Updated March 4, 2023
Introduction to Penetration Testing Interview Questions And Answers
Penetration Testing is also called Pen Testing. It is a kind of testing that is used to test the level of security of a system or web application. It is used to know the weaknesses or vulnerabilities of the system features and also helpful in getting the complete details of risk assessment of a target system. It is a process that is included in a complete system security audit. Penetration Testing can be of two types i.e. White Box testing or Black Box testing. Penetration testing will determine the strength of the security of the system. There are different tools to perform this kind of Penetration testing based on the type of application to be tested.
Below are the topmost question asked in the interview:
Now, if you are looking for a job that is related to Penetration Testing then you need to prepare for the 2023 Penetration Testing Interview Questions. It is true that every interview is different as per the different job profiles. Here, we have prepared the important Penetration Testing Interview Questions and Answers which will help you get success in your interview. These Questions are divided into two parts are as follows:
Part 1 – Penetration Testing Interview Questions (Basic)
This first part covers basic Penetration Testing Interview Questions and Answers.
Q1. What is Penetration Testing and how is it useful?
Answer:
Penetration Testing is also called Pen Testing and is a kind of cyber attack on a web application or a system which can be of good or bad intent. In terms of bad intent, it is a kind of cyber attack on a system to steal some kind of secure, confidential and sensitive information. In terms of good intent, it is a kind of checking the strengths and weaknesses of a system to vulnerabilities and external attacks and the strength of security levels it can handle.
Q2. What are the advantages of Penetration Testing?
Answer:
This is the common Penetration Testing Interview Questions asked in an interview. The advantages of performing Penetration Testing on a System are –
- It will help in detecting the security threats and vulnerabilities of a system or web application.
- It will help in monitoring the necessary standards to evade some.
- It is helpful in reducing the downtime of the application in case of diverting large amounts of traffic to the network by penetrating into the application.
- It protects the organizations confidential and secured information and maintains the brand image or value.
- It is important in securing the application to avoid huge financial losses.
- Focuses more on business continuity.
- Maintains trust among the customers.
Q3. What are the different stages of Penetration Testing?
Answer:
There are different stages of performing penetration testing on a target system or web application such as Planning and reconnaissance, Scanning, Gaining access, Maintaining access, Analysis and configuration:
- Planning and Reconnaissance: In this stage analysis and testing the goals to carry out are performed and the information is gathered.
- Scanning: In this stage, any kind of scanning tool is used to test the responsiveness of a target system in the case of intruder penetration.
- Gaining Access: In this stage, penetration or intruder attack will be executed and web applications are attacked to disclose the possible vulnerabilities of the system.
- Maintaining Access: In this, stage the gained access will be maintained carefully to identify the vulnerabilities and weakness of the system.
- Analysis and Configuration: In this stage, the results obtained from the maintained access will be used to configure Web Application Firewall settings also.
Let us move to the next Penetration Testing Interview Questions.
Q4. What are the needs of Scrum?
Answer:
The below is the list of few requirements of Scrum but are not exhausted :
- It requires User Stories to describe the requirement and track the completion status of the assigned user story to the team member whereas Use Case is the older concept.
- A name is required is it describes a sentence as a single line overview to give the simple explanation of the User Story.
- A description is required as it gives a high-level explanation of the requirement to be met by the assignee.
- Documents or attachments are also required to know about the story. For eg. In the case of any change in User Interface Screen Layout, that can be easily known only by having a look at the Wire Frame or Prototype of the Screen model. This can be attached to the board using the attachment option.
Q5. What are the different Penetration Testing methods?
Answer:
The different penetration testing methods are External Testing, Internal Testing, Blind Testing, Double-Blind Testing, and Targeted Testing. External Testing is a form of testing on the internet sites those are publicly visible and email applications and DNS servers etc., Internal Testing is a kind of testing which will penetrate into the internal applications of the system through a form of phishing or internal attacks. Blind Testing is a form of penetrating into the application based on its name in the form of a real-time possibility. Double Blind Testing is a form of testing where even the name of the application is also unknown and even the security professional will be having any idea in executing on a particular target and Targeted Testing is a form of performing testing from both the security professional and tester together in the form of targeting on each other.
Part 2 – Penetration Testing Interview Questions (Advanced)
Let us now have a look at the advanced Penetration Testing Interview Questions.
Q6. What is Cross Site Scripting (XSS)?
Answer:
Cross Site Scripting is a type of attack in the form of injections into a web application or system. In this case, different types of malicious scripts are injected into a weak system to acquire confidential information or hack the system without the knowledge of the administrator of the system.
Q7. What is Intruder Detection?
Answer:
Intruder Detection mechanism will help in detecting the possible attacks those happened by scanning the existing files in the form of records in the file system of the application. This will help the organization to detect the attacks early on their system applications.
Let us move to the next Penetration Testing Interview Questions.
Q8. What is SQL injection?
Answer:
SQL injection is a form of attack in which the attacker injects data into an application which will result in executing the queries to retrieve the sensitive information from the database that results in the data breach.
Q9. What is SSL/TLS?
Answer:
This is the popular Penetration Testing Interview Questions asked in an interview. It is Secure Socket Layer / Transport Layer Security which are standard security protocols to establish encryption between a web server and a web browser.
Q10. What are different open source penetration testing tools?
Answer:
Following are the different open source penetration testing tools:
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