Exam Topics Flashcards
Which of the following will MOST likely adversely impact the operations of unpatched traditional programmable-logic controllers, running a back-end LAMP server and OT systems with human-management interfaces that are accessible over the Internet via a web interface? (Choose two.)
A. Cross-site scripting B. Data exfiltration C. Poor system logging D. Weak encryption E. SQL injection F. Server-side request forgery
Correct Answer: DF
A company recently transitioned to a strictly BYOD culture due to the cost of replacing lost or damaged corporate-owned mobile devices. Which of the following technologies would be BEST to balance the BYOD culture while also protecting the company’s data?
A. Containerization
B. Geofencing
C. Full-disk encryption
D. Remote wipe
Correct Answer: C
A Chief Security Office’s (CSO’s) key priorities are to improve preparation, response, and recovery practices to minimize system downtime and enhance organizational resilience to ransomware attacks. Which of the following would BEST meet the CSO’s objectives?
A. Use email-filtering software and centralized account management, patch high-risk systems, and restrict administration privileges on fileshares.
B. Purchase cyber insurance from a reputable provider to reduce expenses during an incident.
C. Invest in end-user awareness training to change the long-term culture and behavior of staff and executives, reducing the organization’s susceptibility to phishing attacks.
D. Implement application whitelisting and centralized event-log management, and perform regular testing and validation of full backups.
Correct Answer: D
A network engineer has been asked to investigate why several wireless barcode scanners and wireless computers in a warehouse have intermittent connectivity to the shipping server. The barcode scanners and computers are all on forklift trucks and move around the warehouse during their regular use. Which of the following should the engineer do to determine the issue? (Choose two.)
A. Perform a site survey B. Deploy an FTK Imager C. Create a heat map D. Scan for rogue access points E. Upgrade the security protocols F. Install a captive portal
Correct Answer: AC
A security administrator suspects an employee has been emailing proprietary information to a competitor. Company policy requires the administrator to capture an exact copy of the employee’s hard disk. Which of the following should the administrator use?
A. dd
B. chmod
C. dnsenum
D. logger
Correct Answer: A
Which of the following is MOST likely to outline the roles and responsibilities of data controllers and data processors?
A. SSAE SOC 2
B. PCI DSS
C. GDPR
D. ISO 31000
Correct Answer: C
Phishing and spear-phishing attacks have been occurring more frequently against a company’s staff. Which of the following would MOST likely help mitigate this issue?
A. DNSSEC and DMARC
B. DNS query logging
C. Exact mail exchanger records in the DNS
D. The addition of DNS conditional forwarders
Correct Answer: C
On which of the following is the live acquisition of data for forensic analysis MOST dependent? (Choose two.)
A. Data accessibility B. Legal hold C. Cryptographic or hash algorithm D. Data retention legislation E. Value and volatility of data F. Right-to-audit clauses
Correct Answer: EF
Which of the following incident response steps involves actions to protect critical systems while maintaining business operations?
A. Investigation
B. Containment
C. Recovery
D. Lessons learned
Correct Answer: B
A security auditor is reviewing vulnerability scan data provided by an internal security team. Which of the following BEST indicates that valid credentials were used?
A. The scan results show open ports, protocols, and services exposed on the target host
B. The scan enumerated software versions of installed programs
C. The scan produced a list of vulnerabilities on the target host
D. The scan identified expired SSL certificates
Correct Answer: B
Which of the following BEST explains the difference between a data owner and a data custodian?
A. The data owner is responsible for adhering to the rules for using the data, while the data custodian is responsible for determining the corporate governance regarding the data
B. The data owner is responsible for determining how the data may be used, while the data custodian is responsible for implementing the protection to the data
C. The data owner is responsible for controlling the data, while the data custodian is responsible for maintaining the chain of custody when handling the data
D. The data owner grants the technical permissions for data access, while the data custodian maintains the database access controls to the data
Correct Answer: B
A network engineer needs to build a solution that will allow guests at the company’s headquarters to access the Internet via WiFi. This solution should not allow access to the internal corporate network, but it should require guests to sign off on the acceptable use policy before accessing the Internet. Which of the following should the engineer employ to meet these requirements?
A. Implement open PSK on the APs
B. Deploy a WAF
C. Configure WIPS on the APs
D. Install a captive portal
Correct Answer: D
Which of the following cloud models provides clients with servers, storage, and networks but nothing else?
A. SaaS
B. PaaS
C. IaaS
D. DaaS
Correct Answer: C
A network administrator needs to build out a new datacenter, with a focus on resiliency and uptime. Which of the following would BEST meet this objective?
