- (Topic 1)
Which of the following viruses tries to hide from anti-virus programs by actively altering and corrupting the chosen service call interruptions when they are being run?
Correct Answer:B
- (Topic 3)
An organization has been experiencing intrusion attempts despite deploying an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Firewalls. As a Certified Ethical Hacker, you are asked to reinforce the intrusion detection process and recommend a better rule-based approach. The IDS uses Snort rules and the new recommended tool should be able to complement it. You suggest using YARA rules with an additional tool for rule generation. Which of the
following tools would be the best choice for this purpose and why?
Correct Answer:B
YARA rules are a powerful way to detect and classify malware based on patterns, signatures, and behaviors. They can be used to complement Snort rules, which are mainly focused on network traffic analysis. However, writing YARA rules manually can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially when dealing with large and diverse malware samples. Therefore, using a tool that can automate or assist the generation of YARA rules can be very helpful for ethical hackers.
Among the four options, yarGen is the best choice for this purpose, because it generates YARA rules from strings identified in malware files while removing strings that also appear in goodware files. This way, yarGen can reduce the false positives and increase the accuracy of the YARA rules. yarGen also supports various features, such as whitelisting, scoring, wildcards, and regular expressions, to improve the quality and efficiency of the YARA rules.
The other options are not as suitable as yarGen for this purpose. AutoYara is a tool that automates the generation of YARA rules from a set of malicious and benign files, but it does not perform any filtering or optimization of the strings, which may result in noisy and ineffective YARA rules. YaraRET is a tool that helps in reverse engineering Trojans to generate YARA rules, but it is limited to a specific type of malware and requires manual intervention and analysis. koodous is a platform that combines social networking with antivirus signatures and YARA rules to detect malware, but it is not a tool for generating YARA rules, rather it is a tool for sharing and collaborating on YARA rules. References:
✑ yarGen - A Tool to Generate YARA Rules
✑ YARA Rules: The Basics
✑ Why master YARA: from routine to extreme threat hunting cases
- (Topic 1)
Which is the first step followed by Vulnerability Scanners for scanning a network?
Correct Answer:D
Vulnerability scanning solutions perform vulnerability penetration tests on the organizational network in three steps:
* 1. Locating nodes: The first step in vulnerability scanning is to locate live hosts in the target network using various scanning techniques.
* 2. Performing service and OS discovery on them: After detecting the live hosts in the target network, the next step is to enumerate the open ports and services and the operating system on the target systems.
* 3. Testing those services and OS for known vulnerabilities: Finally, after identifying the open services and the operating system running on the target nodes, they are tested for known vulnerabilities.
- (Topic 3)
A certified ethical hacker is conducting a Whois footprinting activity on a specific domain. The individual is leveraging various tools such as Batch IP Converter and Whols Analyzer Pro to retrieve vital details but is unable to gather complete Whois information from the registrar for a particular set of data. As the hacker, what might be the probable data model being utilized by the domain's registrar for storing and looking up
Who is information?
Correct Answer:D
A thin Whois model is a type of data model that is used by some domain registrars for storing and looking up Whois information. In a thin Whois model, the registrar only stores the basic information about the domain, such as the domain name, the registrar name, the name servers, and the registration and expiration dates. The rest of the information, such as the contact details of the domain owner, the administrative contact, and the technical contact, is stored by the registry that manages the top-level domain (TLD) of the domain. For example, the registry for .com and .net domains is Verisign, and the registry for .org domains is Public Interest Registry. When a Whois lookup is performed on a domain that uses a thin Whois model, the registrar??s Whois server only returns the basic
information and refers the query to the registry??s Whois server for the complete information1.
As a hacker, if you are unable to gather complete Whois information from the registrar for a particular set of data, it might be because the domain??s registrar is using a thin Whois model and the registry??s Whois server is not responding or providing the information. This could be due to various reasons, such as network issues, server errors, rate limits, privacy policies, or legal restrictions. Therefore, the probable data model being utilized by the domain??s registrar for storing and looking up Whois information is a thin Whois model working correctly.
References:
✑ Differences Between Thin WHOIS vs Thick WHOIS – OpenSRS Help & Support
- (Topic 2)
Widespread fraud ac Enron. WorldCom, and Tyco led to the creation of a law that was designed to improve the accuracy and accountability of corporate disclosures. It covers accounting firms and third parties that provide financial services to some organizations and came into effect in 2002. This law is known by what acronym?
Correct Answer:C
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 could be a law the U.S. Congress passed on July thirty of that year to assist defend investors from fallacious money coverage by companies.Also called the SOX Act of 2002 and also the company Responsibility Act of 2002, it mandated strict reforms to existing securities rules and obligatory powerful new penalties on law breakers.
The Sarbanes-Oxley law Act of 2002 came in response to money scandals within the early 2000s involving in public listed corporations like Enron Corporation, Tyco International plc, and WorldCom. The high-profile frauds cask capitalist confidence within the trustiness of company money statements Associate in Nursingd light-emitting diode several to demand an overhaul of decades-old restrictive standards.
- (Topic 3)
A skilled ethical hacker was assigned to perform a thorough OS discovery on a potential target. They decided to adopt an advanced fingerprinting technique and sent a TCP packet to an open TCP port with specific flags enabled. Upon receiving the reply, they noticed the flags were SYN and ECN-Echo. Which test did the ethical hacker conduct and why was this specific approach adopted?
Correct Answer:B
The ethical hacker conducted Test 1, which is a TCP/IP stack fingerprinting technique that uses the SYN and ECN-Echo flags to determine the OS of the target system. The SYN flag is used to initiate a TCP connection, and the ECN-Echo flag is used to indicate that the sender supports Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN), which is a mechanism to reduce network congestion. Different OSes have different implementations and responses to these flags, which can reveal their identity. For example, Windows XP and 2000 will reply with SYN and ECN-Echo flags set, while Linux will reply with only SYN flag set. By sending a TCP packet with these flags enabled to an open TCP port and observing the reply, the ethical hacker can probe the nature of the response and subsequently determine the OS fingerprint.
The ethical hacker adopted this specific approach because it is an advanced and stealthy technique that can evade some firewalls and intrusion detection systems (IDS) that may block or alert other types of packets, such as NULL, FIN, or Xmas packets. Moreover, this technique can provide more accurate and reliable results than other techniques, such as banner grabbing or passive analysis, that may depend on the availability or validity of the information provided by the target system.
The other options are not correct, as they describe different tests and reasons. Test 3 is a TCP/IP stack fingerprinting technique that uses the URG, PSH, SYN, and FIN flags to determine the OS of the target system. Test 2 is a TCP/IP stack fingerprinting technique that uses a NULL packet, which is a TCP packet with no flags enabled, to determine the
OS of the target system. Test 6 is a TCP/IP stack fingerprinting technique that uses the ACK flag, which is used to acknowledge the receipt of a TCP segment, to determine the OS of the target system. References:
✑ OS and Application Fingerprinting | SANS Institute
✑ Operating System Fingerprinting | SpringerLink
✑ OS and Application Fingerprinting - community.akamai.com
✑ What is OS Fingerprinting and Techniques - Zerosuniverse