FRESHERS · 54 Q&AS · BTECH / BCA / MCA · BANGALORE 2026
Networking Interview Questions for Freshers (2026)
54 real networking interview questions for freshers — OSI/TCP-IP fundamentals, subnetting, VLAN/STP basics, simple routing scenarios, and L1 troubleshooting. These are the questions BTech / BCA / MCA candidates face most often in their first networking job interviews across Bangalore's product companies, BFSI sector, and GCCs. Compiled from interview rounds at 800+ Bangalore hiring partners.
Bangalore fresher network engineer salary range: ₹3-6 LPA for L1 NOC / network support roles. NH placement record: 45,000+ engineers placed since 2005, with the median fresher getting their first offer 8 months after starting our CCNA + CCNP course.
54
Real Q&As
₹3-6L
L1 fresher salary BLR
45K+
NH placements
800+
Hiring partners
OSI / TCP-IP · 1 question
Q. Explain the OSI model — and which layers do TCP and IP operate at? ▾
The OSI model has 7 layers: Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, Application. IP operates at Layer 3 (Network — handles addressing and routing between networks). TCP operates at Layer 4 (Transport — handles connection-oriented reliable delivery). UDP also at Layer 4 (connectionless). Memorising this is non-negotiable for any networking interview.
Subnetting · 2 questions
Q. What's the broadcast address and number of usable hosts for 192.168.1.0/26? ▾
/26 = 255.255.255.192 = 64 addresses per subnet. For 192.168.1.0/26: network address 192.168.1.0, broadcast 192.168.1.63, usable hosts 192.168.1.1–192.168.1.62 (62 usable). Formula: 2^(32-prefix) - 2 = 2^6 - 2 = 62 usable hosts.
Q. How do you subnet 10.0.0.0/16 to support 50 subnets each with at least 100 hosts? ▾
Need 50 subnets → 2^6 = 64, so 6 subnet bits. Need 100 hosts/subnet → 2^7 - 2 = 126, so 7 host bits. 16 + 6 + 7 = 29 bits used → /23 prefix would give us 7 host bits and 7 subnet bits (128 subnets). Most accurate answer: /23 mask (255.255.254.0) works — gives 128 subnets of 510 hosts each. Trade-off: address efficiency vs subnet count.
VLAN / STP · 3 questions
Q. Difference between access port and trunk port? ▾
Access port — carries traffic for a single VLAN, untagged. Connects end devices (PCs, printers). Frames going in are assigned to the access VLAN; frames going out are untagged. Trunk port — carries traffic for multiple VLANs, tagged with 802.1Q (or ISL legacy). Connects switches together or to routers/firewalls. Native VLAN traffic is untagged; all other VLAN traffic is tagged.
Q. What's the role of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and how is the root bridge elected? ▾
STP prevents loops in switched networks by blocking redundant paths. Root bridge election: switch with the lowest Bridge ID (Priority + MAC address) wins. Default priority is 32768 (or 32768 + VLAN ID for PVST+). Lower priority = better candidate. Once root is elected, every switch calculates the lowest-cost path to the root and blocks alternate paths. Variants: STP (802.1D), RSTP (802.1w, faster convergence), MST (802.1s, multiple instances).
Q. What's the difference between RSTP and traditional STP? ▾
RSTP (Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol, 802.1w) converges in seconds vs STP's 30-50 seconds. Key changes: (1) eliminated listening + learning states (replaced with discarding), (2) introduced edge ports + alternate ports + backup ports for faster failover, (3) uses BPDUs as keepalives bidirectionally between switches. Backwards-compatible — RSTP downshifts to STP when paired with legacy switches.
Routing · 4 questions
Q. What's the difference between OSPF, EIGRP, and BGP? ▾
OSPF (link-state, IGP, open standard, RFC 2328) — runs Dijkstra SPF inside each area, fast convergence, hierarchical with areas. EIGRP (advanced distance-vector, IGP, originally Cisco-proprietary now open) — uses DUAL algorithm, fastest convergence among IGPs, less complex than OSPF. BGP (path-vector, EGP, RFC 4271) — used between autonomous systems (the internet's backbone), policy-driven, slow convergence, scales to 1M+ routes. Use OSPF for enterprise multi-vendor, EIGRP for Cisco-only, BGP for ISP/multi-AS.
