312-50v13 ECCouncil Certified Ethical Hacker Exam (CEHv13) Free Practice Exam Questions (2026 Updated)

The Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Incident Response lifecycle begins with Identification, followed by containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned. CEH documentation stresses that understanding the scope and nature of an incident is critical before taking disruptive action.

Option A is the correct initial response because it focuses on real-time monitoring and log analysis, which are essential during the identification phase. CEH materials emphasize analyzing logs, authentication failures, and traffic anomalies to confirm whether an incident has occurred and determine the attacker’s techniques, persistence level, and impact.

Option B, while valuable, is more appropriate after initial identification. Conducting deep outbound traffic audits without first understanding the attack vector can delay containment decisions.

Option C is premature. CEH warns that changing credentials too early may alert the attacker and cause them to escalate or destroy evidence.

Option D represents a containment strategy, not an initial response. CEH guidelines advise against immediately disconnecting systems unless there is confirmed active data exfiltration that cannot be otherwise controlled, as this may disrupt business operations and erase volatile forensic evidence.

Therefore, the CEH-approved approach is to monitor, analyze, and identify the incident before moving to containment and eradication.

The correct answer is D, Network traversal. In CEH system hacking and post-exploitation concepts, lateral movement refers to an attacker moving across a compromised environment from one host, account, or resource to another. After gaining initial access, the attacker may enumerate systems, harvest credentials, abuse trust relationships, access shared resources, or use remote administration protocols to reach additional machines. The uploaded hacking methodology material describes the “takeover” phase as expanding control from a single host to other hosts in the network, which directly aligns with lateral movement. Pivoting is closely related, but it is more accurately a technique used to route traffic through a compromised system to reach otherwise inaccessible networks. Privilege escalation means increasing permissions on a system, and data exfiltration means stealing or transferring data out of the environment. Since the question asks what lateral movement is, the most precise answer is network traversal.

CEH’s social engineering principles highlight psychological manipulation techniques such as authority, urgency, trust exploitation, and impersonation. In this scenario, the attacker leverages “perceived authority,” a powerful influence tactic where the social engineer poses as someone with legitimate power or sanctioned access—such as a technician, auditor, or vendor representative. CEH emphasizes that referencing real employee names, using technical terminology, and impersonating trusted third-party partners increases believability and reduces verification resistance. The receptionist’s acceptance of the attacker’s presence without verifying credentials matches classical authority-based exploitation. Leaked credentials, physical security logs, and network segmentation issues do not relate to human-layer social engineering. The situation clearly reflects the manipulation of trust and authority as described in CEH’s psychological attack vectors.

CEH v13 highlights the Idle Scan as one of the stealthiest reconnaissance methods available, designed specifically to avoid detection by IDS and security monitoring tools. Idle scanning leverages a “zombie host”—a system with a predictable IPID sequence—to route all probe packets through it. Since no packets ever originate directly from the attacker’s IP, IDS systems are unable to attribute the port scan to the attacker. CEH emphasizes that this technique creates zero direct traffic between the attacker and the target, making it extremely evasive and ideal for highly monitored networks. FIN scans (Option A) are somewhat stealthy but still originate from the attacker and are detectable. TCP Connect scans (Option C) are the most detectable because they complete full connections. ICMP Echo scans (Option D) are easily logged and flagged by IDS. Idle scanning is uniquely suited for bypassing advanced detection systems while still identifying open ports and live hosts.

The correct answer is Credentialed Scanning. CEH vulnerability assessment guidance explains that credentialed scans use authorized login access on the target system so the scanner can inspect the machine from the inside with a much higher level of accuracy and detail. That is why credentialed scanning can identify installed updates, local policy settings, configuration inconsistencies, file permissions, registry issues, and patch gaps that are not always visible from an external network perspective. The question specifically mentions granular host-level findings that required direct system-level inspection, which is a strong indicator that valid credentials were used to query the target systems. Non-credentialed scanning, by contrast, relies on remote observation and network-visible characteristics, so it generally cannot provide the same depth of internal host information. Automated scanning is too broad a label, and application scanning is limited to application-layer targets rather than host operating-system posture. CEH materials consistently note that credentialed scans produce more accurate vulnerability results and reduce false positives because the scanner can verify software versions, patch states, and security settings directly on the target machine rather than merely inferring them from banners or exposed services.

