Cybersecurity

Question 1

What are ethical/white-hat hackers?

Answer 1

Ethical or white-hat hackers are paid to try and break into networks or databases to identify any security flaws.

For example, the police would have white-hat hackers to catch black-hat hackers or other types of cyber criminal.

Question 2

What are the most commonly stolen forms of data?

Answer 2

Name

Address

Email address

Phone number

Passwords

Question 3

What can hackers do with your name and address?

Answer 3

Hackers could apply for loans and credit cards in your name or use this information to transfer money illegally.

Question 4

What can hackers do with your email address?

Answer 4

You’ll be sent spam and other forms of unwanted marketing emails

You may be the target of phishing attacks.

Question 5

What can happen if a scammer gets hold of your phone number?

Answer 5

You’ll likely be receiving a variety of annoying calls from fake insurance companies, banks or even the government to try and convince you that you owe a large sum of money.

Question 6

What can happen if a hacker gets hold of your password?

Answer 6

They can access your accounts e.g banking, shopping, email or social media.

As well as using your identity to access your accounts and funds, a scammer might also use it to cloak themselves and commit other cyber crimes pretending to be you and making it harder to track the source of the attack back to them.

Question 7

What passwords are the hardest to crack?

Answer 7

The longest passwords are the safest.

Question 8

What are the advantages of fingerprint scanners?

Answer 8

Unique to everyone

Hard to fake

Change very little over the course of your life

Question 9

What are the disadvantages of fingerprint scanners?

Answer 9

Someone could steal your biometrics.

If you hurt your finger, it won’t recognise it.

System failures may block access

Question 10

What are the disadvantages to the face scanner?

Answer 10

Not perfect

Some people may have similar faces.

If you get cosmetic surgery, it won’t recognise you

Poor camera quality may hinder its ability to recognise you

Question 11

What are the advantages of facial scanners?

Answer 11

You can unlock your smartphone with a glance

Completely contact-free

Makes it easier to track down thieves or criminals

Question 12

What are the advantages to voice recognition?

Answer 12

Time-saving
Easy to use
Non-contact

Question 13

What are the disadvantages to voice recognition?

Answer 13

Voices can change overtime
Not always accurate if someone has a similar voice
High false negative rate and false positive rate

Question 14

What is 2FA?

Answer 14

2FA is requires you to log in using a username and password but then to use an additional method to prove that you are a genuine user.

Question 15

What are examples of 2FA?

Answer 15

• Texting a code to your mobile phone that you need to complete the login process
• Emailing a link that you must click on to complete the login process
• Asking for a code from an app like Google Authenticator to complete the login process

Question 16

What is a black-hat hacker?

Answer 16

A black hat hacker is someone who has extensive knowledge about penetration testing, but they use this knowledge to hack into systems with malicious intent.

Black hat hackers are the people who would write malware, which is a method used to gain access to computer systems and networks.

Question 17

What is a grey-hat hacker?

Answer 17

Grey hat hackers are a blend of both black hat and white hat activities. Often, grey hat hackers will look for vulnerabilities in a system without the owner’s permission or knowledge. If issues are found, they will report them to the owner, sometimes requesting a small fee to fix the issue.

Question 18

Is grey-hat hacking still considered illegal?

Answer 18

This type of hacking is still considered illegal because the hacker did not receive permission from the owner prior to attempting to attack the system.

Question 19

What can changing file extensions be used for?

Answer 19

It can be a way to hide the real type of file from people looking for specific data. It does not change the form of the file.

Question 20

Example: What is mp3?

Answer 20

Sound file

Question 21

What does a reverse image search let you do?

Answer 21

It lets you submit a picture onto a search engine and it gives you more information on the picture.

Question 22

What kind of information exists within saved files?

Answer 22

When files are saved, they can store information about the creator, the date and time of saving and, depending on the file type, other types of information e.g. Resolution of an image, sound quality of an audio file etc.

Question 23

What is EXIF data?

Answer 23

EXIF (exchangeable image file) is a format standard for storing information in digital photography JPEG image files and is data stored alongside the image.

Question 24

What kind of data does EXIF store?

Answer 24

While some data is about the settings of the camera, it will also have time, date and often GPS data included meaning that it can be used in digital forensics to find out more about the picture.

Question 25

What can digital forensics be used for?

Answer 25

It can be used for investigations that occur in the aftermath of a criminal case or cyber security attack.

Question 26

What are hashes?

Answer 26

Hashes are the products of cryptographic algorithms, performed on the contents of a file, designed to produce a string of characters unique to that file.

Question 27

What is a hash file?

Answer 27

A hash file is shown alongside a file, which verifies the integrity of the file using the hash unique to it and seeing if it matches

Question 28

What is steganography?

Answer 28

Steganography is the practice of hiding a secret message inside of something that is not secret.

Question 29

What are examples of steganography?

Answer 29

Embedding a secret piece of text inside of a picture
Hiding a secret message or script inside of a Word or Excel document.

Question 30

What is the purpose of steganography?

Answer 30

The purpose of steganography is to conceal and deceive. It is a form of covert communication and can involve the use of any medium to hide messages.

Question 31

What are ciphers used for?

Answer 31

To encode data, making it unreadable unless you know how to decipher it.

Question 32

What is a penetration test?

Answer 32

A Penetration Test (Pen Test) is an authorised simulated cyber attack on a system to check how secure it is from real attacks to then improve security.

Question 33

What is reconnaissance?

Answer 33

Finding out information about a target

Question 34

What is passive reconnaissance?

Answer 34

Seeing what information you can find out online about a target without contacting them.

Question 35

What is active reconnaissance?

Answer 35

Seeing what information you can find out about a target by checking systems or contacting to find out about them.

Question 36

What are examples of passive reconnaissance?

Answer 36

Investigating premises

Online tools

Question 37

What is an example of active reconnaissance?

Answer 37

Pinging a system