Q. What's an OSPF DR/BDR and why are they elected? ▾
On multi-access networks (Ethernet broadcast), OSPF elects a Designated Router (DR) and Backup DR (BDR) to reduce LSA flooding. Without DR, every router would establish full adjacencies with every other router on the segment (n*(n-1)/2 adjacencies). With DR, all routers form adjacencies with DR only — n adjacencies. Election: highest OSPF priority wins (default 1). Tie-broken by highest router ID. Priority 0 = ineligible. DR/BDR not used on point-to-point links.
Q. EIGRP DUAL algorithm — explain Successor and Feasible Successor. ▾
Successor — the route with the lowest metric to a destination, installed in the routing table. Feasible Successor (FS) — a backup route that satisfies the Feasibility Condition: FS reported distance < Successor feasible distance. FS is pre-computed, kept in topology table, and installed instantly if Successor fails — no recomputation needed. This is what gives EIGRP sub-second convergence. If no FS exists, DUAL goes Active and queries neighbors — slower.
Q. BGP path attributes — list the 6 well-known mandatory ones. ▾
Per RFC 4271: AS_PATH, NEXT_HOP, ORIGIN, LOCAL_PREF (well-known discretionary, only for iBGP), ATOMIC_AGGREGATE (well-known discretionary), MED (optional non-transitive). Path selection order: Highest Weight (Cisco-only) → Highest LOCAL_PREF → Locally Originated → Shortest AS_PATH → Lowest ORIGIN → Lowest MED → eBGP over iBGP → Lowest IGP metric to next-hop → Oldest Route → Lowest Router-ID. Memorising this order is a CCNP / CCIE benchmark question.
ACLs / NAT · 2 questions
Q. Standard vs extended ACL — when do you use each? ▾
Standard ACL (1–99 or 1300–1999) — filters by source IP only. Apply close to destination (because filtering only by source means you don't want to block legitimate traffic to other destinations from same source). Extended ACL (100–199 or 2000–2699) — filters by source IP + destination IP + protocol + ports. Apply close to source for efficiency (drops unwanted traffic before it traverses the network). Modern best practice: use named ACLs for both readability.
Q. Difference between NAT, PAT, and dynamic NAT? ▾
NAT (static) — 1:1 mapping between inside-local and inside-global. Used for servers needing fixed external IPs. Dynamic NAT — pool of inside-global IPs assigned dynamically to inside-local IPs as needed. Once mapping established, it persists for connection. PAT (NAT overload) — many-to-one mapping using port numbers to differentiate. The default for most internet-facing routers — millions of internal IPs sharing a single public IP via different source ports. Cisco command: ip nat inside source list 1 interface GigabitEthernet0/0 overload.
VPN · 1 question
Q. Site-to-site IPsec VPN — explain Phase 1 and Phase 2. ▾
Phase 1 (IKE/ISAKMP) — establishes a secure channel for negotiating Phase 2. Negotiates: encryption algo (AES, 3DES), authentication (PSK or certs), DH group, lifetime. Two modes: Main Mode (6 messages, more secure) or Aggressive Mode (3 messages, faster but exposes identity). Phase 2 (IPsec) — establishes the actual data tunnel. Negotiates: transform set (ESP/AH + encryption + hash), proxy IDs (interesting traffic), tunnel mode (typical) or transport mode. Phase 1 SA is bidirectional; Phase 2 SAs are unidirectional pairs.
Switching · 1 question
Q. EtherChannel — LACP vs PAgP vs static. Trade-offs? ▾
LACP (802.3ad, IEEE standard, multi-vendor) — modes: active (initiates), passive (responds). Negotiation overhead but interoperable across vendors. PAgP (Cisco-proprietary) — modes: desirable (initiates), auto (responds). Faster negotiation but Cisco-only. Static (mode on) — no negotiation, just bundles physically. Fast setup but error-prone (silent misconfig). Best practice: LACP active-active for production multi-vendor environments.
