601 Practice Test

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

A

A security engineer deploys a certificate from a commercial CA to the RADIUS server for use with the EAP-TLS wireless network. Authentication is failing, so the engineer examines the certificate's properties: Issuer: (A commercial CA)Valid from: (yesterday's date) Valid to: (one year from yesterday's date) Subject: CN=smithco.com Public key: RSA (2048 bits) Enhanced key usage: Client authentication (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2) Key usage: Digital signature, key encipherment (a0) Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the failure? A. The certificate is missing the proper OID. B. The certificate is missing wireless authentication in key usage. C. The certificate is self-signed. D. The certificate has expired.

A

A security engineer obtained the following output from a threat intelligence source that recently performed an attack on the company's server: GET index.php?page=..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2fetc2fpasswd GET index.php?page=..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2..2fetc2fpasswd GET index.php?page=..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2f..2fetc2fpasswd Which of the following BEST describes this kind of attack? A. Directory traversal B. SQL injection C. API D. Request forge

A

A small business just recovered from a ransomware attack against its file servers by purchasing the decryption keys from the attackers. The issue was triggered by a phishing email and the IT administrator wants to ensure it does not happen again. Which of the following should the IT administrator do FIRST after recovery? A. Scan the NAS for residual or dormant malware and take new daily backups that are tested on a frequent basis. B. Restrict administrative privileges and patch all systems and applications. C. Rebuild all workstations and install new antivirus software. D. Implement application whitelisting and perform user application hardening

A

A software developer needs to perform code-execution testing, black-box testing, and nonfunctional testing on a new product before its general release. Which of the following BEST describes the tasks the developer is conducting? A. Verification B. Validation C. Normalization D. Staging

A

In which of the following risk management strategies would cybersecurity insurance be used? A. Transference B. Avoidance C. Acceptance D. Mitigation

A

When selecting a technical solution for identity management, an architect chooses to go from an in-house solution to a third party SaaS provider. Which of the following risk management strategies is this an example of? A. Transference B. Avoidance C. Acceptance D. Mitigation

A

Which of the following is a team of people dedicated to testing the effectiveness of organizational security programs by emulating the techniques of potential attackers? A. Red team B. White team C. Blue team D. Purple team

A

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

A,C

Which of the following are the MOST likely vectors for the unauthorized or unintentional inclusion of vulnerable code in a software company's final software releases? (Choose two.) A. Unsecure protocols B. Use of penetration-testing utilities C. Weak passwords D. Included third-party libraries E. Vendors/supply chain F. Outdated anti-malware software

A,C

A company recently experienced a data breach and the source was determined to be an executive who was charging a phone in a public area. Which of the following would MOST likely have prevented this breach? A. A firewall B. A device pin C. A USB data blocker D. Biometrics

C

A document that appears to be malicious has been discovered in an email that was sent to a company's Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Which of the following would be BEST to allow a security analyst to gather information and confirm it is a malicious document without executing any code it may contain? A. Open the document on an air-gapped network. B. View the document's metadata for origin clues. C. Search for matching file hashes on malware websites. D. Detonate the document in an analysis sandbox.

C

A cybersecurity administrator has a reduced team and needs to operate an on-premises network and security infrastructure efficiently. To help with the situation, the administrator decides to hire a service provider. Which of the following should the administrator use? A. SDP B. AAA C. IaaS D. MSSP E. Microservices

D

A security analyst is looking for a solution to help communicate to the leadership team the severity levels of the organization's vulnerabilities. Which of the following would BEST meet this need? A. CVE B. SIEM C. SOAR D. CVSS

D

A security analyst is reviewing information regarding recent vulnerabilities. Which of the following will the analyst MOST likely consult to validate which platforms have been affected? A. OSINT B. SIEM C. CVSS D. CVE

D

An organization has various applications that contain sensitive data hosted in the cloud. The company's leaders are concerned about lateral movement across applications of different trust levels. Which of the following solutions should the organization implement to address the concern? A. ISFW B. UTM C. SWG D. CASB

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

A

Which of the following describes the BEST approach for deploying application patches? A. Apply the patches to systems in a testing environment, then to systems in a staging environment, and finally to production systems. B. Test the patches in a staging environment, develop against them in the development environment, and then apply them to the production systems. C. Test the patches in a test environment, apply them to the production systems, and then apply them to a staging environment. D. Apply the patches to the production systems, apply them in a staging environment, and then test all of them in a testing environment.

A

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

A,B

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

A,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

B

After entering a username and password, an administrator must draw a gesture on a touch screen. Which of the following demonstrates what the administrator is providing? A. Multifactor authentication B. Something you can do C. Biometrics D. Two-factor authentication

B

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

B

Users have been issued smart cards that provide physical access to a building. The cards also contain tokens that can be used to access information systems. Users can log in to any thin client located throughout the building and see the same desktop each time. Which of the following technologies are being utilized to provide these capabilities? (Choose two.) A. COPE B. VDI C. GPS D. TOTP E. RFID F. BYOD

B,E

An analyst visits an Internet forum looking for information about a tool. The analyst finds a thread that appears to contain relevant information. One of the posts says the following: [Hello everyone I am having the same problem with my server/ Can you help me Thank You, Kenny Which of the following BEST describes the attack that was attempted against the forum readers? A. SQLi attack B. DLL attack C. XSS attack D. API attack

C

A company processes highly sensitive data and senior management wants to protect the sensitive data by utilizing classification labels. Which of the following access control schemes would be BEST for the company to implement? A. Discretionary B. Rule-based C. Role-based D. Mandatory

D

A global pandemic is forcing a private organization to close some business units and reduce staffing at others. Which of the following would be BEST to help the organization's executives determine their next course of action? A. An incident response plan B. A communications plan C. A disaster recovery plan D. A business continuity plan

D

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

D

A security assessment determines DES and 3DES are still being used on recently deployed production servers. Which of the following did the assessment identify? A. Unsecure protocols B. Default settings C. Open permissions D. Weak encryption

D

A user received an SMS on a mobile phone that asked for bank details. Which of the following social-engineering techniques was used in this case? A. SPIM B. Vishing C. Spear phishing D. Smishing

D

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

D

Under GDPR, which of the following is MOST responsible for the protection of privacy and website user rights? A. The data protection officer B. The data processor C. The data owner D. The data controller

D

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

A

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

A

A consultant is configuring a vulnerability scanner for a large, global organization in multiple countries. The consultant will be using a service account to scan systems with administrative privileges on a weekly basis, but there is a concern that hackers could gain access to the account and pivot throughout the global network. Which of the following would be BEST to help mitigate this concern? A. Create different accounts for each region, each configured with push MFA notifications. B. Create one global administrator account and enforce Kerberos authentication. C. Create different accounts for each region, limit their logon times, and alert on risky logins. D. Create a guest account for each region, remember the last ten passwords, and block password reuse.