The directory that contains the publicly accessible web content—including HTML pages, images, JavaScript, CSS, and other client-side assets—is known as the Document Root. This is the base filesystem path that a web server maps to the “/” location of a website. When a user requests a resource (for example, https://site.com/index.html), the web server typically resolves that URL path to a file under the configured document root and then serves it to the client (subject to access controls and server configuration).

The scenario’s details match this precisely: Jake identifies “the directory that stores the publicly accessible website content,” and notes that it is a frequent attacker target due to risks from improper permissions. Document root security is critical because overly permissive read or browse access can expose files that were never intended to be public—such as backups, configuration files, temporary files, source code archives, or sensitive data accidentally placed in web-accessible paths. Misconfigurations can also enable directory listing, allowing attackers to enumerate and retrieve files directly. Attackers often probe for common filenames (e.g., old .zip backups, .bak files, exposed .env files, or test pages) precisely because document root is where such mistakes become externally reachable.

Why the other options are less accurate:

An Application Server (A) runs server-side application logic (e.g., Java/.NET app containers) and is not specifically the directory of static public web content.

The HTTP Server (Core) (C) refers to the web server software/service handling HTTP requests, not the content directory itself.

A Virtual Document Tree (D) describes the logical structure mapping URLs to resources (sometimes via aliases and virtual hosts), but the question asks for the directory that stores the publicly accessible content—this is the document root.

Therefore, Jake is analyzing B. Document Root.

According to the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Reconnaissance and Footprinting module, DNS cache snooping is a passive information-gathering technique used to determine whether a specific DNS record exists in a server’s cache. Attackers commonly use the dig +norecurse option to prevent the DNS server from querying other DNS servers, thereby revealing only cached results.

When a DNS server responds with NOERROR but does not return an answer, it indicates that the domain name itself is valid, but the requested record is not present in the DNS cache. CEH documentation explains that this situation usually occurs when no internal client has recently queried that domain, so the DNS server has no cached entry for it.

Option A is incorrect because a cached record would return a valid answer section.

Option B is incorrect because NOERROR explicitly means the DNS query was processed successfully.

Option D is incorrect because an expired or non-existent domain would typically return NXDOMAIN, not NOERROR.

CEH materials highlight that attackers use DNS cache snooping to infer user behavior, internal browsing habits, and potential target systems within an organization—making option C the correct conclusion.

CEH training emphasizes that highly tailored social engineering attacks—those exploiting trust in internal workflows and perceived technical authority—are far more effective than generic or mass-distributed phishing attempts. A fake IT support portal that mirrors internal systems leverages procedural familiarity: IT departments commonly instruct employees to log into support portals for troubleshooting, credential verification, or ticket updates. When the attacker enhances the pretext with insider terminology and references to real internal systems, employees are more likely to trust the portal and enter credentials. CEH highlights that successful social engineering attacks mimic legitimate processes to avoid suspicion. Phone calls posing as executives often introduce risk due to real-time interaction and scrutiny. Generic phishing lacks personalization and is easily detected. Physical impersonation introduces operational risk and may not yield credentials. Therefore, a fake IT support portal aligned with IT workflows is the optimal method.

The requirement is specifically for a framework that explains how to identify, assess, and treat information security risks within the context of an Information Security Management System (ISMS). The ISO standard dedicated to information security risk management is ISO/IEC 27005. It provides guidance on establishing a risk management process aligned with the ISO/IEC 27000 family and supports the ISMS by describing risk context, risk identification, risk analysis, risk evaluation, risk treatment, risk acceptance, and ongoing risk communication and monitoring.