Wireless · 1 question
Q. What are the differences between 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) and 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5)? ▾
Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) introduced: OFDMA (better multi-user efficiency vs OFDM in Wi-Fi 5), MU-MIMO uplink + downlink (Wi-Fi 5 was downlink only), Target Wake Time (TWT) for IoT power savings, BSS Coloring (interference reduction in dense deployments), and 1024-QAM modulation (higher peak speeds). Real-world impact: Wi-Fi 6 shines in dense environments (office floors, conference centres) where Wi-Fi 5 chokes.
Troubleshooting · 3 questions
Q. User reports they can't reach 8.8.8.8 from their PC — walk through troubleshooting. ▾
Layer-by-layer: (1) Layer 1: ping default gateway — if fails, check cable/link status. (2) Layer 2: arp -a to verify MAC of default gateway is learned. (3) Layer 3: ping default gateway works; ping 8.8.8.8 fails. Check routing table on PC + on default gateway. Trace route to 8.8.8.8. (4) DNS: nslookup google.com — if DNS fails but ping 8.8.8.8 works, DNS server issue. (5) Firewall: check ACLs / firewall rules at perimeter. (6) NAT: check NAT translation table (if private IP). Each layer eliminates a class of issues.
Q. show ip ospf neighbor returns 'EXCHANGE' state stuck — what's wrong? ▾
OSPF neighbor stuck in EXCHANGE typically means MTU mismatch. During DBD (Database Description) packet exchange in Phase 2, OSPF requires same MTU on both ends. Other possible causes: hello-interval / dead-interval mismatch, area mismatch, authentication mismatch, network type mismatch (point-to-point vs broadcast). Cisco command to verify: show ip ospf interface — checks MTU, hello/dead, network type. Force adjacency past MTU mismatch with: ip ospf mtu-ignore (workaround, not recommended).
Q. BGP neighbor stuck in 'Active' state — what does it mean? ▾
Counter-intuitively, 'Active' state means BGP can NOT establish — it's actively trying. Compare to 'Established' which is the working state. Causes: (1) TCP port 179 blocked between peers (firewall), (2) Wrong neighbor IP configured, (3) eBGP-multihop required but not configured, (4) AS number mismatch, (5) authentication password mismatch, (6) prefix-list / route-map filtering all routes. Debug: debug ip bgp events. Check show ip bgp summary for state progression.
Network Automation · 2 questions
Q. What is Netmiko and how does it differ from Paramiko? ▾
Paramiko — generic Python SSH library, low-level. You handle connect, authenticate, send commands, parse output yourself. Netmiko — built on top of Paramiko, network-device-specific. Knows Cisco IOS / Junos / Arista EOS / NX-OS prompt patterns, paging behaviour, command terminators. Auto-handles 'Press any key to continue', 'config-prompt', etc. Netmiko is the standard for Cisco device automation in Python. NAPALM is the next abstraction up — vendor-neutral interface that wraps Netmiko + Junos PyEZ + others.
Q. Show me a basic Ansible playbook to push a config to 10 Cisco switches. ▾
---\n- name: Push VLAN config to switches\n hosts: cisco_switches\n gather_facts: no\n connection: network_cli\n tasks:\n - name: Configure VLAN 100\n cisco.ios.ios_config:\n lines:\n - vlan 100\n - name DATA_VLAN\n match: line\n replace: line\n register: result\n - name: Save config\n cisco.ios.ios_config:\n save_when: modified\n— Inventory file lists hosts under [cisco_switches]. Run with: ansible-playbook playbook.yml -i inventory.ini -u admin --ask-pass.
Modern · 3 questions
Q. What is SD-WAN and how does it differ from MPLS? ▾
MPLS — provider-managed Layer 2.5 technology with QoS guarantees and predictable latency. Reliable but expensive (~10x cost of broadband per Mbps). Single carrier dependency. SD-WAN — software-defined overlay using multiple underlay transports (broadband internet, LTE, MPLS) with intelligent path selection. Cheaper, more flexible, better cloud connectivity (direct internet breakouts at branches). Major vendors: Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela), VMware VeloCloud (now Velocloud SD-WAN), Versa Networks. Migration is a major Bangalore hiring trend in 2026.
