Security+ SY0-501

What type of attack is it when the attacker attempts to get the victim's communication to abandon a high-quality/secure mode in favor of a lower-quality/less secure mode? A. Downgrade B. Brute force C. Rainbow table D. Bluesnarfing

A. A downgrade attack is often used against secure communications such as TLS in an attempt to get the user to shift to less secure modes. Option B is incorrect. A brute-force attack tries either all possible passwords or all possible cryptography keys to gain access. Option C is incorrect. A rainbow table is a table of precomputed hashes used to retrieve passwords. Option D is incorrect. Bluesnarfing is a Bluetooth attack on cell phones.

Cross-site scripting is an attack on the that is based on the trusting the. A. user, user, website B. user, website, user C. website, website, user D. user, website, website

A. Cross-site scripting is an attack on the user that is based on the user trusting the website.

John has been asked to do a penetration test of a company. He has been given general information but no details about the network. What kind of test is this? A. Gray-box B. White-box C. Partial D. Masked

A. A gray-box test involves the tester being given partial information about the network. Option B is incorrect. A white-box test involves the tester being given full or nearly full information about the target network.

You are the network administrator for an e-commerce company. You are responsible for the web server cluster. You are concerned about not only failover, but also load-balancing and using all the servers in your cluster to accomplish load-balancing. What should you implement? A. Active-active B. Active-passive C. Affinity D. Round-robin

A. An active-active cluster has all servers working, rather than keeping a duplicate server in reserve. Option B is incorrect. An active-passive cluster has, for each pair of servers, one not functioning. It simply is used in case the primary server should fail. Options C and D are incorrect. These are means for a cluster deciding how to route traffic in the cluster.

Cross-site request forgery is an attack on the that is based on the trusting the . A. website, website, user B. user, user website C. website, user, website D. user, website, user

A. Cross-site request forgery is an attack on the website that is based on the website trusting the user.

What technology was first introduced in Windows Vista and still exists in Windows that helps prevent malware by requiring user authorization to run executables? A. DEP B. DLP C. UTM D. ANT

A. Date Execution Prevention (DEP) requires the user to authorize any executable to execute. It should be noted that this is the definition Microsoft used for its functionality. A more technical definition is that Data Execution Prevention is preventing software from accessing restricted memory such as the operating system's memory. Option B is incorrect. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is related to preventing exfiltration of data. Most DLP solutions have the capability to control removable medias such as USB devices. Option C is incorrect. Unified Threat Management (UTM) is the combining of security services such as antivirus, HIDS, log monitoring, firewall, and so forth in a single device. Option D is incorrect. ANT is a networking technology.

What type of attack attempts to deauthorize users from a resource, such as a wireless access point (WAP)? A. Disassociation B. Session hijacking C. Man-in-the-middle D. Smurf attack

A. Deauthorizing users from a resource is called disassociation. Option B is incorrect. Session hijacking involves taking over an authenticated session. Option C is incorrect. In the man-in-the-middle attack, the attacker is between the client and the server, and to either end, the attacker appears like the legitimate other end. Option D is incorrect. Smurf is a type of denial-of-service attack where the attacker attempts to exhaust the resources and prevent users from accessing necessary systems.

You lead an incident response team for a large retail chain store. You have discovered what you believe is spyware on the point-of-sale systems. But the malware in question is encrypted, preventing you from analyzing it. What best describes this? A. An armored virus B. Ransomware C. Polymorphic virus D. Trojan horse

A. Encryption is one method for armored viruses. Option B is incorrect. Ransomware encrypts files but is not encrypted itself. Option C is incorrect. A polymorphic virus periodically changes itself. Option D is incorrect. A Trojan horse combines malware with a legitimate program.

Frank is a network administrator for a small college. The college has implemented a simple NIDS. However, the NIDS seems to only catch well-known attacks. What technology is this NIDS likely missing? A. Heuristic scanning B. Signature scanning C. Passive scanning D. Active scanning

A. Heuristic scanning involves scanning for anomalous behavior that might indicate an attack, even if there is no known attack signature. Option B is incorrect. Signature scanning can only detect known signatures, and that appears to be what the college is using now. Options C and D are incorrect. Neither is an IDS term.