A

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

A

A developer has just finished coding a custom web application and would like to test it for bugs by automatically injecting mailformed data into it. Which of the following is the developer looking to perform? A. Fuzzing B. Stress testing C. Sandboxing D. Normalization

A

A host was infected with malware. During the incident response, Joe, a user, reported that he did not receive any emails with links, but he had been browsing the Internet all day. Which of the following would MOST likely show where the malware originated? A. The DNS logs B. The web server logs C. The SIP traffic logs D. The SNMP logs

A

A manufacturer creates designs for very high security products that are required to be protected and controlled by the government regulations. These designs are not accessible by corporate networks or the Internet. Which of the following is the BEST solution to protect these designs? A. An air gap B. A Faraday cage C. A shielded cable D. A demilitarized zone

A

A network administrator wants to gather information on the security of the network servers in the DMZ. The administrator runs the following command: Telnet www.example.com 80 Which of the following actions is the administrator performing? A. Grabbing the web server banner B. Logging into the web server C. Harvesting cleartext credentials D. Accessing the web server management console

A

A network engineer is troubleshooting wireless network connectivity issues that were reported by users. The issues are occurring only in the section of the building that is closest to the parking lot. Users are intermittently experiencing slow speeds when accessing websites and are unable to connect to network drives. The issues appear to increase when laptop users return to their desks after using their devices in other areas of the building. There have also been reports of users being required to enter their credentials on web pages in order to gain access to them. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of this issue? A. An external access point is engaging in an evil-twin attack. B. The signal on the WAP needs to be increased in that section of the building. C. The certificates have expired on the devices and need to be reinstalled. D. The users in that section of the building are on a VLAN that is being blocked by the firewall.

A

A public relations team will be taking a group of guests on a tour through the facility of a large ecommerce company. The day before the tour, the company sends out an email to employees to ensure all whiteboards are cleaned and all desks are cleared. The company is MOST likely trying to protect against: A. loss of proprietary information. B. damage to the company's reputation. C. social engineering. D. credential exposure.

A

A recently discovered zero-day exploit utilizes an unknown vulnerability in the SMB network protocol to rapidly infect computers. Once infected, computers are encrypted and held for ransom. Which of the following would BEST prevent this attack from reoccurring? A. Configure the perimeter firewall to deny inbound external connections to SMB ports. B. Ensure endpoint detection and response systems are alerting on suspicious SMB connections. C. Deny unauthenticated users access to shared network folders. D. Verify computers are set to install monthly operating system, updates automatically.

A

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.

A

A security administrator checks the table of a network switch, which shows the following output: VLAN Physical Address Type Port 1 001a:42ff:5113 Dynamic GEO/5 1 0faa:abcf:ddee Dynamic GEO/5 1 c6a9:6b16:758 Dynamic GEO/5 1 a3aa:b6a3:1212 Dynamic GEO/5 1 8025:2ad8:bfac Dynamic GEO/5 1 b839:f995:a00a Dynamic GEO/5 Which of the following is happening to this switch? A. MAC Flooding B. DNS poisoning C. MAC cloning D. ARP poisoning

A

A security administrator is reviewing the following information from a file that was found on a compromised host: cat suspiciousfile.txt www.CompTIA.org\njohn\miloveyou\n$200\nWorking Late\nJohn\nI%20will%20be%20in%20 the%20office%20till%206pm%20to%20finish%20the%20report\n Which of the following types of malware is MOST likely installed on the compromised host? A. Keylogger B. Spyware C. Trojan D. Backdoor E. Rootkit

A

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

A

A security analyst is investigating a report from an employee in the human resources (HR) department who is having sporadic issues with Internet access. When the security analyst pulls the UTM logs for the IP addresses in the HR group, the following activity is shown: Host Destination Port Category User Group Action 10.1.13.45 165.35.23.129 8080 News/Journalism General Block 10.1.13.45 89.23.45.11 443 Banking General Allow 10.1.13.46 76.4.3.19 8080 Business HR Users Allow 10.1.13.45 14.5.29.173 8080 Business General Block 10.1.13.45 10.1.1.29 443 Internal General Allow 10.1.13.46 19.34.1.189 443 Banking HR Users Allow 10.1.13.45 45.1.39.118 8080 Job Search General Block 10.1.13.46 45.1.39.118 8080 Job Search HR Users Allow Which of the following actions should the security analyst take? A. Ensure the HR employee is in the appropriate user group. B. Allow port 8080 on the UTM for all outgoing traffic. C. Disable the proxy settings on the HR employee's device. D. Edit the last line of the ACL on the UTM to: allow any any.

A

A security analyst is investigating an incident to determine what an attacker was able to do on a compromised laptop. The analyst reviews the following SIEM log: Host Event ID Event Source Description PC1 865 Microsoft-Windows-SoftwareRestriction-Policies C:\aadf234\aadf234.exe was blocked by Group Policy PC1 4688 Microsoft-Windows-SecurityAuditing A new process has been created New Process Name: powershell.exe Creator Process Name: outlook.exe PC1 4688 Microsoft-Windows-SecurityAuditing A new process has been created New Process Name: lat.pal Creator Process Name: powershell.exe PC2 4625 Microsoft-Windows-SecurityAuditing An account failed to log on Logon Type: 3 Security ID: Null SID Workstation Name: PC1 Authentication Package Name: NTLM Which of the following describes the method that was used to compromise the laptop? A. An attacker was able to move laterally from PC1 to PC2 using a pass-the-hash attack B. An attacker was able to bypass application whitelisting by emailing a spreadsheet attachment with an embedded PowerShell in the file C. An attacker was able to install malware to the CAasdf234 folder and use it to gam administrator nights and launch Outlook D. An attacker was able to phish user credentials successfully from an Outlook user profile

