VAPT Interview Questions

Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) is one of the established cybersecurity domains. Considering that almost every other business working on the internet would prefer catering to a larger audience, it is extremely important to pay attention to such factors that can cause potential damage to the brand’s reputation. 

VAPT is one of the highly in-demand jobs in the cybersecurity domain today. A variety of technologies and tools have been developed to conduct VAPT. So, if you are thinking of making a career in this industry, you must make sure that you are familiar with typical and advanced VAPT interview questions. Let’s highlight some of them in this post.

VAPT Interview Questions and Answers For Beginners

1. What do you mean by security testing?

Security testing can be regarded as the most important amongst every type of software testing. The primary objective of security testing is to discover vulnerabilities in any software, whether networking or web, based application, and safeguard the data from potential intruders or attacks. 

Since every other application comprises confidential data and has to be protected, software testing is highly vital here. 

2. What do you mean by vulnerability?

Vulnerability is the weakness of a system through which bugs or intruders can attack the entire system. In case the security testing hasn’t been performed thoroughly on the system, the chances of vulnerabilities get increased. 

Therefore, timely fixes or patches are needed to prevent a system from any vulnerabilities.

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3. What do you mean by penetration testing?

Penetration testing is a type of security testing that helps discover vulnerabilities in a system. It is an attempt to assess the system’s security by either automated or manual techniques. 

And, in case any vulnerabilities are found, they are used to get deeper access to the system so as to discover more vulnerabilities. The primary objective of this testing type is to prevent a system from any potential attacks. 

Furthermore, it can be done in two varying ways, such as:

• Black Box Testing: Here, testers don’t have any information and they test in real-world scenarios to discover vulnerabilities.
• White Box Testing: Here, testers have all the information. 

4. What are the two prevalent techniques used to safeguard a password file?

The two prevalent techniques to safeguard a password file are salt value or password file access control and hashed passwords.

5. What do you know about ISO 17799?

ISO/IEC 17799 was originally published in the United Kingdom. It defines some of the best practices for information security management. Furthermore, it has guidelines for all of the companies, whether big or small, for information security. 

6. What are some such factors, according to you, that can cause vulnerabilities?

Some of the factors that can cause vulnerabilities include:

• Poor management of the data
• Loopholes in the system and its design
• Human errors
• Easy to understand and access passwords
• Complex software

7. What are the major attributes of security testing?

Some of the significant attributes of security testing include:

• Authentication
• Resilience
• Authorization
• Non-repudiation
• Confidentiality
• Integrity
• Availability.

8. What do you mean by VAPT?

The VAPT term is basically used to describe every kind of security testing done by the security analyst or an office to discover the vulnerabilities in the system. For instance, running an automated vulnerability assessment, a penetration test or red team operations, led by humans, can be regarded as the Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration Tests. 

To explain it a bit more, vulnerability is the flaw in a system that can be exploited to comprise the entire system. 

9. What is the importance of VAPT?

VAPT assists organizations in protecting sensitive data by offering visibility of security weaknesses and by guiding throughout their address. Furthermore, it also assists in increasing the level of confidentiality with customers by establishing international standards, such as PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and GDPR. 

10. What is the role of a VAPT in a company?

A vulnerability assessment and penetration tester is also known as the information security analyst or the VAPT engineer in a company. The person is responsible for vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. 

The primary function is to evaluate the analytics tools and perform alert management as well as incident qualification. However, the responsibilities of the VAPT officer may vary from one organization to another.

VAPT Interview Questions and Answers For Experienced

11. What do you mean by Cross-Site Scripting attacks?

In Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks, malicious scripts get injected into sites. These attacks take place when an attacker has used a web application to send malicious codes to the end-user, especially in the browser-side script form. 

If the attacker is successful in this case, he might get access to user cookies, passwords, session IDs, messages, and more. 

12. Define the types of cross-site scripting.

There are three significant types of these attacks, such as:

• Persistent / Stored XSS

Under this attack, malicious user input is stored on its target server, like a common field, a visitor log, a message forum, and more. The input is then shown when somebody visits that page.

• DOM-based XSS

DOM enables client-side scripts, such as Javascript and more, to dynamically access and edit the content, webpage style, and structure. The DOM-based XSS depends on the inappropriate handling of the data from the linked DOM. 

• Reflected XSS

The malicious user input is created from the request of a victim and is instantly returned by a web application in an error message, search result, or any other type of response that comprises either some or all of the input offered by the user. 

13. Is the cross-site scripting attack server-based or browser-based?

 This one is a client-side browser-based attack, considering the script is executed in the client browser.

14. As a developer, what will you do to rectify existing cross-site scripting vulnerability in the code that the application security auditors have reported?

Being a developer, the first step should be to evaluate the page’s code where the vulnerability exists and rectify the flaw by putting adequate input validations to avoid scripts from getting executed. 

If it is reported as a persistent XSS, we will vet the database entries as well to look for any existence of malicious script. 

15. What do you mean by CSRF?

The forgery attacks arising from cross-site requests take advantage of the website trust in an authenticated user session. For instance, let’s assume there is an app where you have logged into. 

Then, an attacker tricks you into submitting an HTTP request on his behalf, which the application believes is from you. The success aspect of CSRF is dependent on the fact that once it is authenticated, sites generally don’t verify that a request has come from an authorized user. Rather, they verify the request from the browser of an authorized user. 

16. What is the prevention you can use for CSRF?

Some of the common techniques that we can use for preventing CSRF attacks are:

• Check the CSRF token
• Verify the requests that are coming from the same origin

17. Define intrusion detection.

Intrusion detection refers to a system that helps in comprehending potential attacks and dealing with them accordingly. An intrusion detection comprises accumulating information from a variety of systems and sources, evaluating the information, and discovering potential methods of attack on that system. 

With intrusion detection, we can check the potential attacks and abnormal activities, audit the system and evaluate varying collected data along with more.  

18. What is SQL Injection?

SQL Injection is one of the prevalent attacking methods that hackers use to get critical data. Basically, hackers lookout for a loophole in a system that they can use to pass SQL queries, bypass security checks and return the critical data back. 

This entire process is known as SQL injection. It lets hackers steal critical data and even crash the system. 

19. What do you mean by SSL session or SSL connections?

The Secured Socket Layer (SSL) connection refers to the transient peer-to-peer communications link where every connection is linked with an SSL session. These sessions can be defined as the association between the server and the client. Generally, SSL connections are created by the handshake protocol. 

20. What do you know about WSDL and SOAP?

Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is an XML formatted language that UDDI uses. It basically describes web services and how they can be accessed.

On the other hand, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is an XML-based protocol through which apps can exchange information over HTTP. The XML requests are sent through web services in SOAP format. And then, a SOAP client sends a SOAP message to the server. Lastly, the server responds with a SOAP message along with the asked service. 

Conclusion

When attempting a VAPT interview, you must make sure that you are familiar with all of the possible questions that the interviewer can throw your way. It is always recommended that you train thoroughly so as to grab the job like a pro. So, if you have been preparing for it, refer to these VAPT interview questions and study well.