This focus on the “how” of risk management is what distinguishes ISO/IEC 27005 from the other options. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 is the standard that specifies the requirements to establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve an ISMS. It requires that risk assessment and treatment be performed, but it is not primarily a detailed methodology standard for conducting those activities. ISO/IEC 27002:2022 is a code of practice that provides a catalog of security controls (the “what” controls you can select), rather than a risk assessment/treatment methodology. ISO/IEC 27701:2019 extends ISO/IEC 27001/27002 to privacy information management (PIMS) and focuses on privacy controls and requirements—not the general information security risk management lifecycle.

Because the question asks for a standard that addresses identification, assessment, and treatment of information security risks as part of an ISMS, ISO/IEC 27005 is the best match. It complements ISO/IEC 27001 by giving organizations practical guidance for building and running the risk management process that ISO/IEC 27001 requires, ensuring risk decisions are systematic, repeatable, and suitable for governance and continual improvement.

CEH materials describe this attack pattern as Living-off-the-Land (LotL), where attackers abuse legitimate tools to avoid detection. Because these binaries are normally trusted, traditional antivirus solutions may not flag them.

CEH recommends file integrity monitoring (FIM), which tracks cryptographic hashes of sensitive executables and alerts administrators when unauthorized modifications occur.

Option D is correct.

Options A and B support resilience but do not detect tampering.

Option C alone is insufficient against LotL attacks.

A bootkit is the rootkit type that best matches the described behavior because it compromises the system boot process and executes before the operating system fully loads, often before many security controls, drivers, and monitoring services start. CEH materials describe bootkits as a highly persistent class of malware that targets components such as the Master Boot Record, Volume Boot Record, or bootloader. By gaining execution at boot time, a bootkit can load malicious code very early, then hook or tamper with OS loading routines, kernel initialization, or security mechanisms. This early execution is exactly what the scenario emphasizes: the payload runs “before any system-level drivers or services are active,” enabling covert control while evading traditional user-mode detection.

This also explains why administrators see suspicious network activity but forensics do not easily find malicious user-level artifacts. Bootkits can hide by manipulating what the OS and security tools can see after startup, including concealing files, processes, registry keys, or even redirecting reads so scanners receive “clean” data. Because the malicious component is anchored in the boot chain, it can survive reboots and remain present even if many OS-level indicators are cleaned.

A kernel-mode rootkit operates within the OS kernel but typically loads after the OS begins booting and drivers initialize. A hypervisor rootkit relies on virtualization to sit beneath the OS at runtime, but the scenario specifically highlights boot-time execution prior to drivers and services. Firmware rootkits persist in BIOS/UEFI or device firmware, which is possible, but the most direct match to “boot process compromise below the OS” in CEH terminology is a bootkit.

The correct answer is Deauthentication Attack. CEH wireless security coverage explains that deauthentication attacks abuse 802.11 management frames to force wireless clients to disconnect from an access point. When spoofed deauthentication frames are transmitted, client devices believe they have been instructed to terminate the association and must reconnect manually or automatically. That matches the scenario exactly: carefully crafted management frames are sent, connected laptops immediately lose association, and the disruptions occur only while those frames are being transmitted. Jamming is different because it disrupts wireless communication through radio-frequency interference rather than valid-looking 802.11 management messages. Eavesdropping is passive interception, and an evil twin involves a rogue access point impersonating a legitimate one. CEH materials describe deauthentication attacks as common wireless denial and disruption techniques and also note that they may be used to force reconnects for handshake capture during broader wireless attacks. Because the question focuses on targeted disconnects caused by crafted management frames, the most accurate classification is Deauthentication Attack.

This scenario primarily simulates dumpster diving because the key action involves retrieving sensitive information from discarded materials and then using it to gain access. In CEH social engineering coverage, dumpster diving is a physical information-gathering technique where an attacker searches trash, recycling bins, unsecured disposal containers, or shredding waste to find documents and artifacts that can be exploited. Common targets include access codes, employee directories, printed emails, shipping labels, invoices, internal memos, and partially shredded documents—exactly what Priya finds in the unsecured maintenance container. The question even emphasizes “discarded packaging,” “shipping labels,” “shredded office material,” and a “crumpled document listing temporary access codes,” which are classic dumpster-diving indicators.

