Interview Questions: Cybersecurity, DevOps, CI/

CD, and Nginx

Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting computer systems, networks, and data from digital attacks 1 .
Fundamental concepts include the CIA triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) 2 and understanding
the relationships between threats, vulnerabilities, and risk 3 4 .

Security Fundamentals

Core security principles include the CIA triad and risk management. The CIA triad (confidentiality, integrity,
availability) defines data protection goals 2 . Threats are events that can exploit vulnerabilities and impact
CIA 4 . With these concepts in mind, common fundamental questions include:

• What is the CIA triad and why is it important in cybersecurity?

• Define confidentiality, integrity, and availability with examples of each.
• What is a threat, vulnerability, and risk? How do they differ?
• Explain the principle of least privilege and why it is used.
• What does defense-in-depth mean in a security context?
• Describe security through obscurity and why it is generally discouraged.
• What is patch management and why is it important for security?
• Why are security policies and employee training crucial in an organization?
• What is a zero-day vulnerability and why is it critical?
• Scenario: If a newly discovered vulnerability is identified in critical software, what steps would you
take?
• What is multi-factor authentication and why is it more secure than single-factor?
• Explain the difference between white hat and black hat hacking.

Network Security

Network security involves protecting data in transit and network infrastructure. For example, a firewall
monitors incoming and outgoing traffic and blocks or allows it based on defined rules 5 . Intrusion
Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) monitor traffic for threats; an IDS detects
and alerts on threats while an IPS can actively block malicious traffic 6 . Relevant interview questions may
include:

• What is a firewall and how does it work?

• How does an IDS differ from an IPS?
• What is a DMZ (demilitarized zone) and why is it used?
• Explain network segmentation and its security benefits.
• What is a VPN and how does it secure remote connections?

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 • What are common TCP/UDP ports for services like HTTP, HTTPS, and SSH?
• What is ARP spoofing and how can it be prevented?
• Which tools or commands would you use to monitor network traffic on a Linux server?
• What is the purpose of a proxy server and how does it differ from a firewall?
• Scenario: You notice unusually high traffic on port 80; how would you investigate it?

Application Security

Application security focuses on protecting software from vulnerabilities. The OWASP Top Ten highlights
critical web app risks, such as injection and broken access control 7 . Key concepts include input validation,
session management, and encryption. Example questions include:

• What is SQL injection and how can it be prevented?

• What is Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and how do you mitigate it?
• Describe Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) and its prevention techniques.
• What is the OWASP Top 10 and why is it important?
• How would you securely store and handle sensitive configuration data in an application?
• What is HTTPS and how does it differ from HTTP in terms of security?
• Explain the use of a Web Application Firewall (WAF).
• Scenario: A web form is vulnerable to injection attacks. What changes would you implement?
• What are common methods for secure session management?
• How can code reviews and static analysis improve application security?

Cryptography and Data Protection

Cryptography is used to protect data confidentiality and integrity. Symmetric encryption uses one shared
key, while asymmetric uses a public/private key pair 8 . Hash functions (e.g. SHA-256) produce fixed-length
digests 9 . Relevant questions might include:

• What is the difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption?

• How does SSL/TLS encrypt data in transit?
• What is a digital signature and how does it work?
• What is hashing and how is it used for data integrity?
• What is a Certificate Authority (CA) in public key infrastructure (PKI)?
• Why is MD5 considered insecure for cryptographic use?
• Scenario: How would you securely transmit a large file to a colleague?
• How do you implement encryption for data at rest vs data in transit?

Identity and Access Management

Identity and Access Management (IAM) ensures that the right people have appropriate access. Topics
include authentication methods and access control models. Example questions:

• What is the difference between authentication and authorization?

• Explain multi-factor authentication (MFA) and give examples.
• What is role-based access control (RBAC)?
• How does Single Sign-On (SSO) work in an enterprise environment?
• What is the principle of least privilege in the context of user accounts?

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 • How should user passwords be stored securely?
• Scenario: A former employee still has access to company systems. What steps do you take?
• What is an Access Control List (ACL) and where is it used?

