36 practice questions with answers for Cyber Security interviews in Lucknow.
Cyber Security jobs in Lucknow
Lucknow's tech job market is smaller but growing, led by IT-services delivery centres, government-tech projects and start-ups. Many Lucknow candidates target Noida and Gurgaon roles or remote jobs, so interviews follow the NCR pattern.
Below are 36 questions that match the mix of service, product and domain employers hiring soc analyst (l1/l2)s in Lucknow.
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01
What is multi-factor authentication and which factors are strongest?
MFA requires two or more factor types: something you know like a password, something you have like a phone or security key, and something you are like a fingerprint. SMS OTPs are vulnerable to SIM swap and phishing, and push approvals to MFA fatigue. Phishing-resistant methods such as FIDO2 security keys, passkeys and certificate-based authentication are strongest because they are bound to the real site.
Mitigate by adding controls to reduce likelihood or impact, such as MFA. Transfer by shifting financial impact to others, like cyber insurance or contracts. Avoid by stopping the risky activity, for example retiring an old system. Accept when the risk is within appetite and formally documented with an owner and review date. Risk acceptance should be signed by a business owner, not just the security team.
03
A user reports a pop-up saying their files are encrypted. What are your first steps?
First, isolate the device from the network, ideally through EDR network containment, without powering it off so memory evidence is kept. Inform the incident lead and start a timeline. Check for the same indicators on other hosts, disable the user's sessions and reset credentials if needed, and identify the ransomware family from the note. Then confirm backups are intact and offline before any recovery begins.
TPRM assesses and monitors the security of vendors that access your data or systems, since many breaches start with a supplier. It includes tiering vendors by risk, security questionnaires, reviewing SOC 2 or ISO 27001 reports, contract clauses for breach notification and audit rights, and continuous monitoring. High-risk vendors such as payroll or cloud providers get deeper reviews and annual reassessment.
05
What is the shared responsibility model in cloud security?
The cloud provider secures the infrastructure: data centres, hardware, hypervisors and managed service internals. The customer secures what they put in the cloud: identities, data, configurations, network rules and their applications. The split changes by service type; with IaaS you patch the OS, with SaaS you mainly manage users and data settings. Most cloud breaches come from customer-side misconfiguration, not provider failures.
06
A scan shows an S3 bucket with customer documents is publicly readable. What do you do?
Block public access on the bucket immediately and confirm with the owner whether any public access was intended. Check access logs and CloudTrail data events, if enabled, to see who downloaded files and when. If personal data was accessed, start the incident and breach notification process with legal. Then enable account-level block public access, add a preventive guardrail and alert on policy changes.
Check supported protocol versions, ciphers and certificate details. OpenSSL gives a quick view, and tools like testssl.sh give a full report.
openssl s_client -connect example.com:443 -tls1_2
openssl s_client -connect example.com:443 -servername example.com | openssl x509 -noout -dates -issuer
./testssl.sh example.com
Disable TLS 1.0 and 1.1, weak ciphers like RC4 and 3DES, and fix expiring certificates.
08
An alert shows Microsoft Word spawning PowerShell with an encoded command. What does it mean and what do you do?
Office apps rarely start PowerShell, so this usually means a malicious macro or document exploit. Decode the Base64 command to see what it does, check the process tree and any network connections for downloads, and find the source email. Isolate the host through EDR, block the sender and URLs, search for the same email in other mailboxes and hunt for the same command line elsewhere.
09
What is threat intelligence and what are IOCs and TTPs?
Threat intelligence is analysed information about adversaries, their tools and behaviour. Indicators of Compromise are artefacts like malicious IPs, domains and file hashes; they are easy to use but change quickly. TTPs, tactics, techniques and procedures, describe how attackers operate, and are harder for attackers to change. The Pyramid of Pain shows that detecting TTPs causes attackers more cost than blocking hashes.
In BEC, attackers take over or impersonate an executive, vendor or finance mailbox to trick staff into making payments or changing bank details. It often uses no malware, just a compromised account, mailbox forwarding rules and convincing requests. Controls include MFA, DMARC enforcement, alerts on new inbox rules, and a mandatory call-back process on a known number for any change to payment details.
11
Tell me about a time you had to say no to a senior person's access request.
Situation: a senior manager asked for permanent admin rights on production to speed up reports. Task: protect production without blocking the work. Action: I explained the audit and breach risk, then offered a read-only reporting role and a scheduled export within a day. Result: the manager got the data faster than before, and the audit later had no finding on that system.
12
Which cloud logs are essential for security monitoring?
Essential sources are control plane audit logs such as AWS CloudTrail, Azure Activity Log and Entra sign-in logs, and Google Cloud Audit Logs. Add network flow logs, DNS logs, load balancer and WAF logs, storage access logs for sensitive buckets, and Kubernetes audit logs. Send them to a central account or SIEM that workload owners cannot delete, and enable threat detection services like GuardDuty.
