Kali Linux Interview Questions
A list of top frequently asked Kali Linux Interview Questions and answers are given below.
1) What is Kali Linux?
It is a Debian based Linux Operating system for penetration tester that comes with a lot of open-source penetration testing tools. It is brought to us by the same organization that developed BackTrack, which is Offensive Security. Kali Linux is an upgraded version of BackTrack.
2) What is the Linux Kernel?
It is the main component of a Linux Operating System and is the core interface between a computer’s hardware and its processes. It communicates between the two, managing resources as efficiently as possible.
The kernel has four jobs:
Memory management: It keeps track of the amount of memory used.
Process management: It determines which process can use the CPU, when, and for how long.
Device drivers: It acts as a mediator/interpreter between the hardware and processes.
System calls and security: It receives a request for service from the processes.
3) What are the components of Linux?
Linux architecture has four component:
- Hardware: RAM, HDD, CPU together constitute the Hardware layer for the LINUX operating system.
- Kernel: It is a core part of the Linux OS. It is responsible for many activities in the LINUX OS. There are two types of Kernel – Monolithic and MicroKernel.
- Shell: It is an interface between the user and the kernel.
- Utilities: Functions can be utilized from the System utilities.
4) Which command is used to check the engaged memory?
We can use Free command to check memory usage on Linux.
5) What grep command do?
Grep command is used to search text or search the given file for lines containing a match to the given strings or words.
6) What is penetration testing?
Penetration testing is a security practice where a cybersecurity expert attempts to find and exploit vulnerabilities in a computer system. The reason of penetration testing is to identify any weak spots in a system’s defenses which attacker could take advantage of.
7) What are the goals of conducting a pen-testing exercise?
Goals of conducting penetration testing are:
- Testing the adherence of the security policies that have been crafted and implemented by the organization.
- Testing the employee pro-activeness and awareness of the security environment in which they are.
- Ensuring that a business entity cannot face a massive security breach.
8) What is the difference between vulnerability testing and pen-testing?
In vulnerability testing, we can only scan for the weaknesses that may reside in any component of the IT infrastructure. Whereas in penetration testing, we will examine a full-scale cyber-attack or series of a cyberattack to specifically find any gaps that have not yet discovered by the IT security engineer.
9) What are the pen-testing methodologies?
There are three types of penetration testing methods:
- Black-Box Testing:
- White-Box Testing
- Gray-Box Testing
10) What is cross-site scripting?
It is a type of cyber-attack where malicious pieces of code or scripts can be secretly injected into trusted websites. These attacks typically occur when the attacker uses a vulnerable Web-based application to insert the malicious lines of code. When a guest victim runs this particular application, the computer is infected and can be used to access sensitive information and data.
11) What is sniffing and spoofing?
Eavesdropping into someone’s conversation or capturing the data like username/password through network traffic is called Sniffing, whereas Spoofing is pretending to be someone else. In this, the attack sends fake packets over the network to grab the connection with the victim.
12) What is DDos attack?
It is a cyberattack in which the attacker seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to the internet.
13) What is the Diffie-Hellman public-key exchange?
It is a method of exchanging cryptographic keys over a public channel and was one of the first public-key protocols. It is used to secure a variety of Internet services.
14) What is Cryptography?
The study of securing information and communicate mainly to protect the data from third parties that the data is not intended for is known as Cryptography.
15) What is the use of a Firewall?
It is a network security system set on the boundaries of the system/network that monitors and controls network traffic. Firewalls are typically used to protect the device or network from viruses, worms, malware, etc. Firewalls can also be used to prevent remote access and content filtering.
16) What is traceroute?
It is a tool that shows the path of a packet. It will show all the routes from which the packet passes through. We can use it when our packet is not reaching the destination to detect the point of failure.
17) What are the response codes that can be received from a Web Application?
Response codes are groped in five classes:
- Informational Response (100 – 199)
- Successful Response (200 – 299)
- Redirects (300 – 399)
- Client Errors (400 – 499)
- Server Errors (500 – 599)
18) Does Kali Linux support my $wireless_card?
It depends on the card’s chipset and drivers. If the Kernel supports your drivers, your card is supported.