Threats and Attacks

Common cyber threats include malware, phishing, and denial-of-service attacks. Malware (viruses, worms,
trojans, ransomware, etc.) is the most prevalent category 10 . Relevant questions include:

• What are the differences between a virus, worm, and trojan?

• What is ransomware and how would you respond to a ransomware outbreak?
• Define phishing and how can users be protected against it?
• What is a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack and how does a Distributed DoS (DDoS) differ?
• What is a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack?
• What is social engineering and give an example?
• What is a brute force attack?
• What is a zero-day exploit?
• What is spear phishing and how is it different from regular phishing?
• What are common indicators of a phishing email?
• Scenario: You receive a suspicious email with an attachment. How do you investigate it?
• What is an insider threat and how can organizations mitigate it?

Security Tools and Practices

Security professionals use various tools and practices for defense. SIEM (Security Information and Event
Management) systems collect and correlate security events across an organization 11 . Other tools include
vulnerability scanners, antivirus, and packet analyzers. Potential questions:

• What is a SIEM and why is it used?

• What is the difference between a vulnerability scan and a penetration test?
• Name some common tools for network scanning and packet capture.
• What is the purpose of antivirus or endpoint protection software?
• What is a honeypot and how is it used defensively?
• How do log analysis and monitoring aid in security?
• What is an example of a common Unix/Linux command for checking open network connections?
• What is a rootkit and how might you detect one?
• What are signature-based vs anomaly-based detection?
• Scenario: A critical server has been compromised. Which security tools would you use to investigate?

Incident Response and Forensics

Incident response involves handling security breaches. Steps include preparation, identification,
containment, eradication, and recovery. Questions in this area may include:

• What are the typical phases of incident response?

• What is a forensic image (disk image) and why is it taken?
• Explain the concept of chain of custody in digital forensics.
• How do you preserve volatile evidence on a compromised system?

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 • What tools might you use for investigating a security incident?
• Scenario: A server shows signs of intrusion. What actions do you take first?
• What is the difference between live response and imaging for forensics?
• Why is communication with stakeholders important during an incident?
• How would you verify that a breach has been fully contained?
• What are lessons learned reports used for?

Policies and Compliance

Organizations must follow security standards and regulations. For example, ISO/IEC 27001 provides a
framework for an information security management system 12 . Common questions include:

• What is ISO/IEC 27001 and why is it important?

• What is GDPR and what type of data does it protect?
• What is PCI-DSS and when is it applicable?
• Why do organizations have cybersecurity policies and procedures?
• What is data classification and why is it useful?
• What is a security audit?
• What is an acceptable use policy?
• What is a risk assessment and how is it performed?
• Scenario: How would you ensure compliance with a new security regulation?
• What is the difference between a policy, standard, and guideline?

Cloud Security and Emerging Trends

Cloud environments introduce shared security responsibilities 13 . Emerging topics include container
security and microservices. Example questions:

• What is the Shared Responsibility Model in cloud security?

• How do you secure access to cloud resources (e.g. using IAM roles)?
• What is a virtual private cloud (VPC) and how does it enhance security?
• How would you protect data stored in a cloud service like AWS S3?
• What are security concerns when using containers (e.g. Docker) in production?
• How is network segmentation achieved in the cloud?
• What is Infrastructure as Code and why does it matter for security?
• Scenario: A web app is deployed on AWS and has leaked secrets. What measures would you take?
• What is zero trust security?
• Name a tool or practice for monitoring cloud security (e.g. CloudTrail, GuardDuty).

DevOps
DevOps emphasizes collaboration between development and operations to accelerate software delivery
14 . It involves cultural practices and automation to streamline development, deployment, and monitoring.

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DevOps Culture and Principles

DevOps is both a culture and a set of practices. It combines agile development with operations to improve
workflow efficiency 14 . Teams often adopt practices like “shift-left” security, frequent integration, and
automation. Interview questions might include:

• What is DevOps and what problem does it solve?

