CPENT Practice Test 3 — 10 Questions

Question 1

An external penetration tester is conducting reconnaissance against a corporate network and needs to discover valid email addresses and associated infrastructure hosted publicly. Which tool uses search engines and public databases to gather open-source intelligence on target domains?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

TheHarvester. TheHarvester is an OSINT reconnaissance tool that queries search engines (Google, Bing, Baidu), certificate transparency logs, PGP key servers, and public databases like Shodan and Hunter to enumerate emails, subdomains, hostnames, and employee names tied to a target domain. It is purpose-built for the passive reconnaissance phase of a penetration test.

Answer

Metasploit

Answer

Wireshark

Answer

Burp Suite

Question 2

A penetration tester executing lateral movement in a Windows domain wants to hide their network activity and command execution by using WinRM (Windows Remote Management). Which PowerShell cmdlet is specifically designed to execute commands on a remote trusted host via WinRM?

Accepted Answer

Invoke-Command -ComputerName TargetHost -ScriptBlock { ... }. Invoke-Command allows running script blocks or scripts on local or remote computers using WinRM.

Answer

Get-WmiObject -ComputerName TargetHost -Class Win32_Process

Answer

Start-Process -FilePath "powershell.exe" -Credential ...

Answer

Enter-PSSession -ComputerName TargetHost

Question 3

An auditor identifies that an organization's Azure storage account allows anonymous public read access to containers and blobs. What configuration change must be applied to remediate this finding?

Accepted Answer

Set the 'Allow Blob public access' property to Disabled on the storage account.. Disabling public blob access on the storage account blocks anonymous requests globally.

Answer

Rotate the primary storage account access key every 24 hours.

Answer

Enable Azure Defender for Storage and configure automatic threat remediation.

Answer

Apply an Azure Firewall rule blocking port 443 inbound to the storage account.

Question 4

An elite penetration tester needs to bypass a strict perimeter stateful inspection firewall that drops fragmented packets and inspects TCP payload flags. They decide to use Nmap to send packets with the FIN, PSH, and URG flags set simultaneously (a Xmas scan). Which Nmap flag implements this?

Accepted Answer

-sX. Nmap's -sX flag performs the Xmas scan, which sets the FIN, PSH, and URG flags simultaneously in the TCP header. This unusual flag combination is designed to evade stateless firewalls and some IDS signatures that only look for SYN or common flag patterns. The name comes from the flags being 'lit up' like a Christmas tree in a packet analyzer.

Answer

-sN

Answer

-sF

Answer

-sW

Question 5

You are conducting an internal network penetration test and have obtained credentials for a domain user. You want to identify which hosts on the internal network permit SMB signing to be disabled so that relay attacks become feasible. Which TWO actions should you take to build this target list? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Use CrackMapExec or NetExec with the smb-signing module to enumerate signing configuration across the subnet in a single sweep.. SMB signing enforcement is advertised in the SMB2 negotiate response, so hosts that report signing enabled but not required are relay candidates. Nmap's smb2-security-mode script and CrackMapExec/NetExec's smb-signing module both retrieve this data across a subnet and let you build a precise target list. Machine account quota and NetBIOS name queries expose unrelated information, and modifying the target is out of scope.

Answer

Query Active Directory for the ms-DS-MachineAccountQuota attribute on the domain object to determine which machines allow unsigned SMB.

Answer

Enable the LanmanServer service on each target and set the RequireSecuritySignature registry value to 0 before testing.

Answer

Perform a broadcast NetBIOS name query for each host to read the SMB signing flag from the node status response.

Question 6

A penetration tester is conducting reconnaissance against a web application firewall (WAF) protected perimeter. Which TWO methods can help identify whether a WAF is present in front of a web server? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Running the wafw00f enumeration tool. Option B is correct because wafw00f is a purpose-built fingerprinting tool that sends a series of benign and malicious HTTP requests and analyzes response headers, cookies, and status codes to identify the specific WAF product (e.g., Cloudflare, ModSecurity, AWS WAF) protecting a web server. Option E is correct because sending known malicious payloads such as SQL injection strings or XSS vectors and observing characteristic block responses (e.g., HTTP 403, 406, or 999, or vendor-specific error pages) is a reliable behavioral technique to confirm a WAF is inspecting and filtering traffic. Option A is not relevant because ARP cache tables only reveal layer-2 MAC-to-IP mappings on the local segment and cannot indicate the presence of a WAF, which operates at the application layer. Option C is incorrect because an ICMP ping sweep only tests host reachability and is typically blocked or answered by the origin server regardless of any WAF. Option D is incorrect because a DNS AXFR zone transfer enumerates DNS records and, even if permitted, reveals nothing about whether an application-layer firewall sits in front of the web server.

Answer

Reviewing local ARP cache tables

Answer

Performing a standard ICMP ping sweep

Answer

Running a DNS zone transfer (AXFR) query

Question 7

During lateral movement, you decide to use 'Pass-the-Ticket' to access a target. Which file format does Mimikatz typically use to export Kerberos tickets?

Accepted Answer

.kirbi. Mimikatz uses the .kirbi file extension to save exported Kerberos tickets.

Answer

.ntds

Answer

.sam

Answer

.pfx

Question 8

During a Red Team assessment against an enterprise network, an operator wants to execute a Silver Ticket attack against a specific service (e.g., CIFS) on a target server. What is a key operational advantage of a Silver Ticket compared to a Golden Ticket?

Accepted Answer

It does not require interaction with the Domain Controller to generate and does not alert the KDC for a TGT request. A Silver Ticket is forged for a specific service using the NTLM hash of that specific service account (or computer account), meaning it does not require interaction with the Domain Controller's KDC for creation, and it does not generate a TGT request that might alert domain-level monitoring.

Answer

It can only be detected by physically inspecting the NTDS.dit file on the Domain Controller

Answer

It grants full Domain Administrator privileges across all domain controllers

Answer

It automatically updates the KRBTGT password to maintain persistence

Question 9

During an Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) assessment, a tester discovers that the 'ESC1' vulnerability is present. What specific misconfiguration defines ESC1 on a certificate template?

Accepted Answer

The template allows enrollees to supply alternate subject names (SAN) and authorizes low-privileged users to enroll with client authentication EKUs.. ESC1 is defined by a certificate template that permits the enrollee to specify a Subject Alternative Name (SAN) and is enrollable by low-privileged users, while also including a client authentication EKU (e.g., Client Authentication, Smart Card Logon). This lets an attacker request a certificate with an arbitrary SAN (e.g., a Domain Admin's UPN) and authenticate as that user via PKINIT.

Answer

The template grants WriteDACL permissions to authenticated users over the Certificate Authority object.

Answer

The template publishes certificates to Active Directory user objects automatically.

Answer

The template has Manager Approval enabled and requires enterprise admin signatures.

Question 10

During an assessment of an Operational Technology (OT) network, a tester discovers a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) using the Modbus TCP protocol. The tester needs to query holding registers to understand the operational state of the industrial process. Which default TCP port should the tester target for Modbus communications?

Accepted Answer

Port 502. Modbus TCP uses port 502 by default. Port 80 is HTTP, port 443 is HTTPS, and port 1883 is MQTT.

Answer

Port 80

Answer

Port 443

Answer

Port 1883