19) The reason why Armitage is not displaying hosts from the Database?
There is three possible cause behind this:
- If you are using the Metasploit Framework’s workspaces. Because Armitage is not compatible with the Metasploit Framework’s workspaces. We must leave this as default.
- If Armitage is not using the same database configuration as the Metasploit Framework, it is driven by the database.yml file in our Metasploit Framework environment.
- The third cause, if Metasploit made two default workspace.
20) How can we run Armitage on Kali Linux?
Armitage is not already associated with Kali Linux. It is in the Kali Linux repository. To run Armitage on Kali Linux, we need to install it using apt-get install Armitage.
21) If you get a Database Error on Kali Linux, how do you fix it?
First, we need to make sure that the database is running. By using the service postgresql start. After that, we may need to ask kali to recreate the Metasploit framework database: service metasploit start and service metasploit stop.
22) How to use Armitage against an Internet Address?
If we want to use this tool against an internet host, then we have to make sure that we have the letter of permission from the system’s owner.
23) Which platform is best for Metasploit, Linux, or Windows?
Earlier, the majority of Metasploit downloads for its earlier versions were for the Windows platform. But now windows is only partially supported. In my suggestion, we will go with the Linux OS, as some of the important features such as database support and wireless exploits first came out for Linux, and then for Windows.
24) What is Pivoting?
It is a technique that Metasploit uses to route the traffic from a victim computer toward other networks that are not accessible by a hacker machine.
25) How do you secure a server?
- We should use secure FTP instead of plain FTP
- Using SSH instead of telnet
- Use Secure Email Connections (POP3S/ IMAPS/ SMTPS)
- Secure all web administration areas with SSL (HTTPS)
- We should use a VPN.
- Using firewalls on all endpoints, including servers and desktop.
26) Why is DNS monitoring is important?
DNS plays a vital role in how end-users in our enterprise connect to the internet. All the connections made to a domain by the client devices are recorded in the DNS logs. Inspecting DNS traffic between client devices and our local recursive resolver could reveal a wealth of information for forensic analysis.
27) Difference between encoding, encrypting, and hashing?
| Encoding | Encryption | Hashing |
|---|---|---|
| In the encoding method, data is transformed from one form to another. The main objective of encoding is to transform data into a form that is readable by most of the systems or can be used by any other process. It can be used to reduce the size of audio and video files. | Encryption is a technique to give access to authorized personnel only. It is an encoding technique to transfer private data, for example – sending a combination of username and password over the internet for email login. There are two types of encoding algorithms – one is Symmetric, and the other is Asymmetric. | In the hashing technique, data is converted to the hash using some hashing function that may be any number generated from string or text. Some hashing algorithm is MD5, SHA256. Once the data is hashed, then it cannot be reversed. |
28) How can we strengthen user authentication?
Below are the few recommendations to strengthen user authentication by preserving user experience.
- By enforcing a dictionary check, we ensure that users cannot choose common words for their passwords.
- We need a strong username that includes a numeric character because the username is the most accessible portion of the login credentials for a hacker to guess.
- We should limit the number of failed login attempts to three and temporarily suspended account access unless the user can authenticate through other means.
29) Difference between cloud and on-premises cybersecurity.
| Cloud | On-Premises |
| In the cloud, there is shared security responsibility. | In On-premises, there is only an end to end security responsibility. |
| It has interconnected and API-driven security tools. | It has disconnected security tools: not typically driven by APIs. |
| It has dynamic resources and temporary security boundaries. | It has static resources and perimeter-based security boundaries. |
| It is highly automated. | It is rarely automated. |
| It is developer-driven. | It is IT-driven. |
30) What are the different phases of a network intrusion attack?
Network Intrusion attack follows a general structure. The structure consists of the three following phases:
- Objective: The first thing in any project or hacking is the goal or objective. For example – the target for a DDoS attack is different from that of a system access attack.
- Reconnaissance: It is a stage in which hacker uses various resources to collect information about the target network or system.
- Attack: In this phase, the intruder starts to attempt accessing network and system resources on the network. Once the intruder gain access to a host on the network, that host is described as being compromised.