• Why is collaboration between development and operations important?
• What are the benefits of small, frequent releases?
• How does DevOps differ from traditional IT or waterfall models?
• What is "shift-left" in the context of DevOps and security?
• Explain the concept of continuous feedback in DevOps.
• What role do cross-functional teams play in DevOps?
• What is the significance of a "build pipeline" in DevOps?
• How does DevOps integrate with agile methodologies?
• Describe a scenario where DevOps practices improved a project outcome.

Version Control (Git)

Version control systems like Git are fundamental to DevOps. Git is a distributed VCS that tracks changes
over time 15 . Common questions on this topic include:

• What is Git and why is it widely used?

• What is the difference between Git and SVN (centralized vs distributed)?
• How do you create and switch branches in Git?
• How do you resolve a merge conflict in Git?
• What is a pull request and how is it used?
• How do you revert a commit in Git?
• What is the purpose of git stash?
• Explain the difference between git fetch and git pull .
• How do you tag a release in Git?
• What is .gitignore and how is it used?

Continuous Integration and Jenkins

Continuous Integration (CI) means regularly merging code changes and running automated builds and
tests 16 . Jenkins is a popular automation server for CI/CD 17 . Potential questions include:

• What is continuous integration and why is it useful?

• What is Jenkins and what is it used for?
• How do you configure a simple job in Jenkins?
• What is a Jenkins pipeline (Jenkinsfile) and why use it?
• What is automated testing in a CI pipeline?
• Explain the difference between CI and continuous deployment.
• Name other CI tools besides Jenkins.
• How do build triggers (like webhooks) work in Jenkins?
• How would you roll back a failed deployment in Jenkins?
• Scenario: Jenkins build keeps failing. How do you diagnose the issue?

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Continuous Deployment/Delivery

Continuous Delivery/Deployment (CD) extends CI by automating releases to testing or production 18 .

Interview questions might be:

• What is the difference between continuous delivery and continuous deployment?

• What is a staging environment and why is it used?
• What is rollback and how is it implemented?
• What is blue-green deployment?
• What is a canary release?
• How do feature flags work?
• What is versioning in software releases?
• What is environment promotion in a pipeline?
• How do you ensure database schema changes are safe in CD?
• Scenario: An issue is found after deploying to production. How do you handle it?

Configuration Management

Configuration management tools automate setup and maintenance of systems. Tools like Ansible, Puppet,
or Chef define infrastructure as code. Sample questions:

• What is the purpose of configuration management in DevOps?

• Name some configuration management tools (Ansible, Chef, Puppet).
• How do you use Ansible to provision a server?
• What are idempotency and why are they important in CM tools?
• What is the difference between a push and pull CM model?
• What is Puppet's manifest or Chef's recipe?
• How do you handle secrets (passwords, keys) in automation?
• What is version control for configuration (e.g. storing playbooks in Git)?
• Scenario: You need to update a package on thousands of servers. How would you approach it?
• How does Infrastructure as Code relate to configuration management?

Containerization

Containers (e.g. Docker) package applications with their environment. A Docker container is a lightweight,
standalone package including everything needed to run an application 19 . Typical questions:

• What is Docker and how does it work?

• What is the difference between a Docker container and a VM?
• How do you write a Dockerfile to create an image?
• What is Docker Compose used for?
• What is container orchestration (e.g. Kubernetes) at a high level?
• How do you push and pull images from a registry (e.g. Docker Hub)?
• What is a Docker volume?
• What is a Kubernetes pod vs deployment (basic concept)?
• How do you limit resource usage (CPU/memory) for a container?
• Scenario: An application runs differently in Docker than locally. What could be wrong?

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Infrastructure as Code

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) means managing infrastructure through code. Tools like Terraform or
CloudFormation define infrastructure in files. Example questions:

• What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and why use it?

• Name some IaC tools (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• How do you create a virtual network or VM with Terraform?
• What is the importance of version controlling your infrastructure definitions?
• What are modules (Terraform) or stacks (CloudFormation)?
• How do you handle secrets in IaC (like AWS keys)?
• How do you test your infrastructure code?
• Scenario: You need to replicate an environment in another region. How would you do it?
• What is "plan/apply" in Terraform?
• How do you roll back a change in infrastructure code?