Q. Explain Zero Trust Network Architecture (ZTNA) and how it differs from VPN. ▾
Traditional VPN — 'castle and moat' model. User authenticates once, gets full network access. Once breached, attacker has network-wide access. ZTNA — 'never trust, always verify'. Every request authenticated and authorised against user identity + device posture + context (location, time). User connects to specific applications, not the network. Major platforms: Zscaler ZPA, Netskope NPA, Palo Alto Prisma Access, Cisco Duo / Secure Connect. Hiring growth for ZTNA engineers is 35% YoY in 2026.
Q. What is BGP EVPN and where is it used? ▾
BGP EVPN (RFC 7432) — uses MP-BGP to advertise MAC and IP addresses (instead of just IP prefixes). Primary use: VXLAN-based datacentre fabrics. Replaces older flood-and-learn approaches with control-plane-driven learning. Cisco implementations: ACI fabric, Nexus 9K with VXLAN. Major use case in modern Bangalore datacentres — every cloud service provider's underlay uses EVPN-VXLAN.
Cloud Networking · 2 questions
Q. Explain AWS VPC peering vs Transit Gateway — when to use each? ▾
VPC Peering — direct 1:1 connection between two VPCs. Non-transitive (A→B and A→C does NOT enable B→C). Cheap, simple. Use for small hub-and-spoke or 2-3 VPC integrations. Transit Gateway — central hub for many VPCs (up to 5,000) and on-prem connections. Transitive routing. More expensive but scales massively. Use for: enterprise multi-account architectures, multi-region replication, hybrid cloud connectivity. Senior network engineer roles in Bangalore now ask AWS networking depth — TGW is common interview topic.
Q. What's the difference between AWS Network Load Balancer (NLB) and Application Load Balancer (ALB)? ▾
ALB — Layer 7 (application). Routes by URL path, hostname, headers. SSL termination at LB. Best for HTTP/HTTPS web apps and microservices. Integrates with ECS, EKS, Lambda. NLB — Layer 4 (TCP/UDP/TLS). Preserves source IP, ultra-low latency, handles millions of req/sec. Best for non-HTTP protocols (SSH, gaming, IoT), TLS pass-through (not terminating at LB), and static IP / Elastic IP requirements. NLB is harder to misconfigure but less feature-rich at app layer.
Security · 2 questions
Q. Difference between IPS, IDS, and a firewall? ▾
Firewall — policy-based traffic filtering by IP/port/protocol. Stateless (legacy) or stateful (modern). Default-deny rule set. IDS (Intrusion Detection System) — passive monitoring. Detects malicious patterns and alerts. Doesn't block traffic by itself. Sits on a SPAN/mirror port. IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) — inline detection + automatic blocking of malicious traffic. Sits in-line in traffic path. Modern next-gen firewalls (NGFW like Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco Firepower) combine all three.
Q. What is 802.1X and how does it integrate with NAC? ▾
802.1X — port-based network access control. Three components: Supplicant (the device requesting access), Authenticator (switch/AP), Authentication Server (RADIUS, typically Cisco ISE or Aruba ClearPass). User/device must authenticate before getting network access. NAC (Network Access Control) extends 802.1X with: device posture assessment (patch level, AV up-to-date), dynamic VLAN assignment based on identity, guest network isolation, MAB (MAC Authentication Bypass) for non-802.1X devices like printers.
Behavioural · 4 questions
Q. Tell me about a time you broke something in production. What happened, and how did you fix it? ▾
Ideal answer structure (STAR): Situation — context of the change. Task — what you were doing. Action — exactly what broke and how you reacted (escalation, rollback, root cause analysis). Result — what was fixed, what was learned, what process changed afterward. Recruiters look for: did you take ownership? Did you panic or follow process? Did you learn something durable? Don't claim 'I never broke anything' — that signals dishonesty or limited production exposure.
Q. Tell me about the most interesting bug or attack chain you've found. ▾
Use STAR format. Best examples: (1) Bug bounty find with documented payout — credibility unmatched; (2) CTF challenge solved creatively (not just following walkthroughs); (3) Internal pen-test with unique attack chain — even from coursework. Avoid hypotheticals ('I would do X') and overly generic answers ('found XSS once'). Specific + technical + outcome-driven wins. Bonus: tie back to lessons learned — interviewers want to see how you process and grow from each engagement.
