CompTIA Security+ SY0-601: Exam Question Answer | Penetration Testing on Comptia.org

What Should a Penetration Tester Conclude about the Command Output?

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Question

A penetration tester is conducting an assessment on Comptia.org and runs the following command from a coffee shop while connected to the public Internet: c: \nslookup -querytype=MX comptia.org Server: Unknown - Address: 198.51.100.45 - comptia.org MX preference=10, mail exchanger = 92.68.102.33 comptia.org MX preference=20, mail exchanger = exchg1.comptia.org exchg1.comptia.org internet address = 192.168.102.67 Which of the following should the penetration tester conclude about the command output?

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Explanations

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A. B. C. D.

D.

The output of the nslookup command shows the mail exchange (MX) records for the domain comptia.org. The MX records specify the mail servers responsible for receiving email messages destined for the domain.

The output shows two MX records for comptia.org. The first MX record has a preference of 10 and points to the IP address 92.68.102.33. The second MX record has a preference of 20 and points to the hostname exchg1.comptia.org, which in turn resolves to the IP address 192.168.102.67.

Based on this information, the penetration tester could draw the following conclusions:

A. The public/private views on the Comptia.org DNS servers are misconfigured. This conclusion cannot be drawn from the output of the nslookup command. Public/private views are a technique used by organizations to provide different DNS responses to different sets of users based on their location or identity. There is no evidence in the output that suggests such a misconfiguration.

B. Comptia.org is running an older mail server, which may be vulnerable to exploits. This conclusion cannot be drawn from the output of the nslookup command. The output only shows the MX records for the domain, which do not provide information about the mail server software or its version.

C. The DNS SPF records have not been updated for Comptia.org. This conclusion cannot be drawn from the output of the nslookup command. Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records are used to specify which mail servers are authorized to send email messages for a domain. The output of the nslookup command does not provide any information about SPF records.

D. 192.168.102.67 is a backup mail server that may be more vulnerable to attack. This conclusion is plausible based on the output of the nslookup command. The second MX record points to the hostname exchg1.comptia.org, which resolves to the non-public IP address 192.168.102.67. This IP address is in the private IP address range and is not reachable from the public Internet. This suggests that 192.168.102.67 is a backup mail server that is only accessible from within the organization's internal network. Backup mail servers are often less well-protected than primary mail servers and may be more vulnerable to attack.

In summary, based on the output of the nslookup command, the penetration tester could conclude that 192.168.102.67 is a backup mail server that may be more vulnerable to attack.