(Choose two.)
A. Dual power supply B. Off-site backups C. Automatic OS upgrades D. NIC teaming E. Scheduled penetration testing F. Network-attached storage
Correct Answer: AB
An organization is developing an authentication service for use at the entry and exit ports of country borders. The service will use data feeds obtained from passport systems, passenger manifests, and high-definition video feeds from CCTV systems that are located at the ports. The service will incorporate machine- learning techniques to eliminate biometric enrollment processes while still allowing authorities to identify passengers with increasing accuracy over time. The more frequently passengers travel, the more accurately the service will identify them. Which of the following biometrics will MOST likely be used, without the need for enrollment? (Choose two.)
A. Voice B. Gait C. Vein D. Facial E. Retina F. Fingerprint
Correct Answer: BD
An organization needs to implement more stringent controls over administrator/root credentials and service accounts. Requirements for the project include:
✑ Check-in/checkout of credentials
✑ The ability to use but not know the password
✑ Automated password changes
✑ Logging of access to credentials
Which of the following solutions would meet the requirements?
A. OAuth 2.0
B. Secure Enclave
C. A privileged access management system
D. An OpenID Connect authentication system
Correct Answer:D
Several employees return to work the day after attending an industry trade show. That same day, the security manager notices several malware alerts coming from each of the employee’s workstations. The security manager investigates but finds no signs of an attack on the perimeter firewall or the NIDS. Which of the following is MOST likely causing the malware alerts?
A. A worm that has propagated itself across the intranet, which was initiated by presentation media
B. A fileless virus that is contained on a vCard that is attempting to execute an attack
C. A Trojan that has passed through and executed malicious code on the hosts
D. A USB flash drive that is trying to run malicious code but is being blocked by the host firewall
Correct Answer: A
After reading a security bulletin, a network security manager is concerned that a malicious actor may have breached the network using the same software flaw.
The exploit code is publicly available and has been reported as being used against other industries in the same vertical. Which of the following should the network security manager consult FIRST to determine a priority list for forensic review?
A. The vulnerability scan output
B. The IDS logs
C. The full packet capture data
D. The SIEM alerts
Correct Answer: AQ
A financial organization has adopted a new secure, encrypted document-sharing application to help with its customer loan process. Some important PII needs to be shared across this new platform, but it is getting blocked by the DLP systems. Which of the following actions will BEST allow the PII to be shared with the secure application without compromising the organization’s security posture?
A. Configure the DLP policies to allow all PII
B. Configure the firewall to allow all ports that are used by this application
C. Configure the antivirus software to allow the application
D. Configure the DLP policies to whitelist this application with the specific PII
E. Configure the application to encrypt the PII
Correct Answer: D
An auditor is performing an assessment of a security appliance with an embedded OS that was vulnerable during the last two assessments. Which of the following
BEST explains the appliance’s vulnerable state?
A. The system was configured with weak default security settings.
B. The device uses weak encryption ciphers.
C. The vendor has not supplied a patch for the appliance.
D. The appliance requires administrative credentials for the assessment.
Correct Answer: C
A company’s bank has reported that multiple corporate credit cards have been stolen over the past several weeks. The bank has provided the names of the affected cardholders to the company’s forensics team to assist in the cyber-incident investigation.
An incident responder learns the following information:
✑ The timeline of stolen card numbers corresponds closely with affected users making Internet-based purchases from diverse websites via enterprise desktop
PCs.
✑ All purchase connections were encrypted, and the company uses an SSL inspection proxy for the inspection of encrypted traffic of the hardwired network.
Purchases made with corporate cards over the corporate guest WiFi network, where no SSL inspection occurs, were unaffected.
Which of the following is the MOST likely root cause?
A. HTTPS sessions are being downgraded to insecure cipher suites
B. The SSL inspection proxy is feeding events to a compromised SIEM
C. The payment providers are insecurely processing credit card charges
D. The adversary has not yet established a presence on the guest WiFi network
A. HTTPS sessions are being downgraded to insecure cipher suites
A pharmaceutical sales representative logs on to a laptop and connects to the public WiFi to check emails and update reports. Which of the following would be
BEST to prevent other devices on the network from directly accessing the laptop? (Choose two.)
A. Trusted Platform Module B. A host-based firewall C. A DLP solution D. Full disk encryption E. A VPN F. Antivirus software
Correct Answer: AB
A company is implementing MFA for all applications that store sensitive data. The IT manager wants MFA to be non-disruptive and user friendly. Which of the following technologies should the IT manager use when implementing MFA?