A

A security analyst is performing a forensic investigation involving compromised account credentials. Using the Event Viewer, the analyst was able to detect the following message: "Special privileges assigned to new logon." Several of these messages did not have a valid logon associated with the user before these privileges were assigned. Which of the following attacks is MOST likely being detected? A. Pass-the-hash B. Buffer overflow C. Cross-site scripting D. Session replay

A

A security researcher is tracking an adversary by noting its attacks and techniques based on its capabilities, infrastructure, and victims. Which of the following is the researcher MOST likely using? A. The Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis B. The Cyber Kill Chain C. The MITRE CVE database D. The incident response process

A

A security team received reports of increased latency on a highly utilized e-commerce server. This led to eventual service unavailability as a result of internal scanning activity. The following web-server log was shared with the team to support this claim: root@server:~# tail 5 /var/log/httpd-access.log 192.168.1.101 -- [15/May/2019:10:08:03 +0200] "GET /adjakjaj HTTP/1.1" 404 192.168.1.101 -- [15/May/2019:10:08:03 +0200] "GET /njknfkjn HTTP/1.1" 404 192.168.1.101 -- [15/May/2019:10:08:04 +0200] "GET /manbsbbd HTTP/1.1" 404 192.168.1.101 -- [15/May/2019:10:08:04 +0200] "GET /uwriuiyr HTTP/1.1" 404 192.168.1.101 -- [15/May/2019:10:08:04 +0200] "GET /iuqiuuqi HTTP/1.1" 404 Which of the following actions would BEST address the service impact caused by scanning? A. Enable proper error handling on the web server B. Run scans during off peak hours C. Stop scanning the affected servers D. Disable directory enumeration in the scanning policy

A

A user contacts the help desk to report the following: - Two days ago, a pop-up browser window prompted the user for a name and password after connecting to the corporate wireless SSID. - This had never happened before, but the user entered the information as requested. - The user was able to access the Internet but had trouble accessing the department share until the next day. - The user is now getting notifications from the bank about unauthorized transactions. Which of the following attack vectors was MOST likely used in this scenario? A. Rogue access point B. Evil twin C. DNS poisoning D. ARP poisoning

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

A

An end user reports a computer has been acting slower than normal for a few weeks. During an investigation, an analyst determines the system is sending the user's email address and a tendigit number to an IP address once a day. The only recent log entry regarding the user's computer is the following: Time: 06:32:29 UTC Event Description: This file meets the ML algorithm's medium-confidence threshold Process Blocked: False File quarantined: False Operating System: Windows 10 File Name: \Device\HarddiskVolume4\users\jdoe\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\IE\pdftodocx,msi Connection Details: 35.242.219.204:80 Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the issue? A. The end user purchased and installed a PUP from a web browser B. A bot on the computer is brute forcing passwords against a website C. A hacker is attempting to exfiltrate sensitive data D. Ransomware is communicating with a command-and-control server

A

An organization that is located in a flood zone is MOST likely to document the concerns associated with the restoration of IT operations in a: A. business continuity plan. B. communications plan. C. disaster recovery plan. D. continuity of operations plan.

A

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

A

Company engineers regularly participate in a public Internet forum with other engineers throughout the industry. Which of the following tactics would an attacker MOST likely use in this scenario? A. Watering-hole attack B. Credential harvesting C. Hybrid warfare D. Pharming

A

In which of the following common use cases would steganography be employed? A. Obfuscation B. Integrity C. Non-repudiation D. Blockchain

A

The SOC is reviewing processes and procedures after a recent incident. The review indicates it took more than 30 minutes to determine that quarantining an infected host was the best course of action. This allowed the malware to spread to additional hosts before it was contained. Which of the following would be BEST to improve the incident response process? A. Updating the playbooks with better decision points B. Dividing the network into trusted and untrusted zones C. Providing additional end-user training on acceptable use D. Implementing manual quarantining of infected hosts

A

The following is an administrative control that would be MOST effective to reduce the occurrence of malware execution? A. Security awareness training B. Frequency of NIDS updates C. Change control procedures D. EDR reporting cycle

A

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.

A

Which of the following refers to applications and systems that are used within an organization without consent or approval? A. Shadow IT B. OSINT C. Dark web D. Insider threats

A

Which of the following threat actors is motivated primarily by a desire for personal recognition and a sense of accomplishment? A. A script kiddie B. A hacktivist C. An insider threat D. An industrial saboteur

A

Which of the following types of controls is a turnstile? A. Physical B. Detective C. Corrective D. Technical

A

Which of the following would be the BEST method for creating a detailed diagram of wireless access points and hotspots? A. Footprinting B. White-box testing C. A drone/UAV D. Pivoting

A

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.

A

A security analyst is performing a packet capture on a series of SOAP HTTP requests for a security assessment. The analyst redirects the output to a file After the capture is complete, the analyst needs to review the first transactions quickly and then search the entire series of requests for a particular string. Which of the following would be BEST to use to accomplish the task? (Select TWO). A. head B. Tcpdump C. grep D. rail E. curl F. openssi G. dd

A,B

A user enters a password to log in to a workstation and is then prompted to enter an authentication code. Which of the following MFA factors or attributes are being utilized in the authentication process? (Choose two.) A. Something you know B. Something you have C. Somewhere you are D. Someone you know E. Something you are F. Something you can do

A,B

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of an organization would like staff members to have the flexibility to work from home anytime during business hours, including during a pandemic or crisis. However, the CEO is concerned that some staff members may take advantage of the flexibility and work from high-risk countries while on holiday or outsource work to a third- party organization in another country. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) believes the company can implement some basic controls to mitigate the majority of the risk. Which of the following would be BEST to mitigate the CEO's concerns? (Choose two.) A. Geolocation B. Time-of-day restrictions C. Certificates D. Tokens E. Geotagging F. Role-based access controls

A,B

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

A,D

After running an online password cracking tool, an attacker recovers the following password: gh ;j SKSTOi;618& Based on the above information, which of the following technical controls have been implemented? (Choose two.) A. Complexity B. Encryption C. Hashing D. Length E. Salting F. Stretching

A,D

A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is concerned about the organization's ability to continue business operations in the event of a prolonged DDoS attack on its local datacenter that consumes database resources. Which of the following will the CISO MOST likely recommend to mitigate this risk? A. Upgrade the bandwidth available into the datacenter. B. Implement a hot-site failover location. C. Switch to a complete SaaS offering to customers. D. Implement a challenge response test on all end-user queries.

