Ethical Hacking Essentials Practice Test

What risk did a professional penetration tester face when using commercial software that overloaded the network?

1. Inadequate testing

2. Using throttled tools

3. Excessive permissions

4. Limited testing scope

The correct answer is: Using throttled tools

The most relevant risk a professional penetration tester faced when using commercial software that overloaded the network is due to using throttled tools. Throttling is a technique that helps to control the amount of data transmitted over a network at any given time. By employing throttled tools, a penetration tester can mitigate the risk of overwhelming the network infrastructure, ensuring that testing activities do not degrade the performance of systems or disrupt business operations. In a penetration testing scenario, maintaining network stability is crucial to avoid unintended consequences, such as service outages or degraded performance that could affect users. Tools that are not throttled may send requests at a rate that the network cannot handle, leading to potential denial-of-service conditions or other network-related issues. While inadequate testing, excessive permissions, and limited testing scope are all important considerations within penetration testing, they relate more to the framework and parameters of the testing engagement rather than the immediate technical implications of using commercial tools that could jeopardize network integrity.