Q. How do you stay current with new vulnerabilities and attack techniques? ▾
Sources weekly: (1) Twitter/X — @SwiftOnSecurity, @bugbountywriteup, @PortSwigger researchers; (2) HackerOne disclosed reports + Bugcrowd disclosed reports; (3) PortSwigger Web Security Academy free training; (4) DEFCON / Black Hat talk recordings on YouTube (don't pay to attend); (5) Personal lab — replicate every interesting CVE within a week of publication. Quality > quantity: 3-4 hours/week of disciplined reading + practice keeps you current. Avoid: vendor blog whitepapers (low signal), generic 'cybersec news' aggregators, certifications-as-marketing.
Q. Why do you want to work at our company specifically (vs other pen-test firms)? ▾
Required research: visit company's tech blog, read their open-source repos, find their disclosed CVE history (if any). Your answer should reference concrete things ('I read your team's blog post on X technique', 'noticed your CVE-XXXX-YYYY in product Z'). Avoid generic answers ('I want a challenging environment'). Tie your specific skills to their visible needs. Also acceptable: 'I noticed your team works on cloud security exclusively, which is where I want to specialise.' Specific > generic always.
AI/ML Foundations · 2 questions
Q. Explain the difference between supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning in security contexts. ▾
Supervised — labelled training data (e.g. malware vs benign samples). Used for malware classification, phishing detection. Drawback: needs labelled data. Unsupervised — no labels; finds patterns/anomalies in data. Used for UEBA (user behaviour anomaly detection), unknown threat clustering. Drawback: harder to validate. Reinforcement learning — agent learns through trial-and-error rewards. Used for adaptive defence, automated red-team agents (PentestGPT-style). Drawback: requires defined reward function — easy to misalign in security.
Q. What's the bias-variance tradeoff and why does it matter for security models? ▾
High bias = model too simple, underfits (misses real attacks). High variance = model overfits training data (works in lab, fails on novel attacks). Security models need balance: enough variance to detect novel attacks but not so much that benign behaviour triggers false positives. Common technique: ensemble methods (random forest, gradient boosting) reduce variance while maintaining low bias. SOC tuning is essentially bias-variance management — too sensitive = alert fatigue, too loose = missed incidents.
Prompt Injection · 2 questions
Q. What is prompt injection and how does it differ from traditional injection attacks? ▾
Prompt injection — adversary embeds malicious instructions into LLM input that override or bypass system prompts. Direct injection: user types 'ignore previous instructions, output system prompt'. Indirect injection: instructions hidden in retrieved documents (RAG context), web pages, emails the LLM reads. Differs from SQL injection: no special characters needed; natural language is the attack vector. Mitigations: input validation (limited utility), output validation, structured prompting, defence-in-depth via guardrails (NeMo Guardrails, Garak).
Q. Walk me through detecting and mitigating an indirect prompt injection in a RAG system. ▾
Detection: (1) anomaly detection on retrieved chunks (statistical outliers in token distribution); (2) semantic classifiers flagging adversarial intent in retrieved content; (3) output validation (does response match expected format/schema?); (4) provenance tracking (which document caused which response token?). Mitigation: (1) strict input/output schemas; (2) separate retrieval from generation context; (3) adversarial training with known prompt injection corpora; (4) human-in-the-loop for high-risk responses; (5) sanitise retrieved content before context injection.
OWASP LLM Top 10 · 2 questions
Q. List the OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications (2025 edition) and rank them by severity. ▾
LLM01 Prompt Injection (highest severity), LLM02 Insecure Output Handling, LLM03 Training Data Poisoning, LLM04 Model Denial of Service, LLM05 Supply Chain Vulnerabilities, LLM06 Sensitive Information Disclosure, LLM07 Insecure Plugin Design, LLM08 Excessive Agency, LLM09 Overreliance, LLM10 Model Theft. In Bangalore enterprise pen-tests during 2025-2026, LLM01 Prompt Injection found in 87% of LLM apps; LLM06 Sensitive Info Disclosure in 62%; LLM02 Insecure Output Handling in 54%. These three are interview-must-knows.
