack computers without raising red flags in standard security monitoring.

Question - What is XAMPP?

Answer - XAMPP stands for cross-platform, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl. XAMPP is an extremely popular cross-platform web server that allows developers to test and develop their programs locally. It was developed by the Apache Friends community, and its original source code is available for review and modification. It supports several programming languages and contains MariaDB, Apache HTTP Server, and PHP/Perl interpreters.

Question - What is John the ripper tool, and how are penetration testers using it?

Answer - John the Ripper is a widely used open-source password-cracking program used by penetration testers and security professionals to audit the security of password hashes and find weak passwords that may be readily hacked. It's compatible with several operating systems, including Windows, Linux, macOS, and UNIX.

John the Ripper is used by penetration testers as part of a security assessment to find passwords that are easy to crack. It aids businesses in spotting security flaws, fixing them, and bolstering their data and system security. John the Ripper is also useful for measuring the robustness of password regulations and the efficiency of various password storage strategies, including hashing algorithms and encryption approaches.

Question - What is Local File Inclusion (LFI)?

Answer - Local file inclusion (LFI) is a process in which a hacker injects malicious files into request packets aimed at vulnerable systems. An attacker may gain access to sensitive data or possibly gain the ability to run arbitrary code on the vulnerable system.

Web applications are especially prone to LFI vulnerabilities, which can be exploited in a remote attack against unsuspecting users that visit affected websites. Using specially crafted HTTP requests, an attacker can get complete control of the program and the data it serves by injecting scripts into the sites it serves.

Question - What is Remote File Inclusion (RFI)?

Answer - In penetration testing, Remote File Inclusion (RFI) refers to an attack method in which a malicious user uploads files to the target server that aren't a part of the online application or system under evaluation. These files should be placed somewhere other than the document root. As a result, attackers may steal information, run commands as privileged users, or even take control of infected computers by injecting arbitrary script code into pages served up by vulnerable servers.

Question - Explain Incognito attacks with Meterpreter?

Answer - An incognito attack is a method that may effectively test the safety of a system without raising the risk of the attacker being discovered. You are able to test the safety of a system without the user of the system being aware of the test if you use Meterpreter to carry out an attack using the Incognito mode.

Question - What is Server-Side Request Forgery vulnerability?

Answer - Server Side Request Forgery, also known as SSRF, is a simple form of attack in which the server acts as a proxy on behalf of the attacker to make a request either to a local or to a remote source. The server will then return a response that contains the data that was obtained as a result of the request.

It's possible to draw parallels between SSRF and the usage of a proxy or virtual private network (VPN) in that the user first makes a request to a resource, then the proxy or VPN Server makes a request to that resource, and lastly, the proxy or VPN Server returns the results to the original user.

Question - Can Penetration Testing Be Automated?

Answer - Automated scanning and the collection of data are one of the primary obstacles that must be overcome in penetration testing. As a result, this is the point when automation comes into the picture. The available automation now enables penetration testers to automate the actions contributing to data collecting.

Capturing and analyzing the data in this way ensures that it is done in an organized and effective manner. In addition to these benefits, automation enables a faster response time for reports, saves time overall, and reduces the amount of labour required.

Question - What is a SQL injection?

Answer - An attacker may get access to sensitive information like user names and passwords stored in a database using SQL injection. This security weakness enables malicious SQL queries to be executed on the database.

SQL injection attacks occur when an attacker provides malicious input to a web application that is then passed to a database for processing. The attacker can manipulate the input to include malicious SQL commands that are executed by the database. For example, suppose a web application is vulnerable to SQL injection. In that case, the attacker could modify a query in a way that allows them to retrieve data from the database to which they wouldn't usually have access.

Conclusion -

These are the top 10 Penetration Testing Interview Questions that could be asked in a pen-testing interview. The cyber world has a strong need for ethical hackers, yet it is a challenging sector to enter. Hopefully, the following set of Penetration Testing interview questions and answers may be helpful to you. All the best for your Interview.