Monitoring and Logging

Monitoring and logging are key for reliability. Tools like Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, or Nagios are common.
Questions may include:

• Why is monitoring important in DevOps?

• Name some monitoring tools (Prometheus, Nagios, Grafana).
• How do logs help in troubleshooting?
• What is log aggregation?
• What is the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)?
• What is a health check or readiness probe?
• How do you monitor containerized applications?
• What is the difference between metrics and logs?
• How do you set up an alert (e.g. CPU threshold)?
• Scenario: Users report a slowdown. How do you find the cause using monitoring data?

Scripting and Automation

DevOps engineers often write scripts to automate tasks. Common questions:

• Which scripting languages do you use (Bash, Python, etc.)?

• How would you write a script to automate deployment?
• What is YAML/JSON used for in DevOps tools?
• How can you schedule tasks (e.g. cron jobs)?
• How do you manage credentials in scripts securely?
• What is a regular expression and where might you use one in scripting?
• Explain the difference between a script and a compiled program.
• What is an API and how can you use it in automation?
• How do you handle errors and retries in automation scripts?
• Scenario: You need to automatically restart a service if it fails. How would you implement it?

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Agile and Collaboration

DevOps often aligns with Agile methodologies and emphasizes collaboration. Questions include:

• What is Agile software development and how does it relate to DevOps?

• What are Scrum and Kanban?
• How does continuous integration complement agile sprints?
• What are some communication practices (stand-ups, retrospectives)?
• How do DevOps teams measure success (KPIs, metrics)?
• What is the role of feedback loops in agile/DevOps?
• How do version control branching strategies (Gitflow, trunk-based) fit in?
• What is technical debt and how should teams manage it?
• Scenario: A project is behind schedule. How might DevOps or Agile practices help?
• Why is cross-team collaboration important in DevOps?

CI/CD
The CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) pipeline is an automated DevOps workflow
that streamlines software delivery 20 . Continuous Integration means frequently merging code changes
into a shared repository with automated builds and tests 16 . Continuous Delivery/Deployment means
automatically deploying validated changes to staging or production 18 .

Continuous Integration Basics

This covers merging changes and running automated builds/tests. Key questions might include:

• What is Continuous Integration (CI) and what are its benefits?

• Why is automated testing important in a CI pipeline?
• What is a build server (e.g. Jenkins) in the CI context?
• What is version control and why is it crucial for CI?
• What is a build artifact?
• How do you configure build triggers (e.g. webhooks) in a CI system?
• What is test-driven development (TDD) and how does it relate to CI?
• How do you handle build failures in a CI pipeline?
• What is smoke testing in the CI pipeline?
• Scenario: A new feature breaks the build. How do you approach resolving it?

Continuous Delivery vs Deployment

Continuous Delivery means code changes are automatically pushed to test environments; Continuous
Deployment means they go all the way to production. Common questions:

• What is the difference between continuous delivery and continuous deployment?

• What is a staging environment and why is it used?
• What is rollback and how is it implemented?
• What is blue-green deployment?
• What is a canary release?

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 • How do feature flags work?
• What is versioning in software releases?
• What is environment promotion in a pipeline?
• How do you ensure database schema changes are safe in CD?
• Scenario: An issue is found after deploying to production. How do you handle it?

CI/CD Tools

Various tools automate CI/CD. Jenkins, GitLab CI, Travis CI, and GitHub Actions are examples. Interview
questions:

• Name popular CI/CD tools and their use cases.

• What is Jenkins and what are its main features?
• How do you write a Jenkinsfile or GitLab CI YAML file?
• What is GitHub Actions?
• How do you integrate testing into a CI tool?
• What is a build pipeline in Jenkins or GitLab?
• How do you secure credentials (API keys) in CI tools?
• What is continuous deployment in GitLab CI?
• Scenario: How would you configure a pipeline that runs unit tests on every commit?
• How do you handle secret management (like AWS keys) in CI pipelines?

CI/CD Pipelines as Code

Pipeline as Code means defining pipelines in configuration files. Questions might include:

• What is a Jenkinsfile and where does it live?

