Interview Questions for Security Engineer - Vulnerability Management

1. Scenario-Based Question - Critical Zero-Day

Exploit in Production
💡 Situation:
A zero-day vulnerability is discovered in one of your externally exposed web
applications. The vulnerability is actively being exploited in the wild, and your
security team is responsible for mitigation, patching, and risk communication to
leadership.

Question:

 How would you identify, analyze, and prioritize the impact of this
vulnerability?
 If a patch is not available, what compensating controls would you
implement?
 How would you automate vulnerability detection to prevent similar future
threats?

Ideal Answer:

1️⃣ Identification & Analysis

 Run Tenable/Nessus & Qualys scans to identify the affected systems.

 Use Burp Suite, OWASP ZAP, and Metasploit to validate exploitability.
 Analyze SIEM logs (Splunk, Taegis XDR, Suricata) for any indications of
compromise (IOCs).

2️⃣ Mitigation (if no patch is available)

 WAF (Web Application Firewall) rules to block malicious payloads.

 Network Segmentation to isolate the vulnerable application.
 Disable affected features or API endpoints as a temporary measure.
 Deploy Virtual Patching using ModSecurity rules or Runtime Application
Self-Protection (RASP).

3️⃣ Automating Future Detection

 Implement CI/CD pipeline security scans using Checkmarx (SAST) & Burp
Suite (DAST).
 Configure Threat Intelligence Feeds in SIEM to detect vulnerabilities early.
 Deploy AI-driven anomaly detection (Wazuh, SecureWorks Taegis) to
catch exploit attempts.

🔥 Bonus Challenge:
  How would you detect and block obfuscated payloads used to bypass
traditional WAF defenses?

1. How would you detect and block obfuscated

payloads used to bypass WAF defenses?
💡 Challenge Context:
Attackers often encode, fragment, or encrypt payloads to evade signature-based
Web Application Firewalls (WAFs). Your goal is to detect and block such
attacks before they reach applications.

Solution:

1️⃣ Detecting Obfuscated Payloads

 Enable TLS Decryption on WAF to inspect HTTPS traffic.

 Implement AI-based Anomaly Detection (e.g., AWS WAF, Cloudflare Bot
Management) to analyze behavioral patterns.
 Use YARA Rules in SIEM (Splunk, SecureWorks Taegis XDR) to detect
encoded attack patterns:

yara
CopyEdit
rule Detect_Obfuscated_SQLi {
strings:
$hex = "0x3c7374726f6e673e" // Encoded SQL Injection
$base64 = "PHNjcmlwdD4=" // Base64 encoded script tag
condition:
$hex or $base64
}

2️⃣ Blocking Advanced WAF Evasion Techniques

 Normalize Inputs: Convert requests to plain text to remove encoding tricks.

 Implement Behavioral Analysis: Detect high-frequency small requests
mimicking normal behavior.
 Deploy Machine Learning Models in SIEM to flag low-confidence but
persistent attacks.

3️⃣ Automating Threat Response

 Integrate SOAR (Splunk Phantom, Cortex XSOAR) to auto-block

suspicious requests.
 Use rate-limiting and geofencing to throttle traffic from high-risk
sources.
 Deploy Honey URLs to trap attackers who attempt to probe for weak WAF
rules.

🔥 Bonus:
  How would you detect multi-stage payload delivery, where the attacker
sends benign data first and injects malicious code later?

2. Deep Technical Question - Vulnerability

Prioritization & Risk-Based Patching
💡 Situation:
Your team has 250,000+ vulnerabilities discovered across cloud, on-prem, and
containerized environments. There are limited resources, so you must prioritize
what to patch first.

Question:

 How would you prioritize vulnerabilities across multiple environments?

 What risk-based factors should be considered beyond CVSS scores?
 How would you reduce false positives in vulnerability management tools?

Ideal Answer:

1️⃣ Prioritization Strategy

 Exploitability: Use Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS) & MITRE

ATT&CK mapping.
 Business Impact: Critical applications & customer-facing services are top
priority.
 Exposure Level: Focus on internet-facing systems & privileged accounts.
 Asset Sensitivity: Patch databases, IAM systems, and financial
applications first.