You are a security administrator for Acme Corporation. You have discovered malware on some of your company's machines. This malware seems to intercept calls from the web browser to libraries, and then manipulates the browser calls. What type of attack is this? A. Man-in-the-browser B. Man-in-the-middle C. Buffer overflow D. Session hijacking

A. In a man-in-the-browser attack, the malware intercepts calls from the browser to the system, such as system libraries. Option B is incorrect. Man-in-the-middle involves having some process between the two ends of communication in order to compromise passwords or cryptography keys. Option C is incorrect. In a buffer overflow attack, more data is put into a variable than the variable was intended to hold. Option D is incorrect. Session hijacking involves taking over an authenticated session.

What does white-box testing mean? A. The tester has full knowledge of the environment. B. The tester has no knowledge of the environment. C. The tester has permission to access the system. D. The tester has no permission to access the system.

A. In a white-box test, the tester has full or very nearly full knowledge of the system.

What type of penetration test is being done when the tester is given extensive knowledge of the target network? A. White-box B. Full disclosure C. Black-box D. Red team

A. In a white-box test, the tester is given extensive knowledge of the target network. Option B is incorrect. This is not a term used to describe testing. Option C is incorrect. Black-box testing involves only very minimal information being given to the tester. Option D is incorrect. A red team test simulates a particular type of attacker, such as a nation-state attacker, an insider, or other type of attacker.

What type of attack is an NFC most susceptible to? A. Eavesdropping B. Man-in-the-middle C. Buffer overflow D. Smurf attack

A. Near-field communication (NFC) can be susceptible to eavesdropping. Smartphones with NFC can be used as payment methods and should utilize biometric/pin to avoid information being stolen. Option B is incorrect. Man-in-the-middle involves having some process between the two ends of communication in order to compromise passwords or cryptography keys. Option C is incorrect. A buffer overflow attack attempts to put more data in a variable than the variable is designed to hold. This is improper input handling is the root cause to many buffer overflow. Option D is incorrect. A Smurf attack is a type of denial of service.

Ahmed has been hired to perform a penetration test of Acme Corporation. He begins by looking at IP address ranges owned by the company and details of domain name registration. He also visits social media and newsgroups to see if they contain any sensitive information or have any technical details online. Within the context of penetration-examining methodology, what phase is Ahmed conducting? A. Passive information gathering B. Active information gathering C. Initial exploitation D. Vulnerability scanning

A. Passive information gathering involves using methods other than directly accessing the network to gather information. Social media and newsgroups are commonly used. Option B is incorrect. Active information gathering involves tasks such as port scanning that actually do connect to the target network. Option C is incorrect. The initial exploit is when the tester tries to gain some access to some aspect of the system. Option D is incorrect. Vulnerability scanning involves automated and semiautomated processes to find known vulnerabilities in a system.

A user is redirected to a different website when the user requests the DNS record www.xyz.com. Which of the following is this an example of? A. DNS poisoning B. DoS C. DNS caching D. Smurf attack

A. Putting false entries into the DNS records of a DNS server is DNS poisoning. Option B is incorrect. A denial-of-service attack attempts to overwhelm a server or service and render it inaccessible to legitimate users. Option C is incorrect. DNS caching is a method of normal DNS operations. Option D is incorrect. A Smurf attack is a type of denial of service.

Donald is working as a network administrator. He is responsible for the database cluster. Connections are load-balanced in the cluster by each new connection being simply sent to the next server in the cluster. What type of load-balancing is this? A. Round-robin B. Affinity C. Weighted D. Rotating

A. Round-robin load balancing simply sends each new connection to the next server in the cluster. Option B is incorrect. Affinity load balancing ties specific users to specific servers in the cluster. Option C is incorrect. Weighted load balancing examines the bandwidth utilization for each server and sends the next connection to the server with the least current bandwidth utilization. Option D is incorrect. Rotating is not a term used in load balancing.

John is a network administrator for a large retail chain. He has discovered that his DNS server is being attacked. The attack involves false DNS requests from spoofed IP addresses. The requests are far larger than normal. What type of attack is this? A. Amplification B. DNS poisoning C. DNS spoofing D. Smurf attack

A. Sending fake DNS requests that are overly large is called an amplification attack. It is a highly specialized type of denial of service. Option B is incorrect. DNS poisoning seeks to put fake DNS records in a DNS server. Option C is incorrect. DNS spoofing is using fake DNS information. Option D is incorrect. The Smurf attack is a denial of service.

