ECCouncil 312-50v13 - Certified Ethical Hacker Exam (CEHv13)

A Kernel-level rootkit operates at the core of the operating system (OS kernel), enabling the attacker to:

Modify or replace kernel code

Load malicious kernel modules

Hide files, processes, and backdoors at a level that is difficult for standard security tools to detect

According to CEH v13:

Kernel-mode rootkits are highly stealthy and dangerous because they run with the highest privileges.

These rootkits modify system calls and memory structures in the kernel space to conceal malicious activity.

Incorrect Options:

A. User-mode rootkits operate at the application layer and are less stealthy than kernel-level rootkits.

B. Library-level rootkits manipulate standard libraries (like libc) to intercept calls.

D. Hypervisor-level rootkits run beneath the OS (e.g., via virtualization) and are extremely rare and complex.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Courseware:

Module 06: Malware Threats

Section: “Types of Rootkits”

Subsection: “Kernel-Mode Rootkits vs. User-Mode Rootkits”

In CEH v13 DNS Enumeration, DNS cache snooping determines whether a DNS resolver has a record cached. When +norecurse is used and the response is NOERROR with no answer, it means the server is authoritative but does not have the record cached.

CEH v13 explains that this suggests no internal client has recently queried the domain, making option D correct.

In CEH v13 Reconnaissance and Enumeration, NetBIOS name suffixes are used to identify the role of systems within a Windows network. The <1B> NetBIOS suffix is particularly significant because it uniquely identifies the Domain Master Browser, which in modern Windows environments corresponds to the Primary Domain Controller (PDC).

When an nbtscan is performed, multiple systems may respond with NetBIOS names, but only one system per domain will register the <1B> suffix. This is because the PDC is responsible for maintaining the master browse list and coordinating authentication services across the domain.

Option C is correct because the <1B> entry is explicitly defined in CEH documentation as belonging to the domain controller.

Option A is incorrect because the local system does not advertise <1B>.

Option B is incorrect because DHCP servers use different identifiers and do not register <1B>.

Option D is incorrect because NetBIOS must be enabled for <1B> to appear at all.

CEH v13 highlights identifying <1B> during enumeration as a high-value discovery, since domain controllers are prime targets during privilege escalation and lateral movement phases.

Tailgating, as defined in CEH v13 Social Engineering, is a physical social engineering attack where an unauthorized individual gains access by following an authorized person into a restricted area.

The attacker exploits human courtesy rather than technical vulnerabilities. Options B, C, and D describe phishing, pretexting, and baiting respectively.

Thus, option A is the correct representation of tailgating.

This scenario demonstrates a classic case of Session Fixation, a session hijacking technique explicitly covered under the CEH v13 Web Application Hacking module. Session fixation occurs when an attacker sets or predicts a valid session identifier and forces a victim to authenticate using that same session ID.

In the given question, two critical vulnerabilities are highlighted:

The session ID is embedded in the URL

The application does not regenerate the session ID after login

According to CEH v13, secure applications must regenerate session identifiers after successful authentication to prevent fixation attacks. If this does not occur, an attacker can craft a URL containing a known session ID and trick the victim into clicking it. Once the victim logs in, the attacker reuses the same session ID to gain unauthorized access.

CEH documentation states that session fixation is particularly effective when:

Session IDs are passed via URL parameters

Sessions persist across authentication

Secure cookie attributes are not enforced

Other options are incorrect because:

XSS-based cookie theft requires client-side script injection.

DNS cache poisoning is unrelated to session management.

CSRF exploits user trust but does not directly hijack sessions.

Thus, Session Fixation by pre-setting the token in a URL is the most effective attack in this case.

A service-based solution offered by an auditing firm would be the most appropriate type of vulnerability assessment solution for the large e-commerce organization, given their requirements. A service-based solution is a type of vulnerability assessment that is performed by external experts who have the skills, tools, and experience to conduct a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the target system or network. A service-based solution can imitate the outside view of attackers, as the experts are not familiar with the internal details or configurations of the organization. A service-based solution can also perform well-organized inference-based testing, which is a type of testing that uses logical reasoning and deduction to identify and exploit vulnerabilities based on the information gathered from the target. A service-based solution can scan automatically against continuously updated databases, as the experts have access to the latest security intelligence and threat feeds. A service-based solution can also support multiple networks, as the experts can use different techniques and tools to scan different types of networks, such as wired, wireless, cloud, or hybrid12.