13
A finance employee transferred money after a fake email from the CEO. What do you do?
Contact the bank immediately to try to stop or recall the transfer; speed matters most. Report to the cybercrime portal and police. Investigate the email: was the CEO mailbox compromised or spoofed? Check sign-in logs, forwarding rules and other targeted staff. Reset credentials, enforce MFA and DMARC, and add a call-back rule for payment changes. Include legal and management throughout.
14
A US customer asks your Indian SaaS company for a SOC 2 report. What is it and which type should you aim for?
SOC 2 is an attestation report by an independent auditor on a service organisation's controls against the AICPA Trust Services Criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. A Type I report checks control design at a point in time; a Type II checks operating effectiveness over a period, typically 6 to 12 months. Indian SaaS companies selling to US customers commonly need SOC 2 Type II.
15
What is network segmentation and why is it important?
Segmentation splits a network into zones such as user, server, OT, guest and management, with controlled traffic between them using VLANs, firewalls and ACLs. It limits lateral movement, so ransomware on one laptop cannot reach every server. It also reduces compliance scope, for example isolating the cardholder data environment for PCI DSS. Micro-segmentation goes further with per-workload policies in data centres and cloud.
16
How does encryption work for data at rest in the cloud?
Most cloud storage, databases and disks encrypt data at rest by default with provider-managed keys. For more control, use customer managed keys in KMS, with key policies, rotation and logs of every use, or bring and hold your own keys for strict regulatory needs. Encryption at rest protects against physical media theft, but not against someone with valid IAM permissions, so access control remains critical.
17
Leadership wants to block all USB drives tomorrow. How would you handle this request?
I would support the goal but plan the rollout to avoid breaking business work. First, find who genuinely needs USB, such as field engineers, using endpoint logs. Then apply a device control policy through EDR or Intune that blocks mass storage by default, allows approved encrypted devices by serial number, and logs exceptions. Communicate the change, pilot it with one department, then enforce company wide.
18
Tell me about a time you worked with developers to fix a security finding.
Situation: a scan found a critical vulnerability in a library used by five microservices just before a release. Task: fix it without delaying the launch. Action: I paired with the lead developer, confirmed which services were truly exploitable, prepared tested upgrade pull requests and added a WAF rule as a temporary safeguard. Result: all services were patched in two days and release stayed on schedule.
19
What is EDR and how is it different from antivirus?
Endpoint Detection and Response records detailed endpoint activity, like process creation, command lines, network connections and registry changes, and detects suspicious behaviour, not just known files. Analysts can investigate a process tree, isolate a host and remove malware remotely. Traditional antivirus mainly blocks known signatures. XDR extends EDR by correlating endpoint, email, identity and cloud signals in one platform.
20
What is a salt and why is it used in password hashing?
A salt is a unique random value stored with each password hash. It makes identical passwords produce different hashes, so precomputed rainbow tables are useless and attackers must crack each hash separately. Salts are not secret. A pepper is an additional secret kept outside the database. Combined with slow algorithms like Argon2id, bcrypt or scrypt, salting makes offline cracking much more expensive.
Role-Based Access Control grants permissions to roles such as Finance Analyst, and users get roles; it is simple to manage and audit. Attribute-Based Access Control decides using attributes of the user, resource and context, such as department, data classification, location and time. ABAC is more flexible but harder to reason about. Many organisations use RBAC as the base and add attribute conditions for sensitive cases.
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 governs digital personal data. Data fiduciaries need valid consent or a legitimate use, must give clear notice, protect data with reasonable safeguards, notify breaches to the Data Protection Board and affected people, and delete data when no longer needed. Data principals have rights to access, correction and erasure. Penalties go up to 250 crore rupees. The DPDP Rules 2025 phase in obligations.
23
Where do you see yourself in five years in cyber security?
A strong answer is specific yet flexible. For example: in five years I want to lead incident response or security engineering work for a large environment. I plan to master SOC operations first, then specialise through hands-on cloud and IR projects and certifications such as CySA+ and later CISSP. I also want to mentor junior analysts, since teaching strengthens my own skills.
24
How would you design a joiner, mover, leaver process for a growing company?
JML is the identity lifecycle. Joiners get accounts and baseline access from HR data on day one. Movers change roles, and their old access must be removed, not just new access added, to avoid privilege creep. Leavers must be disabled promptly, ideally automatically when HR records their exit. Automating JML from the HR system to the identity platform reduces orphan accounts, which auditors frequently flag.
25
During a major breach, an engineer asks why legal and communications must join the war room. How do you explain?