A. One-time passwords
B. Email tokens
C. Push notifications
D. Hardware authentication
Correct Answer: C
The CSIRT is reviewing the lessons learned from a recent incident. A worm was able to spread unhindered throughout the network and infect a large number of computers and servers. Which of the following recommendations would be BEST to mitigate the impacts of a similar incident in the future?
A. Install a NIDS device at the boundary.
B. Segment the network with firewalls.
C. Update all antivirus signatures daily.
D. Implement application blacklisting.
Correct Answer: B
A company is adopting a BYOD policy and is looking for a comprehensive solution to protect company information on user devices. Which of the following solutions would BEST support the policy?
A. Mobile device management
B. Full-device encryption
C. Remote wipe
D. Biometrics
Correct Answer: A
A development team employs a practice of bringing all the code changes from multiple team members into the same development project through automation. A tool is utilized to validate the code and track source code through version control. Which of the following BEST describes this process?
A. Continuous delivery
B. Continuous integration
C. Continuous validation
D. Continuous monitoring
Correct Answer: B
A cybersecurity administrator needs to add disk redundancy for a critical server. The solution must have a two-drive failure for better fault tolerance. Which of the following RAID levels should the administrator select?
A. 0
B. 1
C. 5
D. 6
Correct Answer: B
Which of the following BEST explains the reason why a server administrator would place a document named password.txt on the desktop of an administrator account on a server?
A. The document is a honeyfile and is meant to attract the attention of a cyberintruder.
B. The document is a backup file if the system needs to be recovered.
C. The document is a standard file that the OS needs to verify the login credentials.
D. The document is a keylogger that stores all keystrokes should the account be compromised.
Correct Answer: A
A small company that does not have security staff wants to improve its security posture. Which of the following would BEST assist the company?
A. MSSP
B. SOAR
C. IaaS
D. PaaS
Correct Answer: B
An organization’s help desk is flooded with phone calls from users stating they can no longer access certain websites. The help desk escalates the issue to the security team, as these websites were accessible the previous day. The security analysts run the following command: ipconfig /flushdns, but the issue persists. Finally, an analyst changes the DNS server for an impacted machine, and the issue goes away. Which of the following attacks MOST likely occurred on the original DNS server?
A. DNS cache poisoning
B. Domain hijacking
C. Distributed denial-of-service
D. DNS tunneling
Correct Answer: B
A cybersecurity manager has scheduled biannual meetings with the IT team and department leaders to discuss how they would respond to hypothetical cyberattacks. During these meetings, the manager presents a scenario and injects additional information throughout the session to replicate what might occur in a dynamic cybersecurity event involving the company, its facilities, its data, and its staff. Which of the following describes what the manager is doing?
A. Developing an incident response plan
B. Building a disaster recovery plan
C. Conducting a tabletop exercise
D. Running a simulation exercise
Correct Answer: C
A RAT that was used to compromise an organization’s banking credentials was found on a user’s computer. The RAT evaded antivirus detection. It was installed by a user who has local administrator rights to the system as part of a remote management tool set. Which of the following recommendations would BEST prevent this from reoccurring?
A. Create a new acceptable use policy.
B. Segment the network into trusted and untrusted zones.
C. Enforce application whitelisting.
D. Implement DLP at the network boundary.
Correct Answer: C
A security analyst is reviewing a new website that will soon be made publicly available. The analyst sees the following in the URL: http://dev-site.comptia.org/home/show.php?sessionID=77276554&loc=us
The analyst then sends an internal user a link to the new website for testing purposes, and when the user clicks the link, the analyst is able to browse the website with the following URL: http://dev-site.comptia.org/home/show.php?sessionID=98988475&loc=us
Which of the following application attacks is being tested?
A. Pass-the-hash
B. Session replay
C. Object deference
D. Cross-site request forgerY
Correct Answer: D
A network administrator has been asked to install an IDS to improve the security posture of an organization. Which of the following control types is an IDS?
A. Corrective
B. Physical
C. Detective
D. Administrative
Correct Answer: C
Which of the following should be put in place when negotiating with a new vendor about the timeliness of the response to a significant outage or incident?
A. MOU
B. MTTR
C. SLA
D. NDA
Correct Answer: C
A startup company is using multiple SaaS and IaaS platforms to stand up a corporate infrastructure and build out a customer-facing web application. Which of the following solutions would be BEST to provide security, manageability, and visibility into the platforms?