The later use of recovered access codes to enter the break room is the impact of the dumpster-diving phase, but the primary social engineering technique tested is how improper disposal leads to compromise. Tailgating would involve following an authorized person through a secure door without proper authentication. Eavesdropping refers to listening in on conversations or communications to capture sensitive information. Shoulder surfing involves visually observing someone’s screen or keyboard while they enter credentials or view confidential data. None of those describe the initial method of obtaining the access codes.

CEH-aligned mitigations include enforcing clean-desk and secure disposal policies, using locked disposal bins, shredding sensitive documents properly with secure destruction processes, training staff on handling printed data, and restricting access to loading docks and waste areas. Regular audits of disposal practices and physical security checks reduce the likelihood that attackers can harvest usable access details from trash.

The Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Social Engineering module defines whaling as a highly targeted phishing attack aimed specifically at senior executives or high-ranking personnel.

This scenario exhibits all whaling characteristics: personalization, impersonation of leadership, business-themed content, and tailored malware delivery.

Option D is correct.

Option A involves copying legitimate emails, but does not necessarily target executives.

Option B lacks targeting.

Option C is unrelated to email-based attacks.

CEH stresses executive awareness training to counter whaling attacks.

The behavior described most closely matches an Eclipse attack. In an eclipse attack, an adversary isolates a victim node by controlling its peer connections so that the node communicates only with attacker-controlled (or attacker-influenced) peers. Once isolated, the attacker can feed the victim a manipulated view of the blockchain—such as withholding blocks, delaying transactions, or presenting an alternative chain history. This can enable downstream impacts like double-spending against merchants who rely on that node’s view for confirmation.

The scenario’s strongest indicators are:

The node “received blocks only from a small, fixed set of peers for several hours,” suggesting abnormal peer diversity and potential isolation.

The attacker “controlled which peers that node communicated with,” which is essentially the definition of eclipsing a node.

The node “accepted a conflicting history” and the attacker supplied “a private chain until they were ready to reveal it,” consistent with feeding the victim a tailored chain view and then releasing/realigning it to profit from reversed payments.

Why the other options are less fitting:

A Finney attack (A) involves a miner pre-mining a block containing a spend, making a payment to a merchant, and then releasing the pre-mined block to invalidate the merchant’s transaction—this doesn’t require isolating a specific node’s peers for hours.

A DeFi sandwich attack (B) is a mempool/MEV tactic on decentralized exchanges involving front-running and back-running, unrelated to isolating node peer connections or feeding a private chain.

A 51% attack (C) involves controlling a majority of network hash power/stake to rewrite history at network scale. The scenario emphasizes isolation of a particular merchant-related node via peer control rather than majority network control.

Therefore, the attack is best identified as D. Eclipse Attack.

The command that best matches Bob’s goal is ntpq -p. In CEH-aligned coverage of network services and operational troubleshooting, NTP is highlighted as a critical dependency because inaccurate time can break authentication, distort logs, and cause incorrect transaction ordering. When investigating suspected time drift, the most useful first step is to view the active NTP associations and their quality metrics. The ntpq utility queries an NTP daemon and reports peer status and performance data. Specifically, ntpq -p displays a peer table that includes each configured or discovered time source along with fields such as delay, offset, and jitter. These values help determine whether the server is locked to a stable source or being influenced by a poor or rogue time server. Offset indicates how far the local clock differs from the peer, delay reflects network latency to the peer, and jitter shows the variability in timing measurements, all of which are directly mentioned in the question.

Option A, ntptrace, is used to trace the chain of NTP servers back to a reference clock and is useful for understanding hierarchy, but it does not provide the detailed delay, offset, and jitter peer metrics in the same way. Option C, ntpdc, is an older monitoring tool that can query NTP, but CEH references more commonly emphasize ntpq for peer statistics and associations. Option D is a generic ntpq invocation with interactive command support, but the -p option is the explicit mode that outputs the peer list with the required metrics.