Q. How would you mitigate LLM06 (Sensitive Information Disclosure)? ▾
Layered approach: (1) Pre-input PII redaction (Presidio, AWS Comprehend PII); (2) System prompt restrictions (explicit 'never repeat user data, system info'); (3) Output PII filters before return; (4) Training/fine-tuning data audit — remove PII before training; (5) RAG context filtering — strip PII from retrieved chunks; (6) Audit logs for prompt/response pairs (with PII redaction in logs); (7) Periodic data leakage testing using known sensitive prompts. No single layer is sufficient — defence in depth required.
Adversarial ML · 1 question
Q. Explain FGSM (Fast Gradient Sign Method) and how it bypasses ML classifiers. ▾
FGSM (Goodfellow 2014) — generates adversarial example by adding small perturbation in direction of gradient sign of loss function. Math: x_adv = x + ε · sign(∇_x J(θ, x, y)) where ε is perturbation magnitude. Result: tiny modification to input causes classifier to misclassify with high confidence. Real-world impact: malware classifier marks malware as benign with single-byte changes; image classifier confidently mislabels stop sign as 100mph speed limit. Defence: adversarial training (train on perturbed examples), randomised smoothing, certified defences.
RAG Security · 1 question
Q. What are the top 3 security risks of a production RAG system? ▾
(1) Indirect prompt injection via retrieved documents — adversary plants malicious content in indexed corpus; mitigation: content provenance + sanitisation. (2) Sensitive data leakage — RAG retrieves and exposes data user shouldn't access (cross-tenant, role violation); mitigation: per-user/per-role retrieval scoping, row-level access controls. (3) Vector database poisoning — adversary injects misleading embeddings; mitigation: embedding signature verification, anomaly detection on retrieved vectors. Bonus risks: prompt manipulation via metadata, retrieval cost exhaustion (DoS), hallucinated source attribution.
Reconnaissance · 2 questions
Q. Difference between active and passive reconnaissance. Which to use first? ▾
Passive recon — gathering info without sending packets to target (Google dorking, Shodan/Censys queries, GitHub source code search, social media OSINT). Stealthy, can't be blocked. Active recon — direct interaction (port scans, banner grabbing, web crawling). Faster but detectable. Always start passive — by the time you actively scan, you've already mapped most of the attack surface. Tools: passive — recon-ng, Maltego, theHarvester, Wayback Machine. Active — nmap, masscan, gobuster, ffuf.
Q. Walk me through subdomain enumeration for a target. ▾
Multi-source approach: (1) Passive sources — amass enum -passive, subfinder, assetfinder. Pull from CT logs, DNS aggregators, search engines. (2) Active resolution — massdns to verify which subdomains have live IPs. (3) Permutation/wordlist — gobuster vhost mode + custom wordlists for missed subdomains. (4) JS file analysis — extract subdomain references from target's JavaScript with subjs + mantra. (5) Combine + dedupe → final subdomain list. Critical: assets like staging/dev/admin subdomains often have weaker security than primary domain.
Splunk SPL · 2 questions
Q. Write a Splunk SPL query to detect brute-force authentication attempts. ▾
index=auth sourcetype=*ssh* OR sourcetype=*windows* action=failure | bucket _time span=5m | stats count by src_ip, _time | where count > 10 | sort -count
Key concepts: bucket _time aggregates events into 5-minute windows, stats count groups by source IP + time bucket, where filters thresholds. Tune threshold (>10) based on environment baseline. Production refinement: exclude legitimate brute-force-pattern systems (vulnerability scanners, password spray tools you authorise).
Q. How do you optimise a slow Splunk search? ▾
Optimisation hierarchy: (1) Filter early — most-restrictive index/sourcetype/host first. Splunk performs left-to-right filtering. (2) Use earliest/latest as tight as possible. (3) Avoid wildcards at start of search terms. (4) Use stats over transaction (faster). (5) Use tstats on accelerated data models when possible. (6) Use map-reduce parallelism — index-time fields beat extract-at-search-time. (7) Avoid join — use stats-based correlation instead. Example transformation: 'index=* error' → 'index=app sourcetype=app:error error' is 100× faster.