The other options are not as appropriate as option B for the following reasons:

A. Inference-based assessment solution: This option is not a type of vulnerability assessment solution, but a type of testing method that can be used by any solution. Inference-based testing is a testing method that uses logical reasoning and deduction to identify and exploit vulnerabilities based on the information gathered from the target. Inference-based testing can be performed by service-based, product-based, or tree-based solutions, depending on the scope, objectives, and resources of the assessment3.

C. Tree-based assessment approach: This option is not a type of vulnerability assessment solution, but a type of testing method that can be used by any solution. Tree-based testing is a testing method that uses a hierarchical structure to organize and prioritize the vulnerabilities based on their severity, impact, and exploitability. Tree-based testing can be performed by service-based, product-based, or inference-based solutions, depending on the scope, objectives, and resources of the assessment4.

D. Product-based solution installed on a private network: This option is a type of vulnerability assessment solution, but it may not meet all the requirements of the large e-commerce organization. A product-based solution is a type of vulnerability assessment that is performed by using software or hardware tools that are installed on the organization’s own network. A product-based solution can scan automatically against continuously updated databases, as the tools can be configured to download and apply the latest security updates and patches. However, a product-based solution may not imitate the outside view of attackers, as the tools may have limited access or visibility to the external network or the internet. A product-based solution may also not perform well-organized inference-based testing, as the tools may rely on predefined rules or signatures to detect and report vulnerabilities, rather than using logical reasoning and deduction. A product-based solution may also not support multiple networks, as the tools may be designed or optimized for a specific type of network, such as wired, wireless, cloud, or hybrid .

Incident Handling and Response Incident handling and response (IH&R) is the process of taking organized and careful steps when reacting to a security incident or cyberattack. Steps involved in the IH&R process: 3.Incident Triage - The IH&R team further analyzes the compromised device to find incident details such as the type of attack, its severity, target, impact, and method of propagation, and any vulnerabilities it exploited. (P.84/68)

A rootkit is a type of stealth malware designed to hide the existence of certain processes or programs from normal detection methods. It can:

Hide itself and other processes

Conceal files and registry entries

Intercept system calls or keystrokes (keylogging)

Maintain persistent access

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 6: Malware Threats → Rootkits

Incorrect Options:

A: A Trojan may offer remote access but doesn't necessarily hide itself.

C: DoS tools are used to overload systems, not hide.

D: Scanners detect vulnerabilities, not conceal activities.

E: A backdoor may provide unauthorized access, but rootkits focus on hiding.

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

To prevent networks from sniffing attacks, organizations and individual users should keep away from applications using insecure protocols, like basic HTTP authentication, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and Telnet. Instead, secure protocols such as HTTPS, Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), and Secure Shell (SSH) should be preferred. In case there is a necessity for using any insecure protocol in any application, all the data transmission should be encrypted. If required, VPN (Virtual Private Networks) can be used to provide secure access to users.

NOTE: I want to note that the wording "best option" is valid only for the EC-Council's exam since the other options will not help against sniffing or will only help from some specific attack vectors.

The sniffing attack surface is huge. To protect against it, you will need to implement a complex of measures at all levels of abstraction and apply controls at the physical, administrative, and technical levels. However, encryption is indeed the best option of all, even if your data is intercepted - an attacker cannot understand it.

A Kerberoasting attack is a technique that exploits the weak encryption of Kerberos service tickets to obtain the password hashes of service accounts that have a Service Principal Name (SPN) associated with them. The attacker can then crack the hashes offline and use the plaintext passwords to impersonate the service accounts and access network resources.

A Kerberoasting attack follows these steps1:

The attacker impersonates a legitimate Active Directory user and authenticates to the Key Distribution Center (KDC) in the Active Directory environment. They then request a Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) from the KDC to access network resources. The KDC complies because the attacker is impersonating a legitimate user.