• What are the advantages of storing pipeline configs in version control?
• What is YAML and how is it used in CI/CD pipelines?
• How do you reuse code or steps in multiple pipeline jobs?
• What is a pipeline stage or step?
• How do you test or validate your pipeline code?
• What is a monorepo vs multiple repositories approach?
• How do you handle environment variables in pipeline code?
• Scenario: You want to add a new stage to the pipeline. How do you do it in code?
• What is idempotency in the context of pipeline scripts?

Automated Testing

Automated tests are often integrated in the pipeline (unit tests, integration tests, etc.). Typical questions:

• What are different types of tests (unit, integration, e2e)?

• Why automate tests in CI/CD?
• How do you run tests in parallel in a pipeline?
• What is test coverage and how do you measure it?
• How do you report test results in CI tools?
• What are mock objects and fixtures in testing?
• How do you test microservices or APIs in a pipeline?

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 • What is a test suite?
• Scenario: A test intermittently fails in the pipeline. How do you debug it?
• What is a smoke test versus a full regression test?

Containerization in CI/CD

Containers often run in the CI pipeline (build container image, run tests). Example questions:

• How do you build a Docker image in a CI pipeline?

• What is Docker Compose and how does it fit in CI testing?
• How do you push an image to a container registry in a pipeline?
• How can containers help achieve consistency in builds?
• What is a build cache in Docker and why use it?
• How do you handle multi-stage builds for efficiency?
• Scenario: Your containerized tests need a database. How would you set that up in the pipeline?
• How do you scan container images for vulnerabilities in CI?
• What is Helm in the context of deploying containers?
• How do you rollback a bad Docker image deployment?

Deployment Strategies

Deployment strategies can minimize downtime. Questions include:

• What is blue-green deployment and how does it work?

• What is rolling deployment?
• What is canary release?
• What is A/B testing in deployment context?
• How do you ensure zero downtime deployments?
• What is immutable infrastructure and how does it relate?
• What is a rollback strategy?
• How do you perform a database migration with minimal service interruption?
• Scenario: You need to test a new version with a subset of users. What strategy do you use?
• What is traffic splitting and how is it used?

Artifact Repositories

CI/CD pipelines often store build artifacts. Examples:

• What is an artifact repository (e.g. Nexus, Artifactory)?

• Why use an artifact repository in CI/CD?
• How do you version artifacts?
• What is Maven Central or npm registry?
• How do you clean up old artifacts?
• What is dependency management in builds?
• Scenario: A pipeline build needs an offline artifact. How do you handle that?
• What is a binary repository vs source code repository?
• How do artifact scanners (like Sonatype) fit into CI?
• What is a checksum and why is it used for artifacts?

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Security in CI/CD (DevSecOps)

Security should be integrated into pipelines (DevSecOps). Typical questions:

• What is DevSecOps?
• How can you include security testing in a pipeline?
• What are static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic (DAST)?
• How do you manage secrets (passwords, keys) in pipelines?
• What is vulnerability scanning of code dependencies (e.g. OWASP Dependency Check)?
• Scenario: You want to ensure only approved code is deployed. How do you enforce checks?
• What is the principle of least privilege in CI/CD?
• How do you audit and log pipeline runs?
• What is compliance-as-code?
• How do you handle certificate management for services in CI/CD?

Cloud and Hosted CI/CD

Many pipelines run in the cloud. Questions include:

• What is AWS CodePipeline or Azure DevOps?

• How do you set up a pipeline in a cloud provider?
• What is a self-hosted runner (e.g. GitHub Actions runner)?
• What are the benefits of cloud CI (scalability, on-demand agents)?
• How do you use cloud CLI tools in a pipeline?
• What is Kubernetes-based CI/CD (e.g. Tekton)?
• Scenario: You need more build power. How do you use cloud resources in CI?
• How do you secure a self-hosted CI server?
• What is the difference between cloud-hosted and on-premise CI servers?
• How do you handle cloud costs in CI/CD pipelines?

Nginx
nginx (pronounced “engine x”) is a popular high-performance web server, reverse proxy, and load balancer
21 22 . It is known for flexibility and low resource usage, often outperforming traditional servers under

high load.