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 is the correct choice because it is the core standard that defines the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an Information Security Management System (ISMS). In CEH-aligned governance and security management concepts, an ISMS is the overarching management framework that ensures information security is handled systematically through policy, defined roles, risk-driven planning, implementation of controls, monitoring, internal audits, and continual improvement. ISO/IEC 27001 is the “structure” standard—meaning it specifies what an organization must do to run an information security program end-to-end and is the primary standard against which organizations can be formally certified.

The other standards are supporting standards rather than the overarching framework. ISO/IEC 27002:2022 provides guidance and best practices for information security controls (the “control catalog” and implementation guidance), but it does not define ISMS requirements. ISO/IEC 27005:2022 focuses on information security risk management—how to identify, analyze, evaluate, and treat risks—supporting the risk-based approach used by an ISMS, but it is not the ISMS framework itself. ISO/IEC 27701:2019 extends ISO/IEC 27001 and 27002 for privacy information management (PIMS), helping organizations manage personally identifiable information, but it is an extension, not the foundational ISMS standard.

Therefore, when asked for the standard that defines the overarching structure for managing information security across the organization, CEH governance principles align with selecting ISO/IEC 27001:2022.

Passive reconnaissance focuses on collecting intelligence without interacting with the target ' s systems. CEH materials emphasize reviewing publicly available information, including leaked documents, breach data, reports, or exposed metadata, as this yields internal network structure details while generating no detectable traffic. This method avoids triggering monitoring systems and aligns with stealth requirements for covert intelligence gathering.

The correct answer is D. IPsec (Internet Protocol Security). The question specifically asks for a Layer 3 protocol that can provide end-to-end encryption for FTP traffic. IPsec operates at the Network Layer (Layer 3) of the OSI model and secures IP communications by providing confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and anti-replay protection.

Since standard FTP transmits usernames, passwords, and data in plaintext, it is vulnerable to packet sniffing and man-in-the-middle attacks. By implementing IPsec, all IP packets exchanged between the client and server can be encrypted regardless of the application being used. This means FTP traffic can be protected without modifying the FTP application itself.

Option A (FTPS) uses SSL/TLS to secure FTP but operates at higher layers. Option B (SFTP) is a secure file transfer protocol that runs over SSH and is considered an application-layer solution rather than a Layer 3 protocol. Option C (SSL) provides transport/session-layer encryption and is not a Layer 3 protocol.

CEH Exam Tip:

IPsec = Layer 3 (Network Layer) Encryption

SSL/TLS = Higher-layer Encryption

SFTP = SSH-based Secure File Transfer

FTPS = FTP over SSL/TLS

Therefore, the best answer is D. IPsec.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From CEH v13 Guide Topics:

The correct answer is D. Multipartite Virus. A multipartite virus is a sophisticated type of malware that infects multiple parts of a computer system simultaneously, most commonly the boot sector and executable files. Because it attacks more than one target, it can spread rapidly and is often more difficult to remove than single-vector viruses. Even if infected executable files are cleaned, the virus may remain active in the boot sector and reinfect the system during startup. Likewise, cleaning only the boot sector may leave infected files that can later reinfect the boot area.

Option A (Stealth Virus) is designed to hide its presence by manipulating operating system functions and returning false information to security tools. Option B (Polymorphic Virus) changes its code or signature each time it infects a system to evade detection by antivirus software. Option C (Macro Virus) primarily infects documents and applications that support macro languages, such as Microsoft Office files.

From a CEH malware analysis perspective, malware is often classified by its infection method, propagation technique, and concealment strategy. The defining characteristic of a multipartite virus is its ability to infect both the boot sector and executable files simultaneously, making D the correct answer.

Outdated encryption protocols such as SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 contain numerous cryptographic weaknesses, making them susceptible to downgrade attacks, cipher-suite vulnerabilities, and interception. CEH explains that weak SSL/TLS configurations expose encrypted traffic to man-in-the-middle attacks because attackers can exploit vulnerabilities such as BEAST, POODLE, or weak ciphers to decrypt or manipulate data in transit. These flaws compromise confidentiality and integrity, allowing attackers to observe login credentials, session identifiers, or sensitive information. XSS and SQL injection exploit entirely different web vulnerabilities unrelated to encryption strength. Brute-forcing SSL handshakes is computationally infeasible and not relevant. Therefore, a MitM attack targeting the outdated protocol is the most effective exploitation method.

