312-50v13 Exam Dumps - ECCouncil CEH v13 Questions and Answers

In a professional penetration test or vulnerability assessment, the most efficient and effective way to discover vulnerabilities on a Windows-based system is to use an automated vulnerability scanning tool such as Nessus.

Nessus is a widely used vulnerability scanner developed by Tenable. It performs comprehensive scans across systems to identify:

Missing patches and updates

Misconfigurations

Weak or default credentials

Known vulnerabilities and associated CVEs

Outdated software versions

CEH v13 course material emphasizes the use of tools like Nessus, OpenVAS, and Qualys during the Vulnerability Analysis phase of ethical hacking engagements.

From CEH v13 Official Study Guide (Module 05: Vulnerability Analysis):

“Vulnerability scanning tools such as Nessus and OpenVAS are used to automatically identify known vulnerabilities in systems, including operating systems, applications, and services. These tools correlate identified issues with CVE entries and offer severity ratings based on CVSS scores.”

Incorrect Options Explained:

A. The Windows Update tool only updates the operating system and Microsoft applications. It is not designed to detect security flaws or vulnerabilities comprehensively.

C. MITRE.org is an excellent source of information for known vulnerabilities (CVEs), but it does not scan systems or detect vulnerabilities in a target environment.

D. Creating a disk image is useful for forensic purposes or backup, but it does not help in actively identifying vulnerabilities in a live system.

Reference – CEH v13 Study Guide:

Module 05: Vulnerability Analysis

Section: “Vulnerability Assessment Tools”

CEH iLabs Exercise: “Using Nessus to Perform Vulnerability Scanning”

In CEH v13 Module 03: Scanning Networks, ICMP scan types are covered under host discovery techniques in Nmap/Zenmap.

The -PP option in Nmap is used to perform an ICMP timestamp request scan.

This method sends an ICMP timestamp request and listens for a timestamp reply from the target.

It helps analysts determine the system uptime and verify whether the host is alive (for stealthy discovery).

Option Clarification:

A. -PY: SCTP INIT Ping (used for SCTP-based hosts).

B. -PU: UDP Ping (sends UDP packets).

C. -PP: ICMP Timestamp Ping — correct answer.

D. -Pn: Skips host discovery (treats all hosts as alive), not a ping type.

NIST Special Publication 800-53 provides a catalog of security and privacy controls for all U.S. federal information systems except those related to national security. It is published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce. NIST develops and issues standards, guidelines, and other publications to assist federal agencies in implementing the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) and to help with managing cost-effective programs to protect their information and information systems.

Zero Trust Networks The Zero Trust model is a security implementation that by default assumes every user trying to access the network is not a trusted entity and verifies every incoming connection before allowing access to the network.It strictly follows the principle, “Trust no one and validate before providing a cloud service or granting access permission.”It also allows companies to impose conditions, such as allowing employees to only access the appropriate resources required for their work role. (P.2997/2981)

Zero Trust is a strategic initiative that helps prevent successful data breaches by eliminating the concept of trust from an organization’s network architecture. Rooted in the principle of “never trust, always verify,” Zero Trust is designed to protect modern digital environments by leveraging network segmentation, preventing lateral movement, providing Layer 7 threat prevention, and simplifying granular user-access control.

Social engineering is the term used for a broad range of malicious activities accomplished through human interactions. It uses psychological manipulation to trick users into making security mistakes or giving away sensitive information.

Social engineering attacks typically involve some form of psychological manipulation, fooling otherwise unsuspecting users or employees into handing over confidential or sensitive data. Commonly, social engineering involves email or other communication that invokes urgency, fear, or similar emotions in the victim, leading the victim to promptly reveal sensitive information, click a malicious link, or open a malicious file. Because social engineering involves a human element, preventing these attacks can be tricky for enterprises.

This Google dork uses advanced operators:

site:target.com — restricts results to pages within the target.com domain

-site:Marketing.target.com — excludes results from the marketing.target.com subdomain

accounting — the keyword to be matched

So, it returns pages from target.com (excluding the marketing subdomain) that include the word "accounting".

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 2: Footprinting and Reconnaissance

Quote:

“Advanced search operators like site:, inurl:, intitle:, and the minus (-) operator help to include or exclude specific domains or pages when gathering public information via Google.”

Incorrect Options:

A. Opposite logic — this excludes marketing.target.com

B. Too general

C. Incorrect because marketing.target.com is excluded

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The SOA (Start of Authority) record is a DNS record that defines the authoritative information about a domain. Its format includes the following fields:

(domain) IN SOA (Primary Name Server) (Responsible Email)

(Serial) (Refresh) (Retry) (Expire) (Minimum TTL)

Given:

Rutgers.edu. SOA NS1.Rutgers.edu ipad.college.edu (200302028 3600 3600 604800 2400.)

Field values:

Serial: 200302028 (→ This is the version number of the zone file.)

Refresh: 3600 seconds

Retry: 3600 seconds

Expire: 604800 seconds

Minimum TTL: 2400 seconds

These values represent key configurations and are all part of the SOA record's operational data.

A: 200302028 = Serial/version (correct)

B: 3600 = Refresh (correct)

C: 604800 = Expire (correct)

D: 2400 = Minimum TTL (correct)

Incorrect Options:

E and F (60, 4800): Not part of the SOA record shown.