Introduction to Nginx

Key features of nginx include serving static content, proxying requests, and handling multiple connections.
For example, nginx supports SSL/TLS with SNI (Server Name Indication) 23 and HTTP/2 for improved
performance. Common questions:

• What is nginx and what are its typical use cases?

• How does nginx differ from Apache HTTP Server?
• Why is nginx considered high performance?
• What is the event-driven architecture of nginx?
• On which operating systems can nginx run?

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 • What is the default user and group that nginx runs under?
• What is the purpose of nginx modules?
• Scenario: Why might you choose nginx over another web server?
• What is HTTP/2 and how does nginx support it?
• What is proxying in the context of web servers?

Installation and Setup

This covers installing nginx and initial configuration. Sample questions:

• How do you install nginx on Ubuntu/Debian?

• Where is the default nginx configuration file located?
• How do you start, stop, and restart nginx service?
• How do you check nginx version?
• What is the purpose of the nginx -t command?
• How do you enable or disable a site (server block) configuration?
• What directories hold the nginx sites configuration on Debian/Ubuntu?
• What user does nginx run as by default?
• How do you upgrade nginx to the latest version?
• Scenario: You installed nginx, but it won’t start. How do you troubleshoot?

Basic Configuration

nginx configuration is done via directives in server blocks. Questions:

• In nginx, what is a server block?

• What does the listen directive do?
• How do you specify the server name (host) in nginx?
• What is a location block?
• How do you set the root directory for a server?
• What is the purpose of the index directive?
• How do you handle try_files or URL rewriting?
• How do you include configuration snippets from other files?
• What is the difference between alias and root directives?
• Scenario: You need to serve a different site on a different domain. How do you configure nginx for
that?

Reverse Proxy and Load Balancing

nginx can act as a reverse proxy and load balancer. For example, a reverse proxy sits in front of web servers
to forward requests 24 . Sample questions:

• What is a reverse proxy and how is it used in nginx?

• How do you configure nginx as a load balancer?
• What load balancing methods does nginx support (round-robin, least connections, IP hash)?
• What is an upstream block in nginx?
• How do you configure nginx to proxy HTTP requests to another server?
• How do you configure nginx to proxy TCP or WebSocket connections?

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 • What is the proxy_pass directive used for?
• How do you enable sticky sessions in nginx?
• Scenario: How would you configure nginx to balance traffic between two backend servers?
• What directives improve proxy performance (e.g. keepalive, buffering)?

SSL/TLS

nginx can handle SSL/TLS encryption and HTTP/HTTPS. Key questions:

• How do you configure HTTPS with nginx?

• What is an SSL certificate and key, and where do you configure them in nginx?
• What are common SSL ciphers and why choose them?
• How do you redirect HTTP to HTTPS in nginx?
• What is HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)?
• How do you test if nginx SSL configuration is correct?
• What is SNI and how does nginx support it?
• Scenario: You need to renew a certificate. What steps do you take?
• How do you configure OCSP stapling in nginx?
• What is perfect forward secrecy and how can you configure it in nginx?

Caching and Compression

nginx offers caching and compression to improve performance. Common questions:

• How do you enable gzip compression in nginx?

• What is proxy_cache and how do you configure it?
• What is fastcgi_cache ?
• How do you clear the nginx cache?
• What is the difference between proxy_cache and fastcgi_cache ?
• How do you cache static content like images?
• What headers control client-side caching (e.g. Cache-Control, Expires)?
• Scenario: You want to reduce response size. What nginx feature do you use?
• What directives control gzip behavior?
• How do you test the effect of compression on responses?

Logging and Monitoring

Logging and metrics are built into nginx. Questions:

• Where are the nginx access and error logs typically located?
• How do you customize log format in nginx?
• How do you enable debug logging?
• What is the difference between access log and error log?
• How can you monitor nginx performance (active connections, requests per second)?
• What is the stub_status module in nginx?
• How do you log upstream server responses?
• How do you rotate nginx logs?
• Scenario: How would you monitor the number of HTTP 500 errors?

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 • How do you integrate nginx logs with log management systems (ELK, Splunk)?

