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

CEH v13 stresses the importance of passive reconnaissance when the goal is to avoid any interaction with the target’s systems. Job postings frequently reveal detailed information such as internal technologies, OS platforms, security tools, IDS brands, virtualization environments, scripting languages, and cloud services. CEH explicitly notes job ads as one of the richest passive intelligence sources because organizations inadvertently disclose their tech stack, often mentioning required experience with specific network components, databases, protocols, or internal tools. Options B and D involve direct interaction, violating the passive reconnaissance requirement. WHOIS lookups (Option C) provide DNS registrar information but do not reveal internal network details. Job postings, social media recruitment materials, and HR documentation are discussed in CEH as critical OSINT resources used during the footprinting phase to gather actionable intelligence while maintaining complete stealth. Thus, analyzing job postings is the correct method.

In CEH v13 Module 05: System Hacking, and Module 14: Access Control, Identity Management, and Cryptography, Single Sign-On (SSO) is defined as a system that allows users to authenticate once and gain access to multiple systems without re-entering credentials.

SSO uses a Central Authentication Server (CAS).

Common technologies: Kerberos, OAuth, SAML, AD Federation Services.

Improves user convenience and centralized credential management.

In CEH v13 Cryptography, this threat is formally referred to as “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” (HNDL). It describes a long-term cryptographic risk where adversaries intercept and store encrypted communications today, even though they cannot decrypt them with current computational capabilities. The expectation is that future quantum computers will be powerful enough to break widely used public-key cryptographic algorithms.

CEH v13 emphasizes that quantum algorithms such as Shor’s Algorithm can theoretically break RSA, DSA, and ECC by efficiently solving integer factorization and discrete logarithm problems. However, the defining feature of this threat is not the act of breaking encryption itself, but rather the strategic collection and storage of encrypted data in advance.

Option C is incomplete because it focuses only on the cryptographic mechanism rather than the threat model. Options B and D are unrelated to the scenario described and refer to quantum communication integrity issues, not long-term cryptographic exposure.

CEH v13 highlights that sensitive data with long confidentiality lifetimes—such as government records, financial data, healthcare information, and intellectual property—is especially vulnerable to this threat. As a result, organizations are encouraged to adopt quantum-resistant (post-quantum) cryptographic algorithms proactively.

Thus, Option A accurately describes the threat model and aligns with CEH v13’s treatment of future cryptographic risks.

Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is a cryptographic system that uses pairs of keys: public keys (which may be known to others), and private keys (which may never be known by any except the owner). The generation of such key pairs depends on cryptographic algorithms which are based on mathematical problems termed one-way functions. Effective security requires keeping the private key private; the public key can be openly distributed without compromising security.

In such a system, any person can encrypt a message using the intended receiver's public key, but that encrypted message can only be decrypted with the receiver's private key. This allows, for instance, a server program to generate a cryptographic key intended for a suitable symmetric-key cryptography, then to use a client's openly-shared public key to encrypt that newly generated symmetric key. The server can then send this encrypted symmetric key over an insecure channel to the client; only the client can decrypt it using the client's private key (which pairs with the public key used by the server to encrypt the message). With the client and server both having the same symmetric key, they can safely use symmetric key encryption (likely much faster) to communicate over otherwise-insecure channels. This scheme has the advantage of not having to manually pre-share symmetric keys (a fundamentally difficult problem) while gaining the higher data throughput advantage of symmetric-key cryptography.

With public-key cryptography, robust authentication is also possible. A sender can combine a message with a private key to create a short digital signature on the message. Anyone with the sender's corresponding public key can combine that message with a claimed digital signature; if the signature matches the message, the origin of the message is verified (i.e., it must have been made by the owner of the corresponding private key).

Public key algorithms are fundamental security primitives in modern cryptosystems, including applications and protocols which offer assurance of the confidentiality, authenticity and non-repudiability of electronic communications and data storage. They underpin numerous Internet standards, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS), S/MIME, PGP, and GPG. Some public key algorithms provide key distribution and secrecy (e.g., Diffie–Hellman key exchange), some provide digital signatures (e.g., Digital Signature Algorithm), and some provide both (e.g., RSA). Compared to symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption is rather slower than good symmetric encryption, too slow for many purposes. Today's cryptosystems (such as TLS, Secure Shell) use both symmetric encryption and asymmetric encryption.