List of 25 Information Security Analyst Interview Questions & Answers
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1.
Have you ever had a situation where you had a number of alternatives to choose from? How did you go about choosing one?
How to Answer
By asking this question, the interviewer is trying to determine your decision-making skills. Information security analysts are presented with a lot of data and must make quick and accurate decisions. Your ability to do this and have a reliable process to sort through data and choose the best course of action is critical. You should be able to describe the process and perhaps give an example of how you've applied it while doing your job.
William's Answer
"During my work, I am often presented with a great deal of information and several different alternatives to choose from. This can be overwhelming at times. My process to narrow down the choices is to eliminate the ones that are not feasible. I then look at the remaining options and determine which would have the best outcome and would require a minimal amount of resources or costs. Once I select the option, I move forward with confidence and don't second guess myself."
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2.
What sorts of things have you done to become better qualified for your career?
How to Answer
Employers are looking to hire people, not for the job they are qualified for, but rather the one they can become qualified for. This requires that the candidate of a plan for continuing education and constant improvement. You should have such a plan in place and be able to describe it in detail when asked.
William's Answer
"I recognize that the IT industry is continually evolving, and to stay current to and get ahead, I must keep my skills up to date. I do this by reading a lot of industry publications and journals, attending conventions, meeting with vendors and other industry players, being a member of relevant local user groups, and networking with my industry peers and associates to discuss new ideas and developments in IT."
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3.
When preparing to transmit data, what would you do first, compress it, or encrypt it?
How to Answer
This is both a technical as well as a follow-up question. In your answer to the question 'What are the differences between encoding, encrypting, and hashing?', you discussed encryption. This technical question is asking a follow-up question about how you go about performing the encryption process. As discussed earlier, you should always anticipate follow-up questions once you've answered an inquiry from an interviewer. By keeping your previous answer brief and to the point, you encouraged the interviewer to explore this topic in more detail. Since you have expertise in this area, the questions should be easy for you to answer. This is also an example of how you can guide the interviewer through the interview.
William's Answer
"When using encryption to secure data, you should always encrypt the data before compressing it. If you compress the data first, you could not encrypt it properly or decrypt it when received by another device. The exact process is to create an encryption key, encrypt the data, compress it, then transmit the data and the decryption key to the receiving party."
1 Community Answer
Anonymous interview answers with our interview experts feedback
Anonymous Interview Answer
"Encrypt it then compress it."
Stephanie's Feedback for the Answer Above
Great strategy--I just suggest developing this response a bit more. Why did you come to this sequence? What previous work experience have you had in this area? Providing a specific example will help to make your response more impactful and memorable.
How would you rate Stephanie's Feedback?
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4.
What is the most competitive work situation you have experienced? How did you handle it? What was the result?
How to Answer
By asking this question, the interviewer seeks to understand the scope of the work you do and some of the more challenging situations you have encountered in your past jobs. Your answer to this question should align with the work the organization with whom you are interviewing does and the type of issues you may encounter in this role. You can discover this by researching the company and the job before the interview. Aligning all of your answers with the issues the company faces will help you to establish your qualifications for this job.
William's Answer
"The most competitive work situation I've experienced was when our CIO was considering engaging outside consultants to assist with security issues. While I understand the rationale behind this, I felt that our organization could do just as good of a job for less money. I met with the CIO and explained the competencies of our team, the technologies they were trained on, and our track record of keeping the company's IT assets safe and secure. The result was is that the CIO allocated a smaller budget for the consulting services and put me in charge of interfacing with outside resources as an extension of our internal team."
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5.
When tasked with strengthening user authentication, what methods would you use to?
How to Answer
You probably already recognize this as an operational question. This is specifically asking you about the process you use to perform a task. As a reminder, operational questions should be answered directly and succinctly, and you should anticipate follow-up questions.
William's Answer
"One of the key elements of data security is user authentication. The most basic form of user authentication is supplying the user with a username and password. This is needed at any time the user logs in to the application or the network. A higher level of security is known as two-step authentication. In addition to the user ID and password, a code is sent to a device the user has pre-registered. They are then required to input the code before they are allowed to access the network."
1 Community Answer
Anonymous interview answers with our interview experts feedback
Anonymous Interview Answer
"I would implement 2-factor authentication in the environment. A code could be sent to users' phones or app. We could use some kind of biometric factor applied to ensure each user is authorized to have access."
Stephanie's Feedback for the Answer Above
Great--it sounds like you have a good deal of content knowledge in this area!
How would you rate Stephanie's Feedback?
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6.