B

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

B

A Chief Security Officer (CSO) is concerned about the amount of PII that is stored locally on each salesperson's laptop. The sales department has a higher-than-average rate of lost equipment. Which of the following recommendations would BEST address the CSO's concern? A. Deploy an MDM solution. B. Implement managed FDE. C. Replace all hard drives with SEDs. D. Install DLP agents on each laptop.

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.

B

A company has forbidden the use of external media within its headquarters location. A security analyst is working on adding additional repositories to a server in the environment when the analyst notices some odd processes running on the system. The analyst runs a command and sees the following: $ history ifconfig -a netstat -n pskill 1788 pskill 914 mkdir /tmp/1 mount -u sda101 /tmp/1 cp /tmp/1/~/1/ unmount /tmp/1 ls -a1 1/1/ apt-get update apt-get upgrade clear Given this output, which of the following security issues has been discovered? A. A misconfigured HIDS B. A malware installation C. A policy violation D. The activation of a Trojan

B

A company has limited storage space available and an online presence that cannot be down for more than four hours. Which of the following backup methodologies should the company implement to allow for the FASTEST database restore time in the event of a failure, while being mindful of the limited available storage space? A. Implement full tape backups every Sunday at 8:00 p.m. and perform nightly tape rotations. B. Implement differential backups every Sunday at 8:00 p.m. and nightly incremental backups at 8:00 p.m. C. Implement nightly full backups every Sunday at 8:00 p.m. D. Implement full backups every Sunday at 8:00 p.m. and nightly differential backups at 8:00 p.m.

B

A company uses wireless for all laptops and keeps a very detailed record of its assets, along with a comprehensive list of devices that are authorized to be on the wireless network. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is concerned about a script kiddie potentially using an unauthorized device to brute force the wireless PSK and obtain access to the internal network. Which of the following should the company implement to BEST prevent this from occurring? A. A BPDU guard B. WPA-EAP C. IP filtering D. A WIDS

B

A company wants to deploy PKI on its Internet-facing website. The applications that are currently deployed are: - www.company.com(main website) - contactus.company.com(for locating a nearby location) - quotes.company.com (for requesting a price quote) The company wants to purchase one SSL certificate that will work for all the existing applications and any future applications that follow the same naming conventions, such as store.company.com. Which of the following certificate types would BEST meet the requirements? A. SAN B. Wildcard C. Extended validation D. Self-signed

B

A company's Chief Information Officer (CIO) is meeting with the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to plan some activities to enhance the skill levels of the company's developers. Which of the following would be MOST suitable for training the developers? A. A capture-the-flag competition B. A phishing simulation C. Physical security training D. Basic awareness training

B

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

B

A large industrial system's smart generator monitors the system status and sends alerts to third party maintenance personnel when critical failures occur. While reviewing the network logs, the company's security manager notices the generator's IP is sending packets to an internal file server's IP. Which of the following mitigations would be BEST for the security manager to implement while maintaining alerting capabilities? A. Segmentation B. Firewall whitelisting C. Containment D. Isolation

B

A security analyst discovers that a company's username and password database was posted on an Internet forum. The usernames and passwords are stored in plain text. Which of the following would mitigate the damage done by this type of data exfiltration in the future? A. Create DLP controls that prevent documents from leaving the network. B. Implement salting and hashing. C. Configure the web content filter to block access to the forum. D. Increase password complexity requirements.

B

A security analyst has received an alert about PII being sent via email. The analyst's Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has made it clear that PII must be handled with extreme care. From which of the following did the alert MOST likely originate? A. S/MIME B. DLP C. IMAP D. HIDS

B

A security analyst is running a vulnerability scan to check for missing patches during a suspected security incident. During which of the following phases of the response process is this activity MOST likely occurring? A. Containment B. Identification C. Recovery D. Preparation

B

A security analyst needs to generate a server certificate to be used for 802.1X and secure RDP connections. The analyst is unsure what is required to perform the task and solicits help from a senior colleague. Which of the following is the FIRST step the senior colleague will most likely tell the analyst to perform to accomplish this task? A. Create an OCSP B. Generate a CSR. C. Create a CRL. D. Generate a .pfx file.

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

B

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

B

A smart switch has the ability to monitor electrical levels and shut off power to a building in the event of power surge of power surge or other fault situation. The switch was installed on a wired network in a hospital and is monitored by the facilities department via a cloud application. The security administrator isolated the switch on a separate VLAN and set up a patching routine. Which of the following steps should also be taken to harden the smart switch? A. Set up an air gap for the switch. B. Change the default password for the switch. C. Place the switch in a Faraday cage. D. Install a cable lock on the switch.

B

A systems administrator needs to implement an access control scheme that will allow an object's access policy to be determined by its owner. Which of the following access control schemes BEST fits the requirements? A. Role-based access control B. Discretionary access control C. Mandatory access control D. Attribute-based access control

B

A user recently entered a username and password into a recruiting application website that had been forged to look like the legitimate site. Upon investigation, a security analyst identifies the following: - The legitimate website's IP address is 10.1.1.20 and eRecruit.local resolves to this IP. The - forged website's IP address appears to be 10.2.12.99, based on NetFlow records. - All three of the organization's DNS servers show the website correctly resolves to the legitimate IP. - DNS query logs show one of the three DNS servers returned a result of 10.2.12.99 (cached) at the approximate time of the suspected compromise. Which of the following MOST likely occurred? A. A reverse proxy was used to redirect network traffic. B. An SSL strip MITM attack was performed. C. An attacker temporarily poisoned a name server. D. An ARP poisoning attack was successfully executed.