Legal advises on regulatory notification, such as CERT-In within six hours and the Data Protection Board and affected people under the DPDP Act, contractual duties to clients, evidence handling and privilege. Communications manage messaging to customers, staff, media and investors so statements are accurate and consistent. Technical teams should involve them early, because poor communication can cause more damage than the incident itself.
26
How do you design an access review for a critical application?
Define scope, such as all users with write or admin rights. Pull entitlements and last-login data from the app, and route each item to the user's manager and the app owner. Give clear choices of keep or revoke with a deadline, and revoke automatically if not reviewed. Capture evidence for auditors, and review exceptions with security. Run it quarterly for privileged access.
27
A guest Wi-Fi user can reach internal printers. What is wrong and how do you fix it?
Guest traffic is not properly isolated, likely because the guest SSID shares a VLAN with internal devices or the firewall allows inter-VLAN routing. Fix by placing guests on a separate VLAN with internet-only access, applying ACLs that deny all RFC 1918 internal ranges, and enabling client isolation on the wireless controller. Then test from a guest device and document the design.
28
How would you capture and analyse suspicious traffic using tcpdump and Wireshark?
Capture on the right interface with a filter to limit size, save to a pcap file, then open it in Wireshark.
sudo tcpdump -i eth0 host 10.10.0.15 and port 53 -w dns.pcap
In Wireshark, use display filters such as dns, http.request or tls.handshake.type == 1, and Statistics > Conversations to spot top talkers. Protect pcaps because they may contain sensitive data.
29
What is the difference between an event, an alert and an incident?
An event is any observable occurrence, like a login or a file change. An alert is an event or pattern that a tool flags as possibly malicious. An incident is a confirmed or highly likely violation of security policy that needs response, such as a compromised account. Clear definitions matter because incidents trigger escalation, legal review and regulatory reporting timelines.
30
How do you build a cryptography inventory for an organisation?
Combine several sources: scan network services for TLS versions, ciphers and certificate keys; query CT logs and internal PKI for issued certificates; use code scanning to find crypto library calls and hardcoded keys; and export KMS and HSM key lists. Record algorithm, key length, owner, data sensitivity and expiry. This inventory supports compliance, certificate renewals and planning the post-quantum migration.
31
How do you find stale and privileged accounts in Active Directory with PowerShell?
Conditional access applies policies based on signals at sign-in, such as user, group, device compliance, location, application and risk score. For example, allow finance apps only from managed devices with MFA, block legacy authentication, and require a password change when sign-in risk is high. It is a key Zero Trust building block in platforms like Microsoft Entra ID. Policies need testing in report-only mode first.
A Distributed Denial of Service attack floods a target from many sources to exhaust bandwidth, connection tables or application resources. Types are volumetric floods, protocol attacks like SYN floods, and application layer floods hitting costly pages. Mitigation uses upstream scrubbing services or CDN providers, anycast networks, rate limiting, SYN cookies, autoscaling, and a tested runbook agreed with the ISP before an attack.
The Lockheed Martin Cyber Kill Chain describes seven stages of an intrusion: reconnaissance, weaponisation, delivery, exploitation, installation, command and control, and actions on objectives. Defenders use it to map controls to each stage, for example email filtering at delivery and egress filtering at command and control. Its weakness is a perimeter focus, so many teams pair it with MITRE ATT&CK for detailed techniques after initial access.
35
What is the difference between hashing and encryption?
Encryption is reversible with the right key and protects confidentiality. Hashing is a one-way function that produces a fixed-length digest and is used for integrity checks and password storage. SHA-256 of a file lets you detect tampering, but you cannot get the file back from the hash. Passwords should be stored with slow salted hashes such as Argon2id or bcrypt, never encrypted or with plain SHA-256.
36
Tell me about a time you had to convince a team to follow a compliance requirement they disliked.
Situation: developers resisted mandatory code review evidence for SOC 2, seeing it as paperwork. Task: get compliance without slowing releases. Action: I explained the audit risk to customer deals and showed that branch protection rules could create evidence automatically. Result: we enabled required reviews in the repository settings, evidence became automatic and the audit passed with no finding.
Which companies hire Cyber Security professionals in Lucknow?
Companies with large offices in Lucknow include HCLTech. Use their company pages below to practise employer-specific sets.
Are Cyber Security interviews in Lucknow different from other cities?
The questions depend more on the company than the city. Lucknow's mix of employers decides the style: Many Lucknow candidates target Noida and Gurgaon roles or remote jobs, so interviews follow the NCR pattern
How do I find Cyber Security jobs in Lucknow?
Shortlist companies with Lucknow offices, keep your CV focused on Cyber Security projects, apply on company career pages and job portals with the Lucknow filter, and practise the questions on this page before each interview.