Cyber Security Application Security 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which OWASP Top 10 category refers to flaws that allow users to access resources or perform actions outside their intended permissions?
- Security Misconfiguration
- Broken Access Control (Correct answer)
- Cryptographic Failures
- Insecure Design
Correct answer: Broken Access Control
Broken Access Control is the #1 OWASP risk and covers failures that allow users to act outside their intended privileges, such as accessing other users' accounts or unauthorized admin functions.
Question 2: What is Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)?
- An attack that forges HTTP responses to inject malicious content into a browser
- An attack where the server is tricked into making requests to unintended internal or external resources (Correct answer)
- An attack that spoofs server certificates to perform man-in-the-middle interception
- An attack that submits forged form data to bypass server-side validation
Correct answer: An attack where the server is tricked into making requests to unintended internal or external resources
SSRF manipulates a server into making HTTP requests to internal services or external systems on behalf of the attacker, potentially exposing cloud metadata or internal APIs.
Question 3: What is XML External Entity (XXE) injection?
- Injecting malicious XML tags to crash the XML parser
- Exploiting XML parsers that process external entity references to access files or internal services (Correct answer)
- Forging XML digital signatures to bypass authentication
- Using malformed XML to overflow a buffer in the parsing library
Correct answer: Exploiting XML parsers that process external entity references to access files or internal services
XXE injection exploits XML parsers that resolve external entity declarations, allowing attackers to read local files, perform SSRF, or execute denial-of-service attacks.
Question 4: What is insecure deserialization in application security?
- Storing serialized objects in plain text without encryption
- Deserializing untrusted data that can lead to remote code execution or privilege escalation (Correct answer)
- Failing to validate the format of JSON objects before storing them
- Using weak hashing algorithms to sign serialized data
Correct answer: Deserializing untrusted data that can lead to remote code execution or privilege escalation
Insecure deserialization occurs when an application deserializes attacker-supplied data without validation, potentially allowing remote code execution, injection attacks, or privilege escalation.
Question 5: What is the purpose of a Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
- To encrypt web traffic between the client and the server
- To filter and monitor HTTP traffic to detect and block common web attacks (Correct answer)
- To manage SSL/TLS certificates for web applications
- To load-balance incoming web requests across multiple servers
Correct answer: To filter and monitor HTTP traffic to detect and block common web attacks
A WAF sits between web clients and servers to inspect HTTP traffic, identifying and blocking common attacks like SQLi, XSS, and CSRF based on defined rule sets.
Question 6: What is a path traversal (directory traversal) attack?
- An attack that maps all available routes in a web application
- An attack using sequences like '../' to access files outside the intended web root (Correct answer)
- An attack that redirects users to malicious URLs via open redirects
- An attack that enumerates hidden directories through brute force
Correct answer: An attack using sequences like '../' to access files outside the intended web root
Path traversal uses sequences like '../' in file path inputs to navigate outside the intended directory and access sensitive files such as /etc/passwd on the server.
Question 7: What is security misconfiguration?
- Using weak cryptographic algorithms in application code
- Insecure default settings, incomplete configurations, or unnecessary features left enabled in software (Correct answer)
- Failing to patch known vulnerabilities in third-party libraries
- Storing credentials in unencrypted configuration files
Correct answer: Insecure default settings, incomplete configurations, or unnecessary features left enabled in software
Security misconfiguration is the most common OWASP category and includes insecure defaults, unnecessary features enabled, missing security hardening, and overly permissive cloud storage permissions.
Cyber Security Application Security 2
Which OWASP Top 10 category refers to flaws that allow users to access resources or perform actions outside their intended permissions?