CPENT Iot And OT Exploitation Practice Question
A security researcher is evaluating an industrial IoT gateway running Linux. During a filesystem audit of the extracted rootfs, the researcher finds that the '/etc/shadow' file contains weak password hashes for the root user. Which utility can the researcher use offline on their host machine to attempt password cracking via dictionary attack against the extracted hash?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
John the Ripper
John the Ripper and Hashcat are industry-standard password cracking tools that accept shadow file formats for offline dictionary and brute-force attacks.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Binwalk
Why it's wrong here
Binwalk is a tool for searching and extracting files from binary firmware images.
- ✓
John the Ripper
Why this is correct
John the Ripper supports a wide variety of Unix crypt hash formats found in '/etc/shadow' for offline password recovery.
- ✗
Nmap
Why it's wrong here
Nmap is a network discovery and port scanning utility.
- ✗
Tcpdump
Why it's wrong here
Tcpdump is a command-line packet analyzer for capturing network traffic.
About these practice questions
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed August 2026 · checked against the official EC-Council exam blueprint
This CPENT practice question is part of Courseiva's free EC-Council certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CPENT exam.