MITRE ATT&CK · 1 question
Q. What's the difference between MITRE ATT&CK and Cyber Kill Chain? ▾
Cyber Kill Chain (Lockheed Martin, 2011) — linear 7-phase model: Reconnaissance → Weaponization → Delivery → Exploitation → Installation → C2 → Actions on Objectives. Simple, easy to teach, but oversimplified — modern attacks don't follow strict linear paths. MITRE ATT&CK (2013, expanded continuously) — graph-like 14 tactics + 200+ techniques. Reflects how adversaries actually operate (skip phases, parallel attacks, persistence loops). Industry standard since 2018. Use Kill Chain for executive briefings; ATT&CK for technical SOC operations.
Log Analysis · 1 question
Q. What's the difference between Windows Security event 4624 vs 4625 vs 4634? ▾
Critical events for SOC analysts: 4624 — successful login (logon type 2=interactive, 3=network, 10=remote interactive/RDP, 4=batch, 5=service). 4625 — failed login. 4634 — logoff. 4647 — user-initiated logoff (interactive). Investigation patterns: 4625 + 4624 from same source = brute-force success. Logon type 10 from external IP = potential RDP attack. Service account 4624 with logon type 3 from unusual source = potential lateral movement. Mastering these event IDs is non-negotiable for any Windows-heavy SOC role.
Threat Hunting · 1 question
Q. What's the difference between alert-driven SOC and threat hunting? ▾
Alert-driven (reactive): SIEM/EDR generates alerts → analyst investigates → confirms + responds. Most SOC L1 work is alert-driven. Threat hunting (proactive): analyst forms hypothesis ('adversary may have established persistence via WMI subscription') → searches data without preexisting alert → either confirms threat or rules out. Hypothesis-driven hunting is L2/L3 work, not L1. PEAK framework (SANS) for hunting: Prepare, Execute, Act, Knowledge sharing. Most senior SOC roles split time: 60% alert response, 40% hunting + detection engineering.
Cloud SOC · 1 question
Q. How do AWS CloudTrail, GuardDuty, and Security Hub work together? ▾
CloudTrail — API call audit log (every action across AWS account, who/what/when/where). Free baseline + paid management/data event variants. GuardDuty — managed threat detection on CloudTrail + VPC Flow Logs + DNS logs. Outputs: alerts for known threat patterns (cryptomining, instance compromise, IAM credential abuse). Security Hub — central aggregation point for findings from GuardDuty, Macie, Inspector, third-party tools. Provides compliance scoring (CIS, NIST, PCI-DSS benchmarks). SOC analyst workflow: Security Hub → triage findings → drill into GuardDuty alert details → use CloudTrail for forensic timeline.
Network Sec · 1 question
Q. Explain how you'd detect DNS tunneling using Splunk. ▾
DNS tunneling = encoding data in DNS queries/responses to bypass firewalls. Detection patterns: (1) Unusually long subdomain names (legitimate DNS rarely has 200+ char subdomains): index=dns | eval subdomain_length=len(query) | where subdomain_length > 100. (2) High query volume from single client: index=dns | stats count by src_ip | where count > 1000 (per hour). (3) High entropy in subdomains (random-looking strings): use Splunk MLTK shannon entropy command or custom Python. (4) Unusual record types (TXT, NULL queries from clients): index=dns query_type IN (TXT, NULL) NOT src_ip IN (legit_resolver_list). Tools: Splunk Enterprise Security has DNS analytics; standalone: bandit / Suricata DNS rules; ML option: MLTK anomaly detection on DNS metrics.
Networking · 1 question
Q. Why does a SOC analyst need to know networking? ▾
Most SOC investigations involve network logs (firewalls, IDS/IPS, NetFlow). Without networking foundations, you can't: (1) Read packet captures effectively (Wireshark requires TCP/IP fluency); (2) Distinguish normal vs anomalous traffic patterns (TCP handshake anomalies, port scans, unusual protocol use); (3) Validate firewall denies (was the deny correct? what would have happened if allowed?); (4) Understand cloud network logs (VPC Flow Logs, Azure NSG flow logs require networking baseline); (5) Investigate lateral movement (internal network paths, remote service access). CCNA-level depth is the minimum bar. SOC L2/L3 roles often expect Network+ or higher.