The base metric represents the inherent qualities of a vulnerability, according to the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). CVSS is a framework that numerically characterizes the severity of software vulnerabilities between the range of 0-10. CVSS consists of three metric groups: Base, Temporal, and Environmental. The base metric group captures the characteristics of a vulnerability that are constant over time and across user environments. The base metric group consists of six sub-metrics: Attack Vector, Attack Complexity, Privileges Required, User Interaction, Scope, and Impact. The impact sub-metric further consists of three sub-metrics: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. The base metric group produces a score ranging from 0 to 10, which reflects the intrinsic and fundamental properties of a vulnerability12.

The other options are not correct for the following reasons:

A. Temporal metric represents the inherent qualities of a vulnerability: This option is incorrect because the temporal metric group captures the characteristics of a vulnerability that change over time due to events external to the vulnerability. The temporal metric group consists of three sub-metrics: Exploit Code Maturity, Remediation Level, and Report Confidence. The temporal metric group modifies the base score to reflect the current state of the vulnerability, such as the availability of exploit code, the existence of patches or workarounds, and the degree of verification of the vulnerability report12.

C. Environmental metric involves the features that change during the lifetime of the vulnerability: This option is incorrect because the environmental metric group captures the characteristics of a vulnerability that are relevant and unique to a user’s environment. The environmental metric group consists of three sub-metrics: Modified Attack Vector, Modified Attack Complexity, and Modified Privileges Required. The environmental metric group also allows the user to assign importance values to the impact sub-metrics: Confidentiality Requirement, Integrity Requirement, and Availability Requirement. The environmental metric group modifies the base and temporal scores to reflect the impact of the vulnerability on the user’s specific environment, such as the network configuration, the security objectives, and the asset value12.

D. Temporal metric involves measuring vulnerabilities based on a specific environment or implementation: This option is incorrect because the temporal metric group does not involve measuring vulnerabilities based on a specific environment or implementation, but rather on the factors that change over time due to events external to the vulnerability. The environmental metric group, not the temporal metric group, involves measuring vulnerabilities based on a specific environment or implementation, as explained in option C.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subnetwork

As we can see, we have an IP address of 10.1.4.0 with a subnet mask of /23. According to the question, we need to determine which IP address will be included in the range of the last 100 IP addresses.

The available addresses for hosts start with 10.1.4.1 and end with 10.1.5.254. Now you can clearly see that the last 100 addresses include the address 10.1.5.200.

The most effective long-term strategy to reduce the gap between black hats and white hats is through education. Training individuals in areas such as:

Risk analysis

Vulnerability identification

Defensive mechanisms and countermeasures

helps foster a deeper understanding of cybersecurity and ethical responsibilities.

From CEH v13 Official Guide:

Module 1: Introduction to Ethical Hacking

Section: Ethics and Legal Issues

Subsection: Bridging the Hacker Mindset

The guide states:

“Educating individuals on proper cybersecurity techniques and the consequences of malicious hacking is critical to transforming the skillset of potential black hats into productive white hat professionals. Providing structured knowledge through training, books, and ethical hacking certifications empowers aspiring hackers to use their skills positively.”

Incorrect Options:

B: Useful for operations, but doesn’t bridge a knowledge gap.

C: Lowering certification standards can reduce industry credibility.

D: Involves a specific audience and doesn't address the broader knowledge gap.

Before enforcing policies or issuing warnings, the most effective first step is to educate employees. Awareness training helps build a foundational understanding of risks and best practices, especially in low-security cultures.

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While perimeter defenses like firewalls and IPS provide a layer of protection, internal systems (such as network elements) must also be hardened. This includes:

Enforcing strong authentication

Applying regular patches and updates

Conducting vulnerability assessments and security audits

Security should be layered (defense in depth), and reliance on perimeter defense alone is insufficient.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 3: Scanning Networks / Module 18: Incident Response

Quote:

“Internal systems must be hardened with secure configurations and tested regularly. A layered security approach is required even in protected environments.”

Incorrect Options:

B & C. Relying only on perimeter or physical security is not sufficient

D. While backup sites are part of DR, they don’t replace proactive protection

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This question shows a classic example of an IDOR vulnerability. Rob substitutes Ned's name in the "name" parameter and if the developer has not fixed this vulnerability, then Rob will gain access to Ned's account. Below you will find more detailed information about IDOR vulnerability.

Insecure direct object references (IDOR) are a cybersecurity issue that occurs when a web application developer uses an identifier for direct access to an internal implementation object but provides no additional access control and/or authorization checks. For example, an IDOR vulnerability would happen if the URL of a transaction could be changed through client-side user input to show unauthorized data of another transaction.

Most web applications use simple IDs to reference objects. For example, a user in a database will usually be referred to via the user ID. The same user ID is the primary key to the database column containing user information and is generated automatically. The database key generation algorithm is very simple: it usually uses the next available integer. The same database ID generation mechanisms are used for all other types of database records.

The approach described above is legitimate but not recommended because it could enable the attacker to enumerate all users. If it’s necessary to maintain this approach, the developer must at least make absolutely sure that more than just a reference is needed to access resources. For example, let’s say that the web application displays transaction details using the following URL:

https://www.example.com/transaction.php?id=74656

A malicious hacker could try to substitute the id parameter value 74656 with other similar values, for example:

https://www.example.com/transaction.php?id=74657

The 74657 transaction could be a valid transaction belonging to another user. The malicious hacker should not be authorized to see it. However, if the developer made an error, the attacker would see this transaction and hence we would have an insecure direct object reference vulnerability.

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