In an effort to inform and prepare you for your important interview as a network security, here are some of sample questions & answers. There’s no sure if you will be asked ALL of these or not. However, a good preparation will give you a half of success. Hence, check the list below, please!
Top 20 Network Security Interview Questions & Answers
Nguồn hình: HR1 Tech
- Q: What do you see as the objective of information security within a business or organization?
A: Network security should:
- Ensure uninterrupted network availability to all users
- Prevent unauthorized network access
- Preserve the privacy of all users
- Defend the networks from malware, hackers, and DDoS attacks
- Protect and secure all data from corruption and theft
- Q: How do you define risk, vulnerability, and threats, in the context of a network security?
A: A risk can define if a system being secure sufficiently or not. A vulnerability is a weakness or breach in a network or equipment (e.g. modems, routers, access points). A threat can cause unexpected incidents. The more risk, vulnerabilities and threats can you get, the better you are at your role.
- Q: List out some possible results of an attack on a computer network?
A: The results might include:
- Loss or corruption of sensitive data that is essential for a company’s survival and success
- Diminished reputation and trust among customers
- The decline in value with shareholders
- Reduced brand value
- Reduction in profits
- Q: What do you use on your own personal network?
A: To this question, the interviewer might want you to list out the security measures you can use on your own home devices or previous workspace. Hence, if you’re a network security expert, make sure that you will show your best personal system to them! An employer can tell a lot about your network savviness by analyzing what measures you use for your devices.
- Q: Speaking about your home network! Do you have a Wireless Access Point, in that case, how do you defend it?
A: People always tend to prefer the best things for themselves. So, this question is another case that employers want to know if you are really as good as your title or not. There are a lot of methods to protect a WAP, but the three most popular are:
- Employing MAC address filtering
- Using WPA2,
- Not broadcasting the SSID.
- Q: How & how often do you get information about network security-related news? Which channels do you get the news from?
A: Network security incidents together with stories about data breaches and hackers’ activities are considered big news today. An employer might want to know how well-informed you are and how do you approach your field.
HINT: If you have never thought about it or don’t have this habit, you should change your mind and start it now! In terms of news sources, some best bets for you are Team Cymru, Twitter, or Reddit.
- Q: In your opinion, what are the best defenses against a brute force login attack?
A: In case you need referent information, three major measures can help you defend against a brute force login attack:
- For the starters, there’s an account lockout. Offending accounts are locked out until such time as the administrator decides to open it again.
- The next: The progressive delay defense. Here, the account stays locked for a given number of days after a few unsuccessful login attempts are made.
- The last: The challengeresponse test, which heads off automatic submissions employed on the login page.
- Q: What is the difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption.
A: Long story short, symmetric encryption uses the same key for both encryption and decryption, whereas asymmetric encryption employs different keys for the two processes. Symmetric is faster for obvious reasons but requires sending the key through an unencrypted channel, which is a risk.
- Q: Discrimination between a white and black hat hacker.
A: Black and white hat hackers are different sides of the same coin. They are all skilled and talented in gaining entry into networks and accessing otherwise protected data. However, black hats are motivated by political agendas, personal greed, or malice, meanwhile the later strive to foil the former. Many white hats also conduct tests and practice runs on network systems, to ascertain the effectiveness of security.
- Q: Define the salting process & what it’s used for.
A: Salting is the process in which you add special characters to a password in order to make it stronger. This increases password strength in two ways: making it longer and adding another set of characters that a hacker would have to guess from. It’s a useful measure for users who tend to habitually make weak passwords, but overall it’s a low-level defense since many experienced hackers are already familiar with the process and take it into account.
- Q: How do you deal with “Man-In-The-Middle” attacks?
A: A Man in the Middle attack happens when a third party appears to monitor and control a conversation between two other parties, with the latter completely unaware of the situation. There are two ways of dealing with this attack.
- Stay off of open WiFi networks.
- Both parties should employ endto-end encryption.
- Q: Which is the better security measure, HTTPS, or SSL?
A: HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is HTTP combined with SSL, encrypting a user’s browsing activity and making it safer while SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol that protects Internet conversations between two or more parties. Although people seemly get used to HTTPS better, SSL still win out in terms of sheer security.
- Q: Name the three means of user authentication.
A: There is biometrics (e.g. a thumbprint, iris scan), a token, or a password. There is also two-level authentication, which employs two of those methods.
- Q: Which is a better secured project: open-source or proprietary?
A: This is a trick question, pay close attention, please!
A project’s security is determined by the quality of security measures used to protect it, the number of users/developers with access, and the overall size of the project. None kind nor type of project is relevant.
- Q: If you work with a Linux server, show the way you do to secure it in 3 significant steps.
A: In order to secure a Linux server, do the following, in order, please!
- Audit. Use Lynis to scan the system. Each category gets scanned separately, and a hardening index is generated for the next step.
- Hardening. Once auditing is done, hardening is done, based on the level of security to be employed.
- Compliance. As the system is checked daily, this will be an ongoing step, as the system is checked daily.
- Q: You find out an active problem on your organization’s network, but it’s out of your sphere of influence. You obviously can fix it, though; so what will you do?
A: While the first impulse may be to immediately fix the problem, you need to go through the proper channels. Things may be as they are for a reason. Use email to notify the person in charge of that department. This can express your concerns, and ask for clarification. Make sure your boss is CC’ed into the email chain, and make sure that you save a copy for yourself, in case you need to refer to it later.
- Q: What’s the most effective measure to take against a CSRF?
A: A CSRF or Cross-Site Request Forgery attack will cause a currently authenticated end-user to execute unauthorized commands on a web application. There are two effective defenses.
- Use different names for each field of a form, as it increases user anonymity.
- Include a random token with each request.
- Q: If you get a phone call from a very influential executive high up on the organizational chart. The one tell you to bend company policy to suit and let them use their home device to do company work. What do you do?
A: This is another important case, which can help your interviewer make decision. Send the question/request up to your manager and let them sort it out. This is far from your realm. Let your boss deal with the higher-up.
- Q: A false positive or a false negative is worse in terms of Firewall detection, and why?
A: A false negative is worse by far. A false positive is simply a legitimate result that just got incorrectly flagged. While it’s irksome, it’s by no means fatal or difficult to correct. However, a false negative means that something bad has slipped through the firewall undetected, and that means a host of problems down the road.
- Q: Why are internal threats usually more effective than external ones?
A: It all comes down to a question of physical location. A disgruntled soon to be ex-employee, a hacker posing as a delivery man, even just a careless curious user, all end up having better access to the system due to them being on-site. Being “inside” physically makes it easier to get inside virtually.
Whether you’re looking for a career change or an increase in your marketability via continuing education, we hope the list will help you more.