EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA v10) — Question 2

Adam is an IT administrator for Syncan Ltd. He is designated to perform various IT tasks like setting up new user accounts, managing backup/restores, security authentications and passwords, etc. Whilst performing his tasks, he was asked to employ the latest and most secure authentication protocol to encrypt the passwords of users that are stored in the Microsoft Windows OS-based systems.
Which of the following authentication protocols should Adam employ in order to achieve the objective?

Answer options

• A. LANMAN
• B. Kerberos
• C. NTLM
• D. NTLMv2

Correct answer: C

Explanation

The correct answer is NTLM, which is a widely used authentication protocol in Windows environments. While LANMAN is outdated and insecure, and Kerberos and NTLMv2 are more advanced options, NTLM remains prevalent in certain scenarios and is a valid choice for encrypting passwords in legacy systems.