You are a security officer for a large investment firm. Some of your stock traders handle very valuable accounts with large amounts of money. You are concerned about someone targeting these specific traders to get their login credentials and access account information. Which of the following best describes the attack you are concerned about? A. Spear phishing B. Man-in-the-middle C. Target phishing D. Vishing

A. Targeting a specific group is the definition of spear phishing. Option B is incorrect. In the man-in-the-middle attack, the attacker is between the client and the server, and to either end, the attacker appears like the legitimate other end. Option C is incorrect. Target phishing is not an industry term. Option D is incorrect. Vishing is phishing via voice over IP (VoIP).

You are responsible for network security at an insurance company. A lot of employees bring their own devices. You have security concerns about this. You have decided to implement a process whereby when users connect to your network, their devices are scanned. If a device does not meet your minimum security requirements, it is not allowed to connect. What best describes this? A. NAC B. SPI C. IDS D. BYOD

A. The correct answer is NAC, or Network Access Control. NAC is a network management solution that defines and implements a policy that enables only compliant and trusted endpoint devices to access network resources. Option B is incorrect. Stateful packet inspection (SPI) is a type of firewall. Option C is incorrect. IDS stands for intrusion detection system. Option D is incorrect. BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, is the problem, but the solution described is Network Access Control (NAC).

John is concerned about the security of data on smartphones and tablets that his company issues to employees. Which of the following would be most effective in preventing data loss, should a device be stolen? A. Remote wipe B. Geolocation C. Strong PIN D. Limited data storage

A. The most effective protection against data loss is the ability to remotely wipe the phone. Option B is incorrect. Geolocation will allow you to locate the phone, but data may have already been exfiltrated. Option C is incorrect. A strong PIN is a good idea, but not as effective as remote wiping. Option D is incorrect. This only limits how much data could be on the device to be stolen.

You are investigating incidents at Acme Corporation and have discovered malware on several machines. It appears that this malware infects system files in the Windows/System32/ directory and also affects the boot sector. What type of malware is this? A. Multipartite B. Boot sector C. Macro virus D. Polymorphic virus

A. This is a classic multipartite virus. It infects the boot sector, as well as an operating system file. Option B is incorrect. This infects the boot sector, but also infects an operating system file as well. Option C is incorrect. A macro virus is embedded, as a macro, into a document. Option D is incorrect. A polymorphic virus changes periodically.

Ahmed has discovered that someone has manipulated tables in one of the company's switches. The manipulation has changed the tables so that data destined for one specific MAC address will now be routed elsewhere. What type of attack is this? A. ARP poisoning B. DNS poisoning C. Man-in-the-middle D. Backdoor

A. This is the definition of ARP poisoning. Option B is incorrect. In DNS poisoning domain name to IP address entries in a DNS server are altered. Option C is incorrect. This attack did not involve a man-in-the-middle. Option D is incorrect. A backdoor provides access to the attacker, which circumvents normal authentication.

What type of virus can infect both a file in the operating system and the boot sector? A. Multipartite B. Rootkit C. Ransomware D. Worm

A. This is the definition of a multipartite virus. Option B is incorrect. A rootkit gets admin or root privileges. Option C is incorrect. Ransomware encrypts files and demands a ransom. Option D is incorrect. A worm is a fast-spreading virus.

You have just started a new job as a security administrator for Acme Corporation. You discover they have weak authentication protocols. You are concerned that an attacker might simply capture and re-send a user's login credentials. What type of attack is this? A. Replay attack B. IP spoofing C. Login spoofing D. Session hijacking

A. This is the definition of a replay attack. Option B is incorrect. IP spoofing is the process of faking an IP address. Option C is incorrect. This is not a term used in the industry. Option D is incorrect. Session hijacking is done by taking over an authenticated session.

John is analyzing a recent malware infection on his company network. He discovers malware that can spread rapidly and does not require any interaction from the user. What best describes this malware? A. Worm B. Virus C. Logic bomb D. Trojan horse

A. This is the definition of a worm. Option B is incorrect. A virus is software that self-replicates. Option C is incorrect. A logic bomb executes its malicious activity when some condition is met. Option D is incorrect. A Trojan horse combines malware with a legitimate program.

