Cyber Security Jobs Cryptography and Encryption 3

Question 1

What is a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack in the context of encrypted communications?

Accepted Answer

An attacker secretly intercepts and potentially alters communication between two parties

Answer

In a MITM attack, the adversary positions themselves between two communicating parties to intercept, read, or modify data — often by impersonating each party to the other.

Question 2

What does 'perfect forward secrecy' (PFS) guarantee in cryptographic protocols?

Accepted Answer

Past session keys remain secure even if long-term private keys are later compromised

Answer

PFS ensures each session uses an independently generated ephemeral key, so compromising a long-term key does not retroactively expose past encrypted sessions.

Question 3

What does 'key escrow' mean in the context of cryptographic key management?

Accepted Answer

A copy of the encryption key is held by a trusted third party for authorized recovery

Answer

Key escrow involves depositing a copy of a cryptographic key with a trusted third party so it can be retrieved by authorized entities (such as law enforcement or IT recovery) under defined conditions.

Question 4

Which hashing algorithm is currently recommended by NIST for security-sensitive applications?

Accepted Answer

SHA-256

Answer

NIST recommends the SHA-2 family (including SHA-256 and SHA-512) for security applications, as MD5 and SHA-1 have known collision vulnerabilities, and DES is a cipher, not a hash.

Question 5

What is steganography in the context of information security?

Accepted Answer

The practice of hiding secret data within ordinary, non-secret files or messages

Answer

Steganography conceals the existence of a message by embedding it inside another file (such as an image or audio file), unlike cryptography which obscures the message content.

Cyber Security Jobs Practice Test

Cyber Security Jobs Practice Test

Cyber Security Jobs Cryptography and Encryption 3