What do you consider to be your professional strengths? Give me a specific example using this attribute in the workplace.
How to Answer
Many interviewers will ask about your strengths and weaknesses. This is an easy question to prepare for. You should anticipate being asked this in any interview you attend. Creating a list of 5 to 10 strengths and weaknesses related to your job will prepare you to respond to this question. The strengths should be relevant to the work you do and contribute to your success. The weaknesses, on the other hand, should not be job-related or should be easily overcome.
William's Answer
"I believe that my strengths relevant to this position include my professionalism, attention to detail, focus on constant improvement, and ability to collaborate with both my team as well as organizations outside of IT. Combined, these enable me to do my job to the best of my ability and to achieve the business results the organization is looking for. I make an effort to try to improve these strengths through continuing education, research, and feedback."
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7.
Some people work best as part of a group - others prefer the role of individual contributor. How would you describe yourself?
How to Answer
The purpose of this question is to discover your collaboration skills. There are benefits to both working by yourself and functioning as a member of a team. You should be able to discuss both of these, their benefits, and challenges. You then complete your answer by describing which one you prefer and why you like to work in this manner.
William's Answer
"I am able to work both as an individual contributor or as a member of a highly functional team. The benefit of working as an individual is that you move faster and can complete a project in less time. However, you are also limited to your ideas, experience, and skills. As a member of a team, you move slower due to the need to collaborate and discuss actions and topics related to the project you're working on. However, the benefit is that many individuals contribute to the project, each providing a unique set of experiences, skills, and talents. The output of a team often eclipses the data and up to that of an individual contributor. Given a choice, I would rather function as a member of a team."
1 Community Answer
Anonymous interview answers with our interview experts feedback
Anonymous Interview Answer
"I think it's important to connect the two. I love working as part of a team that has the same goals and is as eager as I am to work towards a common goal. However, it's also important to have independent time to plan, think about new ideas, and have a project that I independently ran."
Rachelle's Feedback for the Answer Above
You show a nice balance between teamwork and being an independent thinker. If you have examples of these two approaches in action, you may also want to include a brief story of a time when you worked well independently and a time when you worked well in a group setting.
How would you rate Rachelle's Feedback?
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8.
Give an example of a problem that you faced on any job that you have had and tell me how you went about solving it.
How to Answer
This is a follow-up to 'Have you ever had a situation where you had a number of alternatives to choose from? How did you go about choosing one?'. During an interview, you can anticipate that you will be asked follow-up questions once you have given them an answer. This indicates that they have an interest in the topic or want to explore it in more detail. If you're comfortable with the topic, you can encourage follow-up questions by keeping your answers brief and to the point.
William's Answer
"On a recent project, our network was being infiltrated, but we didn't know where or how they were accessing the network. All of our hardware tests came back negative. I recall reading about a similar incident, and I researched how the security team had solved the problem. My team and I created a scenario to hack our own network while tracking the network packets we inserted. This provided us the information we needed to examine all the network traffic and find the source of the infiltration. We then updated the firewall to prevent this type of hacking."
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9.
Can you think of a situation where innovation was required at work? What did you do in this situation?
How to Answer
This question is similar to 'Give an example of a problem that you faced on any job that you have had and tell me how you went about solving it.'. These types of questions are behavioral. They require you to discuss how you would react to a specific scenario the interviewer presents to you. Behavioral questions are best answered using the STAR framework. You state the Situation, describe the Task you needed to complete, discuss the Actions you took, and then talk about the results you achieved. Situational questions can address past actions or hypothetical situations that may occur if you are hired for this position.
William's Answer
"In one of my past positions, the department's budget was reduced due to a downturn in sales for the entire company. We were asked to do more with less and still maintain the security of the company's IT infrastructure. I met with my team, and we discussed ways we could consolidate our hardware while still providing security to the network. We were able to remove 30% of our network servers and half of the routers without impacting either the performance or the security of the network. This resulted in cost savings plus an inventory of spare parts we could use if something broke."
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10.
How do you keep current on new security threats?
How to Answer
The information technology industry is fast-paced, with new developments occurring almost daily. Keeping track of the technology, products, solutions, and most importantly, the security threats is a daunting challenge. However, as an information security analyst, your job is to maintain current knowledge about all of these topics. You should have a specific strategy for doing this and be able to describe it to the interviewer.
William's Answer
"One of the biggest challenges I face as an information security analyst is to stay current on the threats encountered, new developments in technology and security solutions available in the information technology industry. I do this by subscribing to several newsletters and blogs, attending industry events and meeting with software and hardware vendors, maintaining memberships in several local user groups relevant to the work I do, and frequently meeting with my peers to discuss the threats they are aware of and techniques they use to counter them."