B

A user reports constant lag and performance issues with the wireless network when working at a local coffee shop. A security analyst walks the user through an installation of Wireshark and gets a five-minute pcap to analyze. The analyst observes the following output: (Image On Back) Which of the following attacks does the analyst MOST likely see in this packet capture? A. Session replay B. Evil twin C. Bluejacking D. ARP poisoning Answer: B

B

An engineer is configuring a wireless network using PEAP for the authentication protocol. Which of the following is required? A. 802.11n support on the WAP B. X.509 certificate on the server C. CCMP support on the network switch D. TLS 1.0 support on the client

B

An enterprise has hired an outside security firm to conduct penetration testing on its network and applications. The firm has been given all the developer's documentation about the internal architecture. Which of the following BEST represents the type of testing that will occur? A. Bug bounty B. White-box C. Black-box D. Gray-box

B

An organization has decided to host its web application and database in the cloud. Which of the following BEST describes the security concerns for this decision? A. Access to the organization's servers could be exposed to other cloud-provider clients. B. The cloud vendor is a new attack vector within the supply chain. C. Outsourcing the code development adds risk to the cloud provider. D. Vendor support will cease when the hosting platforms reach EOL.

B

An organization wants to implement a third factor to an existing multifactor authentication. The organization already uses a smartcard 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

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

B

Given the following logs: [DATA] attacking service ftp on port 21 [ATTEMPT] target 192.168.50.1 - login "admin" - pass "password" [ATTEMPT] target 192.168.50.1 - login "admin" - pass "access" [ATTEMPT] target 192.168.50.1 - login "admin" - pass "allow" [ATTEMPT] target 192.168.50.1 - login "admin" - pass "please" [ATTEMPT] target 192.168.50.1 - login "admin" - pass "ftp" [ATTEMPT] target 192.168.50.1 - login "admin" - pass letmein" [21][ftp] host: 192.168.50.1 login: admin password: letmein 1 of 1 target successfully completed, 1 valid password found Which of the following BEST describes the type of attack that is occurring? A. Rainbow table B. Dictionary C. Password spraying D. Pass-the-hash

B

NMAP -P 80 ==script hostmap=bfk.nse company.com starting NMAP 6.46 NMAP scan report for company.com (172.255.240.169) Port State Service 80/TCP open http Host script results hostmap-bfk hosts: 172.255.240.169 web1.company.com swebdb1.company.com web3.company.com swebdb2.company.com NMAP done: scanned in 2.10 seconds Which of the following BEST describes the scanned environment? A. A host was identified as a web server that is hosting multiple domains B. A host was scanned, and web-based vulnerabilities were found C. A connection was established to a domain, and several redirect connections were identified D. A web shell was planted in company.com's content management system

B

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.

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

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. script kiddie B. Shadow IT C. Hacktivism D. White-hat

B

The process of passively gathering information prior to launching a cyberattack is called: A. tailgating. B. reconnaissance. C. pharming. D. prepending.

B

Users at an organization have been installing programs from the Internet on their workstations without first receiving proper authorization. The organization maintains a portal from which users can install standardized programs. However, some users have administrative access on their workstations to enable legacy programs to function properly. Which of the following should the security administrator consider implementing to address this issue? A. Application code signing B. Application whitelisting C. Data loss prevention D. Web application firewalls

B

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

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

B

Which of the following allows for functional test data to be used in new systems for testing and training purposes to protect the real data? A. Data encryption B. Data masking C. Data deduplication D. Data minimization

B

Which of the following describes the ability of code to target a hypervisor from inside a guest OS? A. Fog computing B. VM escape C. Software-defined networking D. Image forgery E. Container breakout

B

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

B

Which of the following systems, if compromised, may cause great danger to the integrity of water supplies and their chemical levels? A. UAV B. SCADA C. HVAC D. MFD

B

cybersecurity analyst reviews the log files from a web server and sees a series of files that indicate a directory-traversal attack has occurred. Which of the following is the analyst MOST likely seeing? A.http://sample.url.com/ B.http://sample.url.com/someotherpageonsite/../../../etc/shadow C.http://sample.url.com/select-from-database-where-password-null D.http://redirect.sameple.url.sampleurl.com/malicious-dns-redirect

B

A company is designing the layout of a new datacenter so it will have an optimal environmental temperature. Which of the following must be included? (Choose two.) A. An air gap B. A cold aisle C. Removable doors D. A hot aisle E. An IoT thermostat F. A humidity monitor

B,D

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

B,D

Which of the following are requirements that must be configured for PCI DSS compliance? (Choose two.) A. Testing security systems and processes regularly B. Installing and maintaining a web proxy to protect cardholder data C. Assigning a unique ID to each person with computer access D. Encrypting transmission of cardholder data across private networks E. Benchmarking security awareness training for contractors F. Using vendor-supplied default passwords for system passwords

B,D

A technician needs to prevent data loss in a laboratory. The laboratory is not connected to any external networks. Which of the following methods would BEST prevent the exfiltration of data? (Choose two.) A. VPN B. Drive encryption C. Network firewall D. File-level encryption E. USB blocker F. MFA

B,E

During a routine scan of a wireless segment at a retail company, a security administrator discovers several devices are connected to the network that do not match the company's naming convention and are not in the asset inventory. WiFi access is protected with 256-bit encryption via WPA2. Physical access to the company's facility requires two-factor authentication using a badge and a passcode. Which of the following should the administrator implement to find and remediate the issue? (Choose two.) A. Check the SIEM for failed logins to the LDAP directory. B. Enable MAC filtering on the switches that support the wireless network. C. Run a vulnerability scan on all the devices in the wireless network. D. Deploy multi-factor authentication for access to the wireless network. E. Scan the wireless network for rogue access points. F. Deploy a honeypot on the network.

B,E

A Chief Executive Officer's (CEO) personal information was stolen in a social engineering attack. Which of the following sources would reveal if the CEO's personal information is for sale? A. Automated information sharing B. Open-source intelligence C. The dark web D. Vulnerability databases

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.

C

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

C

A company notices that at 10 a.m. every Thursday, three users' computers become inoperable. The security analyst team discovers a file called where.pdf.exe that runs on system startup. The contents of where.pdf.exe are shown below: @echo off if [c:\file.txt] deltree C:\ Based on the above information, which of the following types of malware was discovered? A. Rootkit B. Backdoor C. Logic bomb D. RAT

C

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.