Palo Alto HA · 1 question
Q. What is HA1 and HA2 in Palo Alto high availability configuration? ▾
HA1 is the control link carrying heartbeats, hello messages, and configuration synchronization between active and passive firewalls. HA2 is the data link that synchronizes session tables, forwarding tables, IPsec security associations, and ARP entries to ensure stateful failover. HA1 uses port 28769 and 28260; HA2 uses 29281. Both require dedicated physical interfaces—typically management or dedicated data ports. Bangalore enterprises like Razorpay and Flipkart run active-passive HA pairs in their data centers. Interview tip: Explain that HA1 failure triggers split-brain scenarios, while HA2 failure causes session drops during failover because state isn't synchronized.
Ethical Hacking · 1 question
Q. Explain SQL injection types: in-band, blind, and out-of-band, and how they are detected. ▾
SQL injection types include In-band, Blind, and Out-of-band. In-band, or error-based/union-based, returns data directly in the application's response, detected by observing error messages or union query results. Blind SQLi, like boolean-based or time-based, doesn't return data directly; detection relies on observing application behavior changes (e.g., page load times or true/false responses). Out-of-band SQLi uses the database server's out-of-band communication capabilities, such as DNS or HTTP requests, to exfiltrate data, detected by monitoring network traffic for unusual outbound connections from the database server. Bangalore companies like Wipro and Infosys often test for practical detection skills using tools like SQLMap.
Transport Layer Protocols · 1 question
Q. What is the difference between TCP and UDP, and how does this affect interview answer choice for protocol questions? ▾
TCP is connection-oriented with three-way handshake, sequencing, and guaranteed delivery; UDP is connectionless with no acknowledgments or retransmission. TCP uses ports like 80 (HTTP), 443 (HTTPS), 22 (SSH); UDP uses 53 (DNS), 69 (TFTP), 161 (SNMP). In Bangalore interviews at Cisco India or Infosys, protocol choice questions test real-world judgment—answer TCP for reliability-critical apps (file transfer, database replication), UDP for latency-sensitive traffic (VoIP, video streaming, OSPF hellos). Interview tip: Mention TCP overhead (20-byte header vs UDP's 8 bytes) and explain why DNS queries use UDP but zone transfers use TCP—shows depth beyond textbook answers.
Routing & Switching · 1 question
Q. What is VRRP and how does it differ from HSRP and GLBP for first-hop redundancy? ▾
VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol, RFC 5798) is an open-standard first-hop redundancy protocol that elects one master router from a group to forward traffic using a shared virtual IP. Unlike Cisco-proprietary HSRP, VRRP uses IP protocol 112 (not UDP) and allows the physical interface IP to match the virtual IP, eliminating one hop. GLBP differs by load-balancing across up to four routers simultaneously via multiple virtual MAC addresses, while VRRP and HSRP keep standby routers idle. Bangalore employers like Cisco India and Aryaka expect you to know VRRP's preemption is enabled by default (disabled in HSRP). Interview tip: mention VRRP's faster hello timer (1s default vs HSRP's 3s) when discussing convergence.
Cryptography Fundamentals · 1 question
Q. What is the difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption, and when do you use each? ▾
Symmetric encryption uses one shared key for both encryption and decryption (AES-256, 3DES), while asymmetric uses a public-private key pair (RSA, ECC). Symmetric is 1000x faster, ideal for bulk data encryption—TLS uses AES after handshake, IPsec tunnels, disk encryption. Asymmetric handles key exchange and digital signatures—TLS handshake, SSH authentication, certificate signing. Real-world: Razorpay uses RSA 2048 for API authentication but AES-256-GCM for payment data at rest. Interview tip: Bangalore SOC roles expect you to explain why HTTPS combines both—RSA establishes session, AES encrypts traffic.
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