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11.
Is anything online safe?
How to Answer
This is a general question that seeks your opinion about online security. While technology has provided the world with many advantages, these are accompanied by security issues and threats to the privacy of the information people share across the network. When answering this question, you should be realistic about the number of threats people are exposed to while operating online but also optimistic about the prospect of protecting individuals and organizations from the treats.
William's Answer
"There are a great number of threats online and people who take advantage of individuals and organizations who use the web for communication and to conduct both business and personal transactions. Overall, I believe the Internet is safe. Companies have gone to great lengths to provide security to their users and have hired teams of people like me to stay up to date on emerging threats. The key to operating safely online is to be vigilant, use well-tested security practices, and assume everything you put online could be compromised. Good behavior will trump good security every time."
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12.
Tell me about a time when you and your previous supervisor disagreed, but you still found a way to get your point across.
How to Answer
This is another example of a behavioral question. As a reminder, behavioral questions ask you to respond to a situation that is likely to occur if you are hired for the position for which you are interviewing. Remember to use the STAR framework when answering behavioral questions. Keep your answers brief and to the point, and anticipate a follow-up question.
William's Answer
"It is not often that my management team and I have disagreements, but it does happen. In my most recent role, there was a situation involving my recommendation to upgrade the security of our network. Management felt that it was too expensive, and the predicted results could not be cost-justified. I knew I had to convince them to do the upgrade, or our network would be at risk. I collected information about similar threats to other networks and the costs of resolving issues caused by attacks on the network. It became obvious that it would be easier to implement my suggestions than to remediate the situation after an attack occurred. Management agreed with my suggestion, and we implemented the upgrade in less time and at a lower cost than I had originally predicted. To my knowledge, the network has never suffered an attack due to this solution."
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13.
Have you ever met resistance when implementing a new idea or policy to a workgroup? How did you deal with it? What happened?
How to Answer
This question is similar to 'Tell me about a time when you and your previous supervisor disagreed, but you still found a way to get your point across.'. It is not unusual for interviewers to ask several questions about the same topic. This enables them to calibrate your answers to ensure that you are consistent throughout the interview. Answering truthfully and taking brief notes during the interview will help you achieve this. Practicing these questions also helps you to better prepare and be consistent throughout the interview.
William's Answer
"It is unusual, but sometimes I do encounter resistance when trying to implement new policies to the workgroups I manage. When this occurs, I gather evidence supporting my recommendation. I also perform a cost-benefit analysis to demonstrate the effectiveness of my recommendations. This usually overcomes the resistance and allows us to move forward with the updates with everyone being on the same page."
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14.
Tell me about an important goal that you set in the past. Were you successful?
How to Answer
By asking this question, the interviewer is collecting two pieces of information. The first is whether you are goal-oriented and are willing to set ambitious objectives. The second is whether you were able to achieve them and how you did it. While preparing for an interview, you should have a list of significant achievements you've made in past positions and a brief description of how you accomplished them. Successful interviews are a result of research, preparation, and practice.
William's Answer
"In one of my former positions, I set a goal for our team for 90 days of continual network uptime. This required tha there were no security intrusions to the network during this period. The team achieved this objective by first profiling the network and identifying any vulnerabilities. We then implemented patches and fixes to address these. Once this was completed, the clock started. The network actually stayed up and had zero intrusions for over 120 days. I reward my team by taking them on an exciting team-building event and providing them each with a bonus check."
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15.
When you have been made aware of, or have discovered for yourself, a problem in your work performance, what was your course of action? Can you give an example?
How to Answer
Being self-aware of issues that impede your work performance and correcting them is a characteristic that employers look for in candidates they are interviewing. Many people become defensive when asked a question like this, claiming that they do not have any issues that impact their work. This is the wrong approach. Since the question asks for an example, you should discuss a minor issue that may have impacted your performance and how you resolved it. Ideally, the issue should not be relevant to the position for which you are interviewing.
William's Answer
"I constantly perform self-checks to make sure there are no issues which are impacting my job. I also occasionally conduct 360 interviews with my peers, management, and the people I manage to make sure I'm doing everything right. If I do discover an issue, I take immediate action to correct it. I recently became aware of the fact that I did not return emails promptly. This was impacting people who were waiting for my response. Once I was aware of this, I created a system to prioritize my emails so I could respond to the important ones, and delay reading the less critical emails."
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16.
Describe a time when you made a suggestion to improve the work in your organization.
