ECCouncil Updated 312-50v13 Exam Questions and Answers by ivor

The Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Footprinting and Reconnaissance module defines Google Hacking, also known as Google Dorking, as the use of advanced search operators to uncover sensitive information unintentionally exposed on the public internet. This technique remains passive, making it ideal during early reconnaissance.

Google Hacking can reveal:

Exposed configuration files

Backup files (.bak, .old, .zip)

Error messages and stack traces

Source code fragments and scripting errors

These findings often indicate coding weaknesses or insecure configurations within a web application. CEH explicitly highlights Google Dorking as an effective way to identify web application weaknesses without scanning or exploiting the target directly.

Option C is correct because Google Hacking is commonly used to identify coding and configuration weaknesses exposed through indexed files.

Option A may be possible indirectly but is not the primary justification.

Option B is incorrect because Google does not index the Deep Web.

Option D involves internal network discovery, which Google Hacking cannot directly achieve.

CEH emphasizes Google Hacking as a powerful passive reconnaissance technique for discovering exposed vulnerabilities.

CEH explains that MAC flooding overwhelms a switch’s CAM table, causing it to fail open. When the table fills, the switch broadcasts frames out all ports, behaving like a hub. This exposes unicast traffic to attackers operating in promiscuous mode.

According to the CEH Vulnerability Assessment and Incident Response modules, vulnerabilities with high CVSS scores and potential RCE must be treated as active threats.

CEH best practices recommend:

Immediate containment (network isolation)

Investigation and impact analysis

Patch application

Recovery

Option D follows the CEH incident response lifecycle precisely.

Option C is incomplete without containment.

Options A and B are unsafe.

CEH emphasizes containment before remediation.

CEH training emphasizes that mobile applications frequently mishandle local storage, leaving sensitive data such as tokens, passwords, API keys, or personal information unencrypted within SQLite databases, shared preferences, or flat-file storage. When encryption is absent or improperly implemented, attackers can directly access this data through filesystem extraction, Android Debug Bridge (ADB) access, physical device access, or rooted environments. CEH identifies “Insecure Data Storage” as one of the most critical mobile vulnerabilities because it bypasses server-side defenses entirely. Since the vulnerability specifically concerns data at rest, the most direct and effective exploitation method is to retrieve the locally stored unencrypted data. SQL injection (Option B) evaluates backend security, not device storage. XSS (Option C) is a web attack and unrelated to local encryption. Brute-forcing credentials (Option D) is unnecessary when sensitive information is already stored insecurely. Therefore, accessing local storage is the correct exploitation method.