2️⃣ Risk-Based Factors Beyond CVSS

 Threat Intelligence Feeds (Recorded Future, MISP) for active exploit

tracking.
 Compensating Controls (EDR, WAF, IPS) – some vulnerabilities may not
need immediate patching.
 Dwell Time Analysis (SIEM correlation) – if an attacker has access,
patching is urgent.

3️⃣ Reducing False Positives in Vulnerability Management

 Customize scanning rules in Nessus/Tenable to exclude false positives.

 Use machine learning models (Splunk UBA, Taegis XDR) to filter out
irrelevant alerts.
 Automate contextual enrichment (e.g., matching vulnerabilities with
application code reviews).
🔥 Bonus Challenge:

 How would you calculate the residual risk of a vulnerability if patching is

delayed for 30 days?

2. How would you calculate the residual risk of a

vulnerability if patching is delayed for 30 days?
💡 Challenge Context:
Sometimes, patching is not immediately possible due to business constraints,
dependencies, or system stability concerns. You need to quantify the residual
risk of leaving a vulnerability unpatched.

Solution:

1️⃣ Risk Calculation Model

Use the DREAD Model (Damage, Reproducibility, Exploitability, Affected Users,
Discoverability) to score risk:

Score (1-
Factor Explanation
10)
Damage Can an exploit lead to data breaches or system
8
Potential takeover?
Reproducibility 7 How easy is it to recreate the exploit?
Is there active exploit code available (Metasploit,
Exploitability 9
ExploitDB)?
Affected Users 6 Does it impact all users or a subset?
Discoverability 10 Is it publicly disclosed and listed in CVE databases?

🚀 Residual Risk Score = (8 + 7 + 9 + 6 + 10) / 5 = 8.0 (High Risk).

2️⃣ Mitigation Strategies (Without Patching)

 Network Segmentation & Firewalls: Restrict access to vulnerable systems.

 WAF & IPS Rules: Block exploitation attempts.
 Threat Intelligence Feeds: Monitor for real-world attack activity related to
the vulnerability.
 Least Privilege Access: Reduce potential impact if exploited.

🔥 Bonus:

 How would you measure the risk reduction impact of compensating

controls vs. patching?
3. Cloud Security Scenario - Containerized
Application Security in Kubernetes
💡 Situation:
Your company is migrating applications to Kubernetes (EKS on AWS). Security
scans reveal multiple vulnerabilities in container images stored in JFrog Xray.
The DevOps team refuses to delay deployment.

Question:

 How would you handle the security vs. speed tradeoff in this scenario?
 What preventive security controls would you implement in Kubernetes?
 How would you secure containerized applications to reduce vulnerability
exposure?

Ideal Answer:

1️⃣ Security vs. Speed Tradeoff

 Immediate Mitigation: Implement Admission Controller Policies

(OPA/Gatekeeper) to prevent vulnerable images from deployment.
 Runtime Protection: Use Falco for real-time anomaly detection.
 Temporary Containment: Apply Pod Security Policies (PSP) to limit
container privileges.

2️⃣ Preventive Kubernetes Security Controls

 Image Scanning (Trivy, Clair, Aqua) before deployment.

 RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) to restrict who can deploy containers.
 Enable Kubernetes Network Policies to block unauthorized container-to-
container communication.

3️⃣ Securing Containerized Applications

 Runtime Security (AppArmor, SELinux) to prevent privilege escalation.

 Enable Read-Only Filesystems to limit malware persistence.
 Implement Secrets Management (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets
Manager) to protect API keys.

🔥 Bonus Challenge:

 How would you detect and block cryptojacking malware running inside a
Kubernetes cluster?

3. How would you detect and block cryptojacking

malware running inside a Kubernetes cluster?
💡 Challenge Context:
Attackers compromise Kubernetes workloads to mine cryptocurrency using
stolen cloud compute resources. The goal is to detect, contain, and prevent
cryptojacking malware.

Solution:

1️⃣ Detection Techniques

 Monitor CPU/Memory Spikes: Cryptojacking abuses resources, causing

unusual workload performance issues.
 Detect Unauthorized Network Traffic:
o Monitor connections to crypto mining pools (Monero, Ethereum,
Bitcoin).
o Use SIEM correlation rules to flag outbound traffic to known mining
IPs.

splunk
CopyEdit
index=network_logs "stratum+tcp" OR "miningpool" OR "xmr"

 Scan Container Images for cryptominers (using Trivy, Aqua Security,

Sysdig Falco).