How to Answer
When employers interview candidates, they're looking for somebody who can help them make money, save money, or save time. Being able to describe a situation in which you made a recommendation to improve the workflow of the organization will help you stand out amongst the other candidates. This doesn't necessarily have to be a large improvement. It can involve something minor but which helped you or other people do their jobs better. Continuous improvement as a priority with most organizations, and your ability to demonstrate experience in this area will help you during the interview.
William's Answer
"I am always looking for opportunities to reduce costs, save time, or improve processes. I recently noticed that my team was documenting their activities both in writing and with emails. This didn't make sense since very few people ever read the written reports. I created report templates which the team could use online to document their work. This not only eliminated the redundancy but allowed the team to complete the forms while waiting for other processes to run, thereby reducing the overall time to complete this task."
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17.
What do you do in your spare time when you're not working on securing an organization's IT infrastructure?
How to Answer
An interviewer will ask this type of general question to discover some information about your background and better understand what you like to do and what your preferences are. This is normally asked early in the interview and will provide the interviewer with the information they can use throughout the interview. You can use this type of question to drive the interview towards an area with which you are comfortable and encourage them to ask you questions you can easily answer.
William's Answer
"When I'm not at work, I participate in activities that are not technology-related. This provides me with a good work/life balance and helps keep me grounded. I enjoyed reading, surfing, spending time with my family and friends, and cooking gourmet meals."
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18.
What methods do you use to confirm that a server is secure?
How to Answer
This is an example of an operational question. Interviewers ask operational questions to determine how you go about doing your job. When answering an operational question, you should be brief and to the point. The interviewer will ask you a follow-up question if they need additional information or want to explore the topic in more detail. Additionally, you can answer this question with information that aligns with the operations of the organization with which you are interviewing.
William's Answer
"When securing a server, the first thing I do is to check to see if there are any open ports. These occur when technicians are updating the server or installing new software. Once I close these, I examine the software in the patches on the server to ensure they're up to date with all the appropriate security measures. If not, I patch them to the most current level. The final thing I do is to minimize access to the server, allowing access to people who need to be able to update it or make authorized changes."
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19.
What are the differences between encoding, encrypting, and hashing?
How to Answer
This is an example of a technical question. Technical questions ask you to define a term and then explain how it is used in your profession. As an information security analyst, you can anticipate that the majority of questions you will be asked during an interview will be operational or technical. Like operational questions, technical questions should be answered briefly and directly. You should anticipate follow-up questions any time you provide an answer.
William's Answer
"All of these are methods used to protect data in motion. Encoding as a sequence of characters in a specific format that makes the transmission more efficient and safe. Encrypting as a more advanced form of encoding, and requires that the receiving device be able to decrypt the data using a key provided by the technician. Hashing uses algorithms that take arbitrary input and converts it to a fixed-length string, which is then transmitted over the internet."
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20.
What is traceroute, and how is it used?
How to Answer
Yet another technical question. As stated earlier, most of the questions you will be asked during an interview will be technical questions. The best way to prepare for these is to review the terminology, processes, and procedures you use as an information security analyst. You should also spend time practicing these questions, reading both the question and the answer out loud. You can then formulate your own answer to the question. The three keys to a successful interview include research, preparation, and practice.
William's Answer
"Traceroute is a process used by a systems analyst to uncover any breakdowns or gaps in communications and pinpoint where they are occurring in the network. This technique follows the data and the route it takes, identifying the network devices along its path. Once you've identified where the connection break has occurred, you can repair it with either software or hardware."
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21.
Is it necessary to approach cybersecurity issues differently based on whether the IT resources are in the cloud or on-premises?
How to Answer
Organizations have the option to manage their IT resources on their own premises, at a site hosted by a third party, or using cloud resources, such as AWS or Azure. Cybersecurity issues will differ depending on the physical location and type of resources the organization uses. In some instances, the company will use all three of these, making the cybersecurity process even more complex. You should be able to address each one of these and briefly discuss how they differ and what measures you need to take based on the location of the resources and how they are accessed.
William's Answer
"It used to be very simple to manage an organization's cybersecurity issues when everything was onsite at the company's datacenter. However, in today's environment, IT assets are spread across a variety of locations. These include the on-premise datacenter, a third-party hosted site, and in the cloud. While this helps ensure the security of the data through replication, it also presents challenges when transmitting data. Measures such as data encryption, replication, and tracerouting all help to ensure the data is secure and safe. Other techniques include strong user authentication and specific security measures built into the contracts with the third-party providers."
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22.
Can you define symmetric and asymmetric encryption, and discuss their differences?