The attacker enumerates the service accounts that have an SPN using tools like GetUserSPNs.py or PowerView. They then request a service ticket for each SPN from the KDC using their TGT. The KDC grants the service tickets, which are encrypted with the password hashes of the service accounts.

The attacker captures the service tickets and takes them offline. They then attempt to crack the password hashes using tools like Hashcat or John the Ripper. They can use various methods, such as brute force, dictionary, or hybrid attacks, to guess the passwords. Alternatively, they can use a PRINCE attack, which is a probabilistic password generation technique that combines common words, patterns, and transformations to generate likely passwords2.

Once the attacker obtains the plaintext passwords of the service accounts, they can use them to authenticate as the service accounts and access the network resources that they are authorized to.

Therefore, the next step that the analyst should take after obtaining a valid TGT is to request a service ticket for the SPN of the target service account. This will allow them to capture the service ticket and extract the password hash of the service account.

LAN Manager (LM) hashes use the DES (Data Encryption Standard) algorithm to hash passwords. Here's how LM hashing works:

The password is converted to uppercase and padded/truncated to 14 characters.

Split into two 7-character halves.

Each half is used as a DES key to encrypt a constant string ("KGS!@#$%")—resulting in a 16-byte LM hash.

From CEH v13 Courseware:

Module 6: Malware Threats

Topic: Windows Password Storage & Cracking

CEH v13 Study Guide states:

“LM hashes use the DES encryption algorithm to create password hashes. Due to this method, they are highly vulnerable to brute-force attacks, particularly because they split the password into two 7-character blocks.”

Incorrect Options:

A: MD4 is used in NTLM hashes.

C: SHA is not used in LM.

D: SSL is a transport security protocol, not a hashing algorithm.

CEH’s social engineering principles highlight psychological manipulation techniques such as authority, urgency, trust exploitation, and impersonation. In this scenario, the attacker leverages “perceived authority,” a powerful influence tactic where the social engineer poses as someone with legitimate power or sanctioned access—such as a technician, auditor, or vendor representative. CEH emphasizes that referencing real employee names, using technical terminology, and impersonating trusted third-party partners increases believability and reduces verification resistance. The receptionist’s acceptance of the attacker’s presence without verifying credentials matches classical authority-based exploitation. Leaked credentials, physical security logs, and network segmentation issues do not relate to human-layer social engineering. The situation clearly reflects the manipulation of trust and authority as described in CEH’s psychological attack vectors.

Mobile Remote Access Trojans (RATs) are highlighted in CEH v13 Mobile Platform Hacking as one of the most dangerous threats. Once installed, a mobile RAT provides attackers persistent, covert access to devices, allowing screen capture, keystroke logging, microphone activation, and data exfiltration.

Unlike MitM or clickjacking, RATs operate post-compromise, often disguised as legitimate apps. Jailbreaking is detectable via integrity checks, but RATs can remain hidden even on non-rooted devices.

CEH v13 emphasizes that RATs bypass traditional defenses, including antivirus and MDM, making them extremely difficult to detect. Hence, Option C is correct.

https://www.darknet.org.uk/2017/07/bluto-dns-recon-zone-transfer-brute-forcer/

"Attackers also use DNS lookup tools such as DNSdumpster.com, Bluto, and Domain Dossier to retrieve DNS records for a specified domain or hostname. These tools retrieve information such as domains and IP addresses, domain Whois records, DNS records, and network Whois records." CEH Module 02 Page 138

CEH v13 defines the five phases of ethical hacking as a structured methodology that mirrors real-world attack progression:

Reconnaissance – Information gathering

Scanning – Identifying live hosts, ports, and vulnerabilities

Gaining Access – Exploiting vulnerabilities

Maintaining Access – Establishing persistence

Covering Tracks – Removing evidence

Option C matches this exact sequence. CEH v13 emphasizes that understanding this order is critical for both attackers and defenders, as it enables systematic testing and effective mitigation strategies.