C

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

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

C

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

C

A malicious actor recently penetrated a company's network and moved laterally to the datacenter. Upon investigation, a forensics firm wants to know what was in the memory on the compromised server. Which of the following files should be given to the forensics firm? A. Security B. Application C. Dump D. Syslog

C

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

C

A network administrator is setting up wireless access points in all the conference rooms and wants to authenticate devices using PKI. Which of the following should the administrator configure? A. A captive portal B. PSK C. 802.1X D. WPS

C

A researcher has been analyzing large data sets for the last ten months. The researcher works with colleagues from other institutions and typically connects via SSH to retrieve additional data. Historically, this setup has worked without issue, but the researcher recently started getting the following message: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION CHANGED @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY! the fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is SHA256: cBqYjal6ToV3jEIJHUSKtjjVziqnVd4Cz+1fhTM6+k4 Please contact your administrator. RSA host key for 18.231.33.70 has changed and you have requested strict checking Host key verification failed Which of the following network attacks is the researcher MOST likely experiencing? A. MAC cloning B. Evil twin C. Man-in-the-middle D. ARP poisoning

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

C

A security analyst is reviewing the following attack log output: [user comptia\john.smith attempted login with the password password123 user comptia\jane.doe attempted login with the password password123 user comptia\user.one attempted login with the password password123 user comptia\user.two attempted login with the password password123 user comptia\user.three attempted login with the password password123 user comptia\john.smith attempted login with the password password234 user comptia\jane.doe attempted login with the password password234 user comptia\user.one attempted login with the password password234 user comptia\user.two attempted login with the password password234 user comptia\user.three attempted login with the password password234] Which of the following types of attacks does this MOST likely represent? A. Rainbow table B. Brute-force C. Password-spraying D. Dictionary

C

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

C

A security analyst receives a SIEM alert that someone logged in to the appadmin test account, which is only used for the early detection of attacks. The security analyst then reviews the following application log: -[03/06/20xx:17:20:18] system 127.0.0.1 FindXPath=//User[Username/text()='foo' or 7=7 or 'o'='o' And Password/text='bar'] -[03/06/20xx:17:21:18] appadmin 194.28.114.102 action:login result:success -[03/06/20xx:17:22:18] appadmin 194.28.114.102 action:open.account (12345) result: fail -[03/06/20xx:17:23:18] appadmin 194.28.114.102 action:open.account (23456) result: fail -[03/06/20xx:17:23:18] appadmin 194.28.114.102 action:open.account (23456) result: fail -[03/06/20xx:17:23:18] appadmin 194.28.114.102 action:open.account (45678) result: fail Which of the following can the security analyst conclude? A. A replay attack is being conducted against the application. B. An injection attack is being conducted against a user authentication system. C. A service account password may have been changed, resulting in continuous failed logins within the application. D. A credentialed vulnerability scanner attack is testing several CVEs against the application.

C

A security analyst receives the following output: Time Action Host File Name User 12/15/2017 Policy Endpoint USB Transfer - Blocked Host1 Q3-Financials.PDF User1 Which of the following MOST likely occurred to produce this output? A. The host-based firewall prevented an attack from a Trojan horse B. USB-OTG prevented a file from being uploaded to a mobile device C. The host DLP prevented a file from being moved off a computer D. The firewall prevented an incoming malware-infected file 194

C

A security engineer at an offline government facility is concerned about the validity of an SSL certificate. The engineer wants to perform the fastest check with the least delay to determine if the certificate has been revoked. Which of the following would BEST meet these requirements? A. RA B. OCSP C. CRL D. CSR

C

A small retail business has a local store and a newly established and growing online storefront. A recent storm caused a power outage to the business and the local ISP, resulting in several hours of lost sales and delayed order processing. The business owner now needs to ensure two things: - Protection from power outages - Always-available connectivity in case of an outage The owner has decided to implement battery backups for the computer equipment. Which of the following would BEST fulfil the owner's second need? A. Lease a point-to-point circuit to provide dedicated access. B. Connect the business router to its own dedicated UPS. C. Purchase services from a cloud provider for high availability. D. Replace the business's wired network with a wireless network.

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

C

A user's laptop is experiencing general slowness following the user's return from an extended time out of the office. After a week, the security team looks at the laptop, but nothing appears out of order. The only noticeable issue is that svchost.exe keeps launching even after the security team kills the process. After running netstat, the team notes svchost.exe is listening on port 443. Using an IoC creation tool, a security analyst does the following: OR-- File MD5 contains adf321122abce28873aad3e12f262a12c AND PROCESS name contains svchost.exe PROCESS arguments does not contain -k AND FILENAME contains svchost.exe FILE DIRECTORY is not %system32% Based on the IoCs created and the netstat output, which of the following types of malware is present? A. Backdoor B. Crypto-malware C. Rootkit D. Logic bomb

C

A website developer is working on a new e-commerce website and has asked an information security expert for the most appropriate way to store credit card numbers to create an easy reordering process. Which of the following methods would BEST accomplish this goal? A. Salting the magnetic strip information B. Encrypting the credit card information in transit C. Hashing the credit card numbers upon entry D. Tokenizing the credit cards in the database

C

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.

C

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

C

An organization has a growing workforce that is mostly driven by additions to the sales department. Each newly hired salesperson relies on a mobile device to conduct business. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is wondering if the organization may need to scale down just as quickly as it scaled up. The CIO is also concerned about the organization's security and customer privacy. Which of the following would be BEST to address the CIO's concerns? A. Disallow new hires from using mobile devices for six months. B. Select four devices for the sales department to use in a CYOD model. C. Implement BYOD for the sales department while leveraging the MDM. D. Deploy mobile devices using the COPE methodology.

C

An organization is concerned that its hosted web servers are not running the most updated version of the software. Which of the following would work BEST to help identify potential vulnerabilities? A. hping3 -S comptia.org -p 80 B. nc -l -v comptia.org -p 80 C. nmap comptia.org -p 80 -sV D. nslookup -port=80 comptia.org

C

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

C

Buffer overflow can be avoided using proper: A. memory leak prevention B. memory reuse C. input validation D. implementation of ASLR

C

Joe, a user at a company, clicked an email links that led to a website that infected his workstation. Joe was connected to the network, and the virus spread to the network shares. The protective measures failed to stop this virus, and it has continued to evade detection. Which of the following should a security administrator implement to protect the environment from this malware? A. Install a definition-based antivirus. B. Implement an IDS/IPS C. Implement a heuristic behavior-detection solution. D. Implement CASB to protect the network shares.