A. SIEM
B. DLP
C. CASB
D. SWG
Correct Answer: C
A root cause analysis reveals that a web application outage was caused by one of the company’s developers uploading a newer version of the third-party libraries that were shared among several applications. Which of the following implementations would be BEST to prevent the issue from reoccurring?
A. CASB
B. SWG
C. Containerization
D. Automated failover
Correct Answer: C
A security administrator suspects there may be unnecessary services running on a server. Which of the following tools will the administrator MOST likely use to confirm the suspicions?
A. Nmap
B. Wireshark
C. Autopsy
D. DNSEnum
Correct Answer: A
A company has drafted an insider-threat policy that prohibits the use of external storage devices. Which of the following would BEST protect the company from data exfiltration via removable media?
A. Monitoring large data transfer transactions in the firewall logs
B. Developing mandatory training to educate employees about the removable media policy
C. Implementing a group policy to block user access to system files
D. Blocking removable-media devices and write capabilities using a host-based security tool
Correct Answer: D
A company provides mobile devices to its users to permit access to email and enterprise applications. The company recently started allowing users to select from several different vendors and device models. When configuring the MDM, which of the following is a key security implication of this heterogeneous device approach?
A. The most common set of MDM configurations will become the effective set of enterprise mobile security controls.
B. All devices will need to support SCEP-based enrollment; therefore, the heterogeneity of the chosen architecture may unnecessarily expose private keys to adversaries.
C. Certain devices are inherently less secure than others, so compensatory controls will be needed to address the delta between device vendors.
D. MDMs typically will not support heterogeneous deployment environments, so multiple MDMs will need to be installed and configured.
Correct Answer: C
An organization with a low tolerance for user inconvenience wants to protect laptop hard drives against loss or data theft. Which of the following would be the
MOST acceptable?
A. SED
B. HSM
C. DLP
D. TPM
Correct Answer: A
In which of the following situations would it be BEST to use a detective control type for mitigation?
A. A company implemented a network load balancer to ensure 99.999% availability of its web application.
B. A company designed a backup solution to increase the chances of restoring services in case of a natural disaster.
C. A company purchased an application-level firewall to isolate traffic between the accounting department and the information technology department.
D. A company purchased an IPS system, but after reviewing the requirements, the appliance was supposed to monitor, not block, any traffic.
E. A company purchased liability insurance for flood protection on all capital assets.
Correct Answer: D
The IT department’s on-site developer has been with the team for many years. Each time an application is released, the security team is able to identify multiple vulnerabilities. Which of the following would BEST help the team ensure the application is ready to be released to production?
A. Limit the use of third-party libraries.
B. Prevent data exposure queries.
C. Obfuscate the source code.
D. Submit the application to QA before releasing it.
Correct Answer: D
A cybersecurity analyst needs to implement secure authentication to third-party websites without users’ passwords. Which of the following would be the BEST way to achieve this objective?
A. OAuth
B. SSO
C. SAML
D. PAP
Correct Answer: A
An analyst needs to identify the applications a user was running and the files that were open before the user’s computer was shut off by holding down the power button. Which of the following would MOST likely contain that information?
A. NGFW
B. Pagefile
C. NetFlow
D. RAM
Correct Answer: B
A remote user recently took a two-week vacation abroad and brought along a corporate-owned laptop. Upon returning to work, the user has been unable to connect the laptop to the VPN. Which of the following is the MOST likely reason for the user’s inability to connect the laptop to the VPN?
A. Due to foreign travel, the user’s laptop was isolated from the network.
B. The user’s laptop was quarantined because it missed the latest path update.
C. The VPN client was blacklisted.
D. The user’s account was put on a legal hold.
Correct Answer: A
In which of the following common use cases would steganography be employed?
A. Obfuscation
B. Integrity
C. Non-repudiation
D. Blockchain
Correct Answer: A
To secure an application after a large data breach, an e-commerce site will be resetting all users’ credentials. Which of the following will BEST ensure the site’s users are not compromised after the reset?
A. A password reuse policy
B. Account lockout after three failed attempts
C. Encrypted credentials in transit
D. A geofencing policy based on login history
Correct Answer: C
In which of the following risk management strategies would cybersecurity insurance be used?
A. Transference
B. Avoidance
C. Acceptance
D. Mitigation
Correct Answer: A
An organization has implemented a policy requiring the use of conductive metal lockboxes for personal electronic devices outside of a secure research lab. Which of the following did the organization determine to be the GREATEST risk to intellectual property when creating this policy?