All other options misplace phases and contradict the CEH methodology.

An HTTP Flood attack is an Application Layer (Layer 7) DDoS attack, as defined in CEH v13. In this attack, the adversary sends a massive number of seemingly legitimate HTTP GET or POST requests to exhaust server resources such as CPU, memory, and application threads.

CEH v13 emphasizes that HTTP floods are difficult to detect because they mimic normal user behavior and often bypass traditional network-layer defenses.

Other attacks operate at lower layers:

ICMP, UDP, and SYN floods target network and transport layers.

According to the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) System Hacking and Session Hijacking module, sidejacking is a form of session hijacking where an attacker passively intercepts network traffic to capture unencrypted session cookies. These cookies are then reused to impersonate the authenticated user without needing credentials.

CEH documentation explains that sidejacking commonly occurs on unencrypted HTTP connections, public Wi-Fi networks, or improperly secured internal networks. Once the session cookie is stolen, the attacker can replay it to gain access to the victim’s active session.

Option B correctly describes this mechanism and directly matches CEH’s definition of sidejacking.

Option A refers to perimeter exploitation, not session hijacking.

Option C describes social engineering, which is unrelated to sidejacking.

Option D is an example of cross-site scripting (XSS), not sidejacking.

CEH emphasizes HTTPS enforcement and secure cookie attributes as key countermeasures.

WHOIS is an Internet service that allows users to query domain name registries to retrieve information about registered domain names. It includes data such as:

Registrant’s name and contact information

Domain creation and expiration dates

Registrar details and name servers

WHOIS is often used during the reconnaissance phase in penetration testing.

Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide:

Module 2: Footprinting and Reconnaissance

Quote:

“WHOIS databases provide public domain registration details including contact names, email addresses, and registrar information. This is useful for initial reconnaissance.”

Incorrect Options:

B. CAPTCHA is used to distinguish human users from bots.

C. IANA oversees global IP address allocation and DNS root zone management.

D. IETF is responsible for internet standards, not registrant databases.

=

«Many IDS reassemble communication streams; hence, if a packet is not received within a reasonable period, many IDS stop reassembling and handling that stream. If the application under attack keeps a session active for a longer time than that spent by the IDS on reassembling it, the IDS will stop. As a result, any session after the IDS stops reassembling the sessions will be susceptible to malicious data theft by attackers. The IDS will not log any attack attempt after a successful splicing attack. Attackers can use tools such as Nessus for session splicing attacks.»

Did you know that the EC-Council exam shows how well you know their official book? So, there is no "Whisker" in it. In the chapter "Evading IDS" -> "Session Splicing", the recommended tool for performing a session-splicing attack is Nessus. Where Wisker came from is not entirely clear, but I will assume the author of the question found it while copying Wikipedia.

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

One basic technique is to split the attack payload into multiple small packets so that the IDS must reassemble the packet stream to detect the attack. A simple way of splitting packets is by fragmenting them, but an adversary can also simply craft packets with small payloads. The 'whisker' evasion tool calls crafting packets with small payloads 'session splicing'.

By itself, small packets will not evade any IDS that reassembles packet streams. However, small packets can be further modified in order to complicate reassembly and detection. One evasion technique is to pause between sending parts of the attack, hoping that the IDS will time out before the target computer does. A second evasion technique is to send the packets out of order, confusing simple packet re-assemblers but not the target computer.

NOTE: Yes, I found scraps of information about the tool that existed in 2012, but I can not give you unverified information. According to the official tutorials, the correct answer is Nessus, but if you know anything about Wisker, please write in the QA section. Maybe this question will be updated soon, but I'm not sure about that.

https://linuxsecurityblog.com/2018/12/23/create-a-backdoor-with-cryptcat/

Cryptcat enables us to communicate between two systems and encrypts the communication between them with twofish, one of many excellent encryption algorithms from Bruce Schneier et al. Twofish’s encryption is on par with AES encryption, making it nearly bulletproof. In this way, the IDS can’t detect the malicious behavior taking place even when its traveling across normal HTTP ports like 80 and 443.