CPENT Active Directory Attacks Practice Question
An operator has gained administrative access to a subordinate domain in a multi-domain Active Directory forest and wishes to escalate privileges to Enterprise Admin across the entire forest. What object or group must be compromised to achieve forest-wide control?
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
✓
The Enterprise Admins group in the forest root domain
Enterprise Admins is a forest-level group residing in the root domain that holds administrative control over all domains in the forest.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
The Enterprise Admins group in the forest root domain
Why this is correct
Compromising the Enterprise Admins group grants control over every domain in the forest.
- ✗
The Cert Publishers group on any workstation
Why it's wrong here
Cert Publishers manage certificate templates but do not inherently provide forest-wide domain control.
- ✗
The Domain Admins group of the subordinate domain
Why it's wrong here
Domain Admins of a child domain only control that specific child domain, not the entire forest.
- ✗
The Account Operators group in the builtin container
Why it's wrong here
Account Operators have limited user management rights and do not control the forest.
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every CPENT question from scratch — 274 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.