You are a network security analyst for an online retail website. Users report that they have visited your site and had their credit cards stolen. You cannot find any evidence of any breach of your website. You begin to suspect that these users were lured to a fake site. You have found a website that is spelled exactly like your company site, with one letter different. What is this attack called? A. URL hijacking B. DNS poisoning C. Cross-site scripting D. Man-in-the-middle

A. URL hijacking or typosquatting is done by naming a phishing URL very similar to an actual URL. Option B is incorrect. DNS poisoning would be entering fake entries into a DNS server. Option C is incorrect. Cross-site scripting would show as a breach of the website. Option D is incorrect. In the man-in-the-middle attack, the attacker is between the client and the server, and to either end, the attacker appears like the legitimate other end.

Which of the following would a former employee most likely plant on a server before leaving to cause disruption to the network? A. Worm B. Logic bomb C. Trojan D. Virus

B. A logic bomb will perform its malicious activity when some condition is met, often a date or time. This is commonly done by disgruntled exiting employees.

Employees in your company are allowed to use tablets. They can select a tablet from four different models approved by the company but purchased by the employee. What best describes this? A. BYOD B. CYOD C. COPE D. BYOE

B. Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) allows employees to bring their own devices to work, but only if they are chosen from a list of approved models. Option A is incorrect. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) allows employees to bring whatever model device they happen to have. Option C is incorrect. Company-Owned Personally Enabled (COPE) equipment is provided by and owned by the company. Option D is incorrect. BYOE is not a term used in the industry.

A user in your company reports that she received a call from someone claiming to be from the company technical support team. The caller stated that there was a virus spreading through the company and he needed immediate access to the employee's computer to stop it from being infected. What social-engineering principles did the caller use to try to trick the employee? A. Urgency and intimidation B. Urgency and authority C. Authority and trust D. Intimidation and authority

B. Claiming to be from tech support is claiming authority, and the story the caller gave indicates urgency.

What best describes mobile device content management? A. Limiting how much content can be stored. B. Limiting the type of content that can be stored. C. Blocking certain websites. D. Digitally signing authorized content.

B. Content management for a mobile device involves limiting what content can be placed on the phone. Option A is incorrect. Content management is not involved in limiting the amount of data. Option C is incorrect. In the context of a mobile device, this is not content management. Option D is incorrect. Digitally signing authorized content could be used in some content management systems, but this is not the best definition of content management.

Which of the following type of testing utilizes an automated process of proactively identifying vulnerabilities of the computing systems present on a network? A. Security audit B. Vulnerability scanning C. White-box test D. Black-box test

B. Vulnerability scans use automated and semiautomated processes to identify known vulnerabilities. Option A is incorrect. Audits usually involve document checks. Options C and D are incorrect. These are both types of penetration tests.

Mohammed is an IT manager for a hotel. His hotel wants to put wireless access points on each floor. The specifications state that the wireless access points should have minimal functionality, with all the configuration, authentication, and other functionality centrally controlled. What type of wireless access points should Mohaned consider purchasing? A. Fat B. Controller-based C. Stand-alone D. 801.11i

B. Controller-based wireless access points have minimal functionality, with most functions centrally controlled. Option A is incorrect. A fat wireless access point has all necessary functionality contained in the WAP. Option C is incorrect. Stand-alone is synonymous with fat WAP. Option D is incorrect. 802.11i is the wireless security standard.

Which of the following would most likely use a group of bots to stop a web server from accepting new requests? A. DoS B. DDoS C. Buffer overflow D. Trojan horse

B. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks often use bots in a botnet to perform the attack. Option A is incorrect. Denial of service (DoS) is too broad a category and does not adequately match the scenario description. Option C is incorrect. A buffer overflow attempts to put more data into a variable than it is designed to accept. Option D is incorrect. A Trojan horse links a malware program to a legitimate program.

Your company has issued some new security directives. One of these new directives is that all documents must be shredded before being thrown out. What type of attack is this trying to prevent? A. Phishing B. Dumpster diving C. Shoulder surfing D. Man-in-the-middle

B. Dumpster diving is the process of going through the trash to find documents. Option A is incorrect. Phishing is often done via email or phone, and is an attempt to elicit information or convince a user to click a link or open an attachment. Option C is incorrect. Shoulder surfing is literally looking over someone's shoulder. Option D is incorrect. In the man-in-the-middle attack the attacker is between the client and the server, and to either end, the attacker appears like the legitimate other end.

What IPSec protocol provides authentication and encryption? A. AH B. ESP C. IKE D. ISAKMP

B. Encapsulating Security Payload provides both integrity and encryption. Option A is incorrect. Authentication Header only provides integrity, not encryption. Option C is incorrect. Internet Key Exchange is used