An HTTP flood is an application-layer (Layer 7) DoS/DDoS technique that targets web application resources by sending large volumes of seemingly valid HTTP GET/POST requests. Because the traffic can look “legitimate” at the protocol level, controls that primarily focus on network/transport characteristics (such as basic firewalls) are often insufficient. The tool described in the scenario is explicitly inspecting and filtering malicious HTTP traffic while allowing legitimate customer requests—that behavior aligns most directly with a Web Application Firewall (WAF).

A WAF is designed to protect web applications by analyzing HTTP/S requests and responses, applying security rules that detect and block abnormal or malicious patterns. In an HTTP flood scenario, a WAF can enforce rate limiting, detect request anomalies (e.g., repeated requests to resource-intensive endpoints like checkout), identify bot-like behavior, and apply signatures/behavioral policies to mitigate attacks while continuing to permit valid users. The key clue is the focus on HTTP-level inspection and filtering to maintain service continuity—a classic WAF use case during Layer 7 attacks.

Why the other options are less suitable:

A Load Balancer (A) improves availability by distributing traffic across servers, but it does not inherently inspect and filter malicious HTTP requests. It can help absorb load, yet it’s not primarily a security inspection/filtering control.

An Intrusion Prevention System (C) can block malicious activity, but many IPS deployments are stronger at network/transport-layer patterns and may not provide the same depth of application-aware HTTP policy enforcement as a WAF for targeted web endpoints.

A traditional Firewall (D) mainly filters by IP/port/protocol and cannot reliably distinguish malicious vs legitimate HTTP GET/POST floods when they use allowed ports (80/443).

The capability described is Kubernetes self-healing, a core behavior emphasized in CEH cloud and container security coverage when discussing resilience, availability, and fault tolerance in containerized environments. Self-healing means Kubernetes continuously monitors the desired state of workloads and automatically acts when the current state deviates due to failures. If a node crashes, a container exits unexpectedly, or a pod becomes unhealthy, Kubernetes responds by restarting containers, recreating pods, and rescheduling workloads onto healthy nodes to maintain service continuity. This directly matches the scenario where containers are “automatically replaced and rescheduled” from failed nodes to keep payment services highly available.

While several Kubernetes components participate in achieving this outcome, the feature name most aligned with the described behavior is self-healing. Kubernetes uses controllers and the scheduler to implement it: deployments and replica sets ensure the correct number of pod replicas exist; liveness and readiness probes detect unhealthy containers; and when nodes become NotReady, pods are evicted and recreated elsewhere. This is exactly how Kubernetes supports uninterrupted operations for critical applications such as payment processing platforms.

Option B, kube-controller-manager, is a control-plane component that runs multiple controllers, and it contributes to enforcing desired state, but the question asks for the feature capability rather than the specific internal process that provides it. Option C, container orchestration, is broader and includes deployment, scaling, and management, but it is less precise than self-healing for the specific behavior of automatic replacement and rescheduling after failures. Option A is unrelated to availability behavior.

The correct answer is B. TCP. Sequence and acknowledgment numbers are key features of the Transmission Control Protocol. In CEH networking and session hijacking concepts, TCP is a connection-oriented protocol that establishes communication using the three-way handshake: SYN, SYN/ACK, and ACK. TCP uses sequence numbers to track byte order and acknowledgment numbers to confirm receipt of data. CEH-aligned references explain that TCP session hijacking depends on tracking session traffic, predicting sequence numbers, desynchronizing the connection, and injecting packets that appear valid to the target system. TCP is therefore the protocol associated with attacks involving manipulation of sequence and acknowledgment values. ICMP is mainly used for control and diagnostic messaging, such as ping and error reporting. UDP is connectionless and does not maintain TCP-style sequence and acknowledgment numbers. IP provides addressing and routing, but it does not manage reliable sessions or acknowledgments. Because the question specifically mentions manipulating sequence and acknowledgment numbers during a MITM/session hijacking scenario, TCP is the best answer.