How to Answer
At this point, you can probably already recognize this as a technical question. This is obvious because it is both asking you for a definition and to discuss the differences in these terms and how they are used in your profession. Keep in mind that technical questions are best answered directly and briefly. The interviewer will ask you additional questions if they need more information or want to explore this topic in more detail. So be prepared for follow-up questions.
William's Answer
"Symmetric encryption is the process of encrypting data by creating a key which can then be used to decrypt it. In this process, a single key is used for the encryption and decryption of the data. Asymmetric encryption is similar but uses different keys for each transmission. Typically, technicians will use asymmetric encryption during the first transmission of data, followed by symmetric encryption for subsequent transmissions. Using the different types of encryption in this manner ensures that security of the data while expediting transmissions once the communication channel has been established."
1 Community Answer
Anonymous interview answers with our interview experts feedback
Anonymous Interview Answer
"Symmetric encryption is an encryption method where the same key is used to encrypt and decrypt a piece of data. asymmetric encryption is where 1 key is used for encryption and a different key is used for decryption."
Stephanie's Feedback for the Answer Above
Great! Once again, you present as having strong knowledge in this area.
How would you rate Stephanie's Feedback?
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23.
What are UDP and TCP, and how do they differ?
How to Answer
While interviewing for the role of an information security analyst, you are going to be asked multiple technical questions. You can easily prepare for this by reviewing the terminology, acronyms, and jargon used in this profession. Another way to prepare is to study these questions, reading both the question and the answer aloud. This trains your brain to be ready to answer the questions appropriately.
William's Answer
"Both UDP and TCP are protocols used to move data across the Internet. UDP stands for user datagram protocol. TCP stands for transmission control protocol. Of these two, TCP is the mos common protocol used. It numbers each packet when transmitted to verify that all the packets have been received, thus providing high reliability. UDP does not have this error-checking capability."
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24.
What is your position regarding DNS monitoring? Do you feel it is important, and if so, why?
How to Answer
At first glance, you may believe that this is a technical question. However, if you reread the question, it asks for your opinion, not a definition or explanation. By framing the question in this manner, the interviewer is assuming you know what DNS monitoring means. This may indicate that they are considering eliminating this process from their current operations. As the interview progresses, you will gain additional insight into the organization's processes, procedures, and operations. You should already know quite a bit about this based on the research you did prior to the interview. Any time you answer a question, you should align it with the needs of the organization. This better qualifies you for the position for which you are interviewing.
Foxample: "In my opinion, DNS monitoring is critically important. While I've heard counterpoints to this position, they are typically based on the assumption that DNS monitoring indicates that domain naming services are weak. However, the monitoring requires few resources and ensures that users can access any resource available on the Internet easily. It also reduces the vulnerability of data passing through port number 53 and ensures unauthorized users do not have access to the organization's network."
William's Answer
"In my opinion, DNS monitoring is critically important. While I've heard counterpoints to this position, they are typically based on the assumption that DNS monitoring indicates that domain naming services are weak. However, the monitoring requires few resources and ensures that users can access any resource available on the Internet easily. It also reduces the vulnerability of data passing through port number 53 and ensures unauthorized users do not have access to the organization's network."
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25.
Can you discuss the differences between a threat and a vulnerability?
How to Answer
Yet another technical question. While these may not seem like technical terms, used in the context of the information security analyst interview, they are. It is not uncommon for a technical question to ask you to compare two different terms. Technical questions can also ask you to define a single term. Keep in mind that you need to answer technical questions directly and briefly. You should anticipate follow-up questions.
William's Answer
"While these two terms may seem similar, there are subtle differences between them. A vulnerability defines a weakness in the organization's IT infrastructure, which can be exploited by malicious individuals. Vulnerabilities may sit dormant for long periods and go undetected until hackers use them to gain access to the network and the data contained within it. Threats, on the other hand, are active issues or incidents which are in the process of attacking an organization or working to gain access. Vulnerabilities can be addressed by constantly monitoring the network to identify them, and then addressing them with patches, software upgrades or other methods. Threats can only be resolved by creating defenses against them. This requires constant monitoring, awareness, and active remediation or the development of protections."
1 Community Answer
Anonymous interview answers with our interview experts feedback
Anonymous Interview Answer
"A vulnerability is a weakness or hole which can be exploited by malicious threat actors. A threat is an exploit or malware that can enter through a vulnerability."
Stephanie's Feedback for the Answer Above
Great knowledge, but I suggest providing a specific example of how this might show up in your work.
How would you rate Stephanie's Feedback?