A. The theft of portable electronic devices
B. Geotagging in the metadata of images
C. Bluesnarfing of mobile devices
D. Data exfiltration over a mobile hotspot
Correct Answer: D
A security analyst is using a recently released security advisory to review historical logs, looking for the specific activity that was outlined in the advisory. Which of the following is the analyst doing?
A. A packet capture
B. A user behavior analysis
C. Threat hunting
D. Credentialed vulnerability scanning
Correct Answer: C
Which of the following would MOST likely support the integrity of a voting machine?
A. Asymmetric encryption
B. Blockchain
C. Transport Layer Security
D. Perfect forward secrecy
Correct Answer: D
A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) needs to create a policy set that meets international standards for data privacy and sharing. Which of the following should the CISO read and understand before writing the policies?
A. PCI DSS
B. GDPR
C. NIST
D. ISO 31000
Correct Answer: B
The IT department at a university is concerned about professors placing servers on the university network in an attempt to bypass security controls. Which of the following BEST represents this type of threat?
A. A script kiddie
B. Shadow IT
C. Hacktivism
D. White-hat
Correct Answer: B
A commercial cyber-threat intelligence organization observes IoCs across a variety of unrelated customers. Prior to releasing specific threat intelligence to other paid subscribers, the organization is MOST likely obligated by contracts to:
A. perform attribution to specific APTs and nation-state actors.
B. anonymize any PII that is observed within the IoC data.
C. add metadata to track the utilization of threat intelligence reports.
D. assist companies with impact assessments based on the observed data.
Correct Answer: B
While checking logs, a security engineer notices a number of end users suddenly downloading files with the .tar.gz extension. Closer examination of the files reveals they are PE32 files. The end users state they did not initiate any of the downloads. Further investigation reveals the end users all clicked on an external email containing an infected MHT file with an href link a week prior. Which of the following is MOST likely occurring?
A. A RAT was installed and is transferring additional exploit tools.
B. The workstations are beaconing to a command-and-control server.
C. A logic bomb was executed and is responsible for the data transfers.
D. A fireless virus is spreading in the local network environment.
Correct Answer: A
An organization is developing a plan in the event of a complete loss of critical systems and data. Which of the following plans is the organization MOST likely developing?
A. Incident response
B. Communications
C. Disaster recovery
D. Data retention
Correct Answer: C
Which of the following is the purpose of a risk register?
A. To define the level or risk using probability and likelihood
B. To register the risk with the required regulatory agencies
C. To identify the risk, the risk owner, and the risk measures
D. To formally log the type of risk mitigation strategy the organization is using
Correct Answer: C
A university with remote campuses, which all use different service providers, loses Internet connectivity across all locations. After a few minutes, Internet and VoIP services are restored, only to go offline again at random intervals, typically within four minutes of services being restored. Outages continue throughout the day, impacting all inbound and outbound connections and services. Services that are limited to the local LAN or WiFi network are not impacted, but all WAN and VoIP services are affected.
Later that day, the edge-router manufacturer releases a CVE outlining the ability of an attacker to exploit the SIP protocol handling on devices, leading to resource exhaustion and system reloads. Which of the following BEST describe this type of attack? (Choose two.)
A. DoS B. SSL stripping C. Memory leak D. Race condition E. Shimming F. Refactoring
Correct Answer: AC
A company recently set up an e-commerce portal to sell its product online. The company wants to start accepting credit cards for payment, which requires compliance with a security standard. Which of the following standards must the company comply with before accepting credit cards on its e-commerce platform?
A. PCI DSS
B. ISO 22301
C. ISO 27001
D. NIST CSF
Correct Answer: A
Which of the following BEST describes a security exploit for which a vendor patch is not readily available?
A. Integer overflow
B. Zero-day
C. End of life
D. Race condition
Correct Answer: B
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of an insurance company received an email from Ann, the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), requesting a transfer of
$10,000 to an account. The email states Ann is on vacation and has lost her purse, containing cash and credit cards. Which of the following social-engineering techniques is the attacker using?
A. Phishing
B. Whaling
C. Typo squatting
D. Pharming
Correct Answer: B
An organization wants to implement a third factor to an existing multifactor authentication. The organization already uses a smart card and password. Which of the following would meet the organization’s needs for a third factor?
A. Date of birth
B. Fingerprints
C. PIN
D. TPM
Correct Answer: B
An employee has been charged with fraud and is suspected of using corporate assets. As authorities collect evidence, and to preserve the admissibility of the evidence, which of the following forensic techniques should be used?
A. Order of volatility
B. Data recovery
C. Chain of custody
D. Non-repudiation
Correct Answer: C
