Privilege Escalation Lateral Movement And Post Exploitation →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

CPENT Practice Question: Privilege Escalation Lateral Movement And Post Exploitation

An operator has compromised an Active Directory domain and wants to establish persistence using a Golden Ticket. What critical piece of information from the domain is required to forge this ticket?

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 NTLM hash (or AES keys) of the krbtgt service account.

A Golden Ticket is forged using the KRBTGT account's NTLM hash (or AES keys), which allows the attacker to generate valid Kerberos Ticket Granting Tickets (TGTs) for any user.

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 NTLM hash (or AES keys) of the krbtgt service account.
Why this is correct
The krbtgt hash is the cryptographic secret used to sign all TGTs in the domain.
✗
The krbtgt account's public SSH key stored in Active Directory.
Why it's wrong here
Active Directory does not use SSH keys for Kerberos ticket generation.
✗
The global catalog server IP address and LDAP bind credentials.
Why it's wrong here
LDAP credentials are not required to forge an offline Kerberos ticket.
✗
The Domain Administrator's plaintext password.
Why it's wrong here
Domain Admin plaintext password is not needed; only the krbtgt account hash is required.

Quick reference

Symmetric Encryption Algorithm Comparison

Algorithm	Key Size	Block Size	Status	Notes
AES-128	128-bit	128-bit	Current standard	NIST approved; WPA3, TLS
AES-256	256-bit	128-bit	Current standard	Preferred for sensitive / govt data
3DES	112-bit effective	64-bit	Deprecated (2023)	Replaced by AES
DES	56-bit	64-bit	Broken	Cracked in < 24 h; never deploy
ChaCha20	256-bit	Stream cipher	Current	TLS 1.3, WireGuard

About these practice questions

Courseiva writes every CPENT question from scratch — 276 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 →

How Courseiva writes practice questions · Editorial policy

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

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