CEH’s Malware Analysis module outlines a structured approach:

Identify suspicious indicators (e.g., JavaScript, OpenAction)

Extract and analyze embedded objects

Determine behavior and exploit logic

PDFStreamDumper allows analysts to extract JavaScript code and embedded objects for detailed inspection.

Option B is correct.

Option A is useful but insufficient for deep analysis.

Option C only aids identification, not behavior understanding.

CEH v13 classifies state-sponsored hackers as highly skilled professionals who operate under government direction to conduct espionage, intelligence gathering, sabotage, or cyber warfare. These attackers often target foreign governments, critical infrastructure, and strategic industries.

The defining characteristics are:

Government backing

National or geopolitical objectives

Advanced resources and long-term campaigns

Options B, C, and D do not fit. Organized hackers are typically financially motivated cybercriminal groups. Gray hats operate without authorization but not for national interests. Hacktivists pursue ideological or political causes independently.

CEH v13 explicitly associates covert intelligence operations with state-sponsored actors, making Option A correct.

CEH documentation explains that WPA-TKIP was a transitional security protocol and does not use AES encryption, relying instead on RC4-based mechanisms.

The lack of AES-based encryption makes WPA-TKIP vulnerable to injection and replay attacks.

Option C is correct.

Options A applies to WEP.

Option B affects authentication, not TKIP weakness.

Option D is not the primary TKIP flaw.

CEH recommends WPA2/WPA3 with AES.

The correct answer is A. Passive attack because the activity described involves monitoring and capturing information without altering data, system resources, or communications. In CEH-aligned information security concepts, passive attacks are defined by the attacker’s goal of eavesdropping— observing traffic to collect intelligence such as usernames/passwords, session identifiers, network patterns, or sensitive content—while making minimal changes that would trigger detection. The scenario explicitly states that the actor is “silently capturing clear-text credentials” and “analyzing unencrypted traffic,” and that “no modifications have been made to the data.” These are signature indicators of passive attacks such as packet sniffing and traffic analysis.

On an internal Wi-Fi network, passive attacks are particularly effective when encryption is weak or absent, or when users access services that transmit credentials in clear text. An attacker can capture packets and reconstruct sensitive information, especially where legacy protocols or misconfigurations exist. Because passive attackers do not need to inject or modify packets, they often avoid generating anomalies such as retransmissions, spoofed responses, or unexpected routing changes—helping them remain undetected, consistent with the prompt.

Why the other options do not fit: Distribution attack is not the standard classification for this behavior and does not specifically describe silent observation of traffic. Close-in attack refers to attacks that depend on physical proximity (e.g., shoulder surfing, physical tapping, local interception near the target). While Wi-Fi sniffing can require proximity, the defining characteristic in the question is the non-invasive observation with no data modification—i.e., passive attack. Insider attack relates to the attacker’s identity/role (a trusted internal person), which is not established here; the scenario only describes behavior, not who the actor is.

Therefore, the described credential capture and traffic analysis without modification most clearly indicates a passive attack.

The correct answer is D. A hash algorithm is used to verify data integrity, which means confirming that information has not been changed after approval or transmission. Once the CFO approves the financial statements, a hash value can be generated for the document using algorithms such as SHA-256. Later, the accountant can calculate the hash again and compare it with the original hash. If both hash values match, the document has not been modified. If even one character, number, or byte changes, the resulting hash will be different.

Option A only controls the delivery medium and does not prove the file was unchanged. Option B provides password protection, which relates more to access control or confidentiality, not strong integrity verification. Option C gives redundancy, but both copies could still be altered or mishandled.

In CEH cryptography concepts, hashing is specifically associated with integrity verification, while encryption protects confidentiality and digital signatures provide integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. Therefore, using a hash algorithm is the most suitable answer.