Performance Tuning

nginx is optimized for speed, but some parameters can be tuned. Questions:

• What directives control worker processes and connections ( worker_processes ,

worker_connections )?
• How do you set the number of worker processes?
• What is the event model (e.g. epoll, kqueue) in nginx?
• How do you adjust timeouts ( keepalive_timeout , client_max_body_size , etc.)?
• What are common optimizations for serving static files?
• What is sendfile and why is it used?
• What is the effect of the worker_rlimit_nofile directive?
• Scenario: Your nginx is under heavy load. What configurations might you check or change?
• How do you benchmark nginx performance?
• What is TLS session caching and how is it configured?

Security Features

nginx includes features for security. Sample questions:

• How do you limit request rates (rate limiting) in nginx?

• How do you block requests by IP or country?
• How do you enable HTTP Basic Authentication?
• How do you use nginx variables for access control?
• How do you disable unwanted HTTP methods (e.g. DELETE, PUT)?
• What is the Content Security Policy (CSP) header and can nginx set it?
• Scenario: How do you protect against brute-force login attempts via nginx?
• What is HTTP Basic vs Digest authentication in nginx?
• How can nginx mitigate Slowloris attacks?
• How do you configure a firewall in front of nginx?

Commands and Troubleshooting

Basic commands and troubleshooting steps. Questions:

• What command do you use to test nginx configuration for errors?

• How do you gracefully reload nginx without dropping connections?
• What is the difference between nginx -s reload and nginx -s quit ?
• How do you enable verbose logging or debug mode?
• How can you check open ports nginx is listening on?
• What is the default page for nginx and where is it stored?
• Scenario: nginx fails to start due to config error. How do you diagnose?
• How do you troubleshoot a 502 Bad Gateway error?
• How do you find and fix common syntax errors in nginx.conf ?
• What is the meaning of common nginx error codes (e.g. 502, 504)?

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 1 5 Cyber Security Interview Questions with Answers (2025) | GeeksforGeeks
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/cyber-security-interview-questions/

2 What is the CIA Triad? | Definition from TechTarget

https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Confidentiality-integrity-and-availability-CIA

3 4 Vulnerabilities, Threats & Risk Explained | Splunk

https://www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/learn/vulnerability-vs-threat-vs-risk.html

6 IPS vs IDS: What's the Difference and Why It Matters | Tech Impact
https://techimpact.org/news/ips-vs-ids-whats-difference-and-why-it-matters

7 OWASP Top Ten | OWASP Foundation

https://owasp.org/www-project-top-ten/

8 Symmetric vs. Asymmetric Encryption: What's the Difference?

https://www.trentonsystems.com/en-us/resource-hub/blog/symmetric-vs-asymmetric-encryption

9 Cryptographic hash function - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function

10 Types of Cyberattacks
https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/cybersecurity-101/cyberattacks/common-cyberattacks/

11 Security information and event management (SIEM) systems | Internal Revenue Service
https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/security-information-and-event-management-siem-systems

12 What is ISO 27001? A detailed, simple, and straightforward guide | ControlCase

https://www.controlcase.com/what-is-iso-27001/

13 What is the Shared Responsibility Model? | CrowdStrike

https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/cybersecurity-101/cloud-security/shared-responsibility/

14 What is DevOps? - DevOps Models Explained - Amazon Web Services (AWS)

https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/

15 Git - About Version Control

https://git-scm.com/book/ms/v2/Getting-Started-About-Version-Control

16 Continuous Integration
https://martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html

17 Jenkins
https://www.jenkins.io/

18 Continuous integration vs. delivery vs. deployment | Atlassian

https://www.atlassian.com/continuous-delivery/principles/continuous-integration-vs-delivery-vs-deployment

19 What is a Container? | Docker

https://www.docker.com/resources/what-container/

20 What Are CI/CD And The CI/CD Pipeline? | IBM

https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/ci-cd-pipeline

21 22 23 nginx
https://nginx.org/en/

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24 What is a reverse proxy? | Proxy servers explained | Cloudflare
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/glossary/reverse-proxy/

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