2️⃣ Containment & Mitigation

 Isolate Infected Pods: Apply Kubernetes Network Policies to limit

communication.
 Use Runtime Security (Falco) to detect unauthorized crypto-mining
processes:

yaml
CopyEdit
- rule: Detect Cryptojacking
condition: spawned_process and proc_name in ("xmrig", "minerd", "cryptonight")
output: "Crypto-mining detected in pod %container.name%"

 Implement Kubernetes Pod Security Policies (PSP) to block privilege

escalation.

3️⃣ Prevention Strategies

 Enable Kubernetes RBAC & Least Privilege to prevent rogue deployments.

 Use AWS Secrets Manager or HashiCorp Vault to protect sensitive
credentials.
 Deploy Honeypot Containers to attract and detect attackers early.

🔥 Bonus:

 How would you detect cryptojacking that only activates during non-
business hours to evade detection?
4. SIEM & Threat Detection - Catching Evasive
Threat Actors
💡 Situation:
Your SIEM (Splunk, SecureWorks Taegis XDR, Wazuh) is detecting low-level,
intermittent scans on your AWS infrastructure. The activity is not triggering
standard alerts, but you suspect it’s an advanced persistent threat (APT) testing
for weaknesses.

Question:

 How would you detect a low-and-slow attacker trying to evade SIEM rules?
 What custom SIEM correlation rules would you create to detect stealthy
attackers?
 How would you automate real-time threat intelligence enrichment?

Ideal Answer:

1️⃣ Detecting Low-and-Slow Attacks

 Use long-term log analysis (ElasticSearch, Splunk, Taegis) to correlate

small, periodic events.
 Deploy UEBA (User & Entity Behavior Analytics) to detect deviations in
network traffic patterns.
 Check AWS VPC Flow Logs & CloudTrail for suspicious IPs probing
multiple services over time.

2️⃣ Custom SIEM Correlation Rules

 Identify small scan patterns over a month, not just per-hour logs:
 | tstats count where index=network_logs
 by _time, src_ip
 | where count < 5 over last 30 days
 Monitor failed authentications across multiple accounts from a single IP
(credential stuffing).

3️⃣ Automating Threat Intelligence Enrichment

 Integrate SIEM with Recorded Future, MISP, IBM X-Force for real-time IOC
updates.
 Leverage SOAR automation (Splunk Phantom, Cortex XSOAR) to enrich
and auto-escalate real threats.

🔥 Bonus Challenge:
  How would you detect and block C2 (Command & Control) traffic hidden
inside encrypted DNS queries?

4. How would you detect and block C2 (Command &

Control) traffic hidden inside encrypted DNS
queries?
💡 Challenge Context:
Attackers use DNS tunneling to exfiltrate data and maintain C2 connections
over encrypted DNS queries. The goal is to detect and block such covert
communications.

Solution:

1️⃣ Detecting Encrypted DNS Tunneling

 Look for high-frequency DNS requests to uncommon domains.

 Analyze packet size anomalies:
o Normal DNS requests are small (~60 bytes).
o Tunneling uses unusually large DNS packets (~250 bytes+).

splunk
CopyEdit
index=dns_logs
| where query_length > 200
| stats count by src_ip, query_domain

 Monitor for base64-encoded subdomains (common in DNS tunneling):

regex
CopyEdit
([A-Za-z0-9+/]{10,})\.malicious-domain\.com

2️⃣ Blocking & Preventing C2 Communication

 Enable DNS Sinkholing to redirect malicious queries.

 Use AI-driven DNS security solutions (Cisco Umbrella, Palo Alto DNS
Security).
 Monitor DNS over HTTPS (DoH) requests using network-based Intrusion
Detection (Suricata, Zeek).

3️⃣ Automating Threat Response

 Use SOAR playbooks to auto-block C2 domains in firewalls.

 Integrate with Threat Intelligence Feeds (Recorded Future, MISP) to detect
new C2 domains in real-time.
 Deploy YARA rules to scan DNS logs for known C2 behavior.

🔥 Bonus:
 How would you detect AI-driven malware that dynamically changes its C2
domains to evade threat intelligence?