C

Joe, an employee, receives an email stating he won the lottery. The email includes a link that requests a name, mobile phone number, address, and date of birth be provided to confirm Joe's identity before sending him the prize. Which of the following BEST describes this type of email? A. Spear phishing B. Whaling C. Phishing D. Vishing

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

C

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

C

Which of the following ISO standards is certified for privacy? A. ISO 9001 B. ISO 27002 C. ISO 27701 D. ISO 31000

C

Which of the following cloud models provides clients with servers, storage, and networks but nothing else? A. SaaS B. PaaS C. IaaS D. DaaS

C

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

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

C

Which of the following policies would help an organization identify and mitigate potential single points of failure in the company's IT/security operations? A. Least privilege B. Awareness training C. Separation of duties D. Mandatory vacation

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

C

Which of the following technical controls is BEST suited for the detection and prevention of buffer overflows on hosts? A. DLP B. HIDS C. EDR D. NIPS

C

Which of the following will MOST likely cause machine learning and AI-enabled systems to operate with unintended consequences? A. Stored procedures B. Buffer overflows C. Data bias D. Code reuse

C

Which of the following would be BEST to establish between organizations to define the responsibilities of each party, outline the key deliverables, and include monetary penalties for breaches to manage third-party risk? A. An ARO B. An MOU C. An SLA D. A BPA

C

A security engineer has enabled two-factor authentication on all workstations. Which of the following approaches are the MOST secure? (Choose two.) A. Password and security question B. Password and CAPTCHA C. Password and smart card D. Password and fingerprint E. Password and one-time token F. Password and voice

C,D

A security engineer needs to implement an MDM solution that complies with the corporate mobile device policy. The policy states that in order for mobile users to access corporate resources on their devices, the following requirements must be met: - Mobile device OSs must be patched up to the latest release. - A screen lock must be enabled (passcode or biometric). - Corporate data must be removed if the device is reported lost or stolen. Which of the following controls should the security engineer configure? (Choose two.) A. Containerization B. Storage segmentation C. Posturing D. Remote wipe E. Full-device encryption F. Geofencing

C,D

A penetration tester is testing passively for vulnerabilities on a company's network. Which of the following tools should the penetration tester use? (Choose two.) A. Zenmap B. Wireshark C. Nmap D. tcpdump E. Nikto F. Snort

C,E

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 file-shares. 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.

D

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

D

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

D

A local coffee shop runs a small WiFi hotspot for its customers that utilizes WPA2-PSK. The coffee shop would like to stay current with security trends and wants to implement WPA3 to make its WiFi even more secure. Which of the following technologies will the coffee shop MOST likely use in place of PSK? A. WEP B. MSCHAP C. WPS D. SAE

D

A network administrator has been alerted that web pages are experiencing long load times. After determining it is not a routing or DNS issue, the administrator logs in to the router, runs a command, and receives the following output: [CPU 0 percent busy, from 300 sec ago 1 sec ave: 99 percent busy 5 sec ave: 97 percent busy 1 min ave: 83 percent busy] Which of the following is the router experiencing? A. DDoS attack B. Memory leak C. Buffer overflow D. Resource exhaustion

D

A recent audit uncovered a key finding regarding the use of a specific encryption standard in a web application that is used to communicate with business customers. Due to the technical limitations of its customers, the company is unable to upgrade the encryption standard. Which of the following types of controls should be used to reduce the risk created by this scenario? A. Physical B. Detective C. Preventive D. Compensating

D

A retail executive recently accepted a job with a major competitor. The following week, a security analyst reviews the security logs and identifies successful logon attempts to access the departed executive's accounts. Which of the following security practices would have addressed the issue? A. A non-disclosure agreement B. Least privilege C. An acceptable use policy D. Offboarding

D

A security administrator needs to create a RAID configuration that is focused on high read speeds and fault tolerance. It is unlikely that multiple drives will fail simultaneously. Which of the following RAID configurations should the administrator use? A. RAID 0 B. RAID 1 C. RAID 5 D. RAID 10

D

A security analyst has been asked to investigate a situation after the SOC started to receive alerts from the SIEM. The analyst first looks at the domain controller and finds the following events: (image on other Side) To better understand what is going on, the analyst runs a command and receives the following output: Based on the analyst's findings, which of the following attacks is being executed? A. Credential harvesting B. Keylogger C. Brute-force D. Spraying Answer:D

D

A security analyst is configuring a large number of new company-issued laptops. The analyst received the following requirements: - The devices will be used internationally by staff who travel extensively. - Occasional personal use is acceptable due to the travel requirements. - Users must be able to install and configure sanctioned programs and productivity suites. - The devices must be encrypted. - The devices must be capable of operating in low-bandwidth environments. Which of the following would provide the GREATEST benefit to the security posture of the devices? A. Configuring an always-on VPN B. Implementing application whitelisting C. Requiring web traffic to pass through the on-premises content filter D. Setting the antivirus DAT update schedule to weekly

D

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

D

A security analyst needs to be proactive in understanding the types of attacks that could potentially target the company's executives. Which of the following intelligence sources should the security analyst review? A. Vulnerability feeds B. Trusted automated exchange of indicator information C. Structured threat information expression D. Industry information-sharing and collaboration groups

D

A security analyst needs to determine how an attacker was able to use User3 to gain a foothold within a company's network. The company's lockout policy requires that an account be locked out for a minimum of 15 minutes after three unsuccessful attempts. While reviewing the log files, the analyst discovers the following: [3/16/20 3:31:10 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User1 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:31:11 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User1 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:31:12 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User1 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:31:13 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User1 Account locked out 3/16/20 3:31:14 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User2 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:31:15 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User2 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:31:16 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User2 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:31:18 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User2 Account locked out 3/16/20 3:31:19 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User3 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:31:20 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User3 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:31:22 AM Audit Success CompanyNetwork\User3 Successful logon 3/16/20 3:31:22 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User4 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:32:40 AM Audit Failure CompanyNetwork\User4 Unknown username or bad password 3/16/20 3:33:25 AM Audit Success CompanyNetwork\User4 Successful logon] Which of the following attacks MOST likely occurred? A. Dictionary B. Credential-stuffing C. Password-spraying D. Brute-force

D

A security audit has revealed that a process control terminal is vulnerable to malicious users installing and executing software on the system. The terminal is beyond end-of-life support and cannot be upgraded, so it is placed on a protected network segment. Which of the following would be MOST effective to implement to further mitigate the reported vulnerability? A. DNS sinkholing B. DLP rules on the terminal C. An IP blacklist D. Application whitelisting

D

A security engineer is reviewing log files after a third party discovered usernames and passwords for the organization's accounts. The engineer sees there was a change in the IP address for a vendor website one week earlier. This change lasted eight hours. Which of the following attacks was MOST likely used? A. Man-in-the-middle B. Spear phishing C. Evil twin D. DNS poisoning

D

A security incident may have occurred on the desktop PC of an organization's Chief Executive Officer (CEO). A duplicate copy of the CEO's hard drive must be stored securely to ensure appropriate forensic processes and the chain of custody are followed. Which of the following should be performed to accomplish this task? A. Install a new hard drive in the CEO's PC, and then remove the old hard drive and place it in a tamper-evident bag. B. Connect a write blocker to the hard drive. Then, leveraging a forensic workstation, utilize the dd command in a live Linux environment to create a duplicate copy. C. Remove the CEO's hard drive from the PC, connect to the forensic workstation, and copy all the contents onto a remote file share while the CEO watches. D. Refrain from completing a forensic analysis of the CEO's hard drive until after the incident is confirmed; duplicating the hard drive at this stage could destroy evidence.

D

A vulnerability assessment report will include the CVSS score of the discovered vulnerabilities because the score allows the organization to better: A. validate the vulnerability exists in the organization's network through penetration testing. B. research the appropriate mitigation techniques in a vulnerability database. C. find the software patches that are required to mitigate a vulnerability. D. prioritize remediation of vulnerabilities based on the possible impact.

D

After a ransomware attack, a forensics company needs to review a cryptocurrency transaction between the victim and the attacker. Which of the following will the company MOST likely review to trace this transaction? A. The public ledger B. The NetFlow data C. A checksum D. The event log

D

After deploying an antivirus solution on some network-isolated industrial computers, the service desk team received a trouble ticket about the following message being displayed on the computers' screens: Your AV protection has blocked an unknown application while performing suspicious activities. The application was put in quarantine. Which of the following would be the SAFEST next step to address the issue? A. Immediately delete the detected file from the quarantine to secure the environment and clear the alert from the antivirus console. B. Perform a manual antivirus signature update directly from the antivirus vendor's cloud. C. Centrally activate a full scan for the entire set of industrial computers, looking for new threats. D. Check the antivirus vendor's documentation about the security modules, incompatibilities, and software whitelisting.

D

An organization has hired a security analyst to perform a penetration test. The analyst captures 1Gb worth of inbound network traffic to the server and transfers the pcap back to the machine for analysis. Which of the following tools should the analyst use to further review the pcap? A. Nmap B. cURL C. Netcat D. Wireshark

D

An organization just experienced a major cyberattack incident. The attack was well coordinated, sophisticated, and highly skilled. Which of the following targeted the organization? A. Shadow IT B. An insider threat C. A hacktivist D. An advanced persistent threat

D

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

D

An organization suffered an outage, and a critical system took 90 minutes to come back online. Though there was no data loss during the outage, the expectation was that the critical system would be available again within 60 minutes. Which of the following is the 60-minute expectation an example of? A. MTBF B. RPO C. MTTR D. RTO

D

During an incident response, a security analyst observes the following log entry on the web server: [GET http://www.companysite.com/product_info.php?show=../../../../ect/password HTTP/1.1 Host: www.companysite.com] Which of the following BEST describes the type of attack the analyst is experiencing? A. SQL injection B. Cross-site scripting C. Pass-the-hash D. Directory traversal

D

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.

D

The Chief Security Officer (CSO) at a major hospital wants to implement SSO to help improve security in the environment andprotect patient data, particularly at shared terminals. The Chief Risk Officer (CRO) is concerned that training and guidancehave not been provided to frontline staff, and a risk analysis has not been performed. Which of the following is the MOSTlikely cause of the CRO's concerns? A. SSO would simplify username and password management, making it easier for hackers to guess accounts. B. SSO would reduce password fatigue, but staff would still need to remember more complex passwords. C. SSO would reduce the password complexity for frontline staff. D. SSO would reduce the resilience and availability of systems if the identity provider goes offline.

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.

D

The facilities supervisor for a government agency is concerned about unauthorized access to environmental systems in the event the staff WiFi network is breached. Which of the following would BEST address this security concern? A. Install a smart meter on the staff WiFi. B. Place the environmental systems in the same DHCP scope as the staff WiFi. C. Implement Zigbee on the staff WiFi access points. D. Segment the staff WiFi network from the environmental systems network.

D

The manager who is responsible for a data set has asked a security engineer to apply encryption to the data on a hard disk. The security engineer is an example of a: A. data controller. B. data owner. C. data custodian. D. data processor.

D

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

D

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 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

D,F

A company recently moved sensitive videos between on-premises, company-owned websites. The company then learned the videos had been uploaded and shared to the Internet. Which of the following would MOST likely allow the company to find the cause? A. Checksums B. Watermarks C. Order of volatility D. A log analysis E. A right-to-audit clause

E

A security analyst is investigating an incident that was first reported as an issue connecting to network shares and the Internet. While reviewing logs and tool output, the analyst sees the following: IP address Physical Address 10.0.0.1. 00-18-21-ad-24-bc 10.0.0.114 00-31-a3-cd-23-ab 10.0.0.115 00-18-21-ad-24-bc 10.0.0.116 00-19-08-ba-07-da 10.0.0.117 00-12-21-ca-11-ad which of the following attacks has occurred? A. IP conflict B. Pass-the-hash C. MAC flooding D. Directory traversal E. ARP poisoning

E

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

E,F

Which of the following will provide the BEST physical security countermeasures to stop intruders? (Choose two.) A. Alarms B. Signage C. Lighting D. Mantraps E. Fencing F. Sensors

E,F

In the middle of a cyberattack, a security engineer removes the infected devices from the network and locks down all compromised accounts. In which of the following incident response phases is the security engineer currently operating? A. Identification B. Preparation C. Lessons learned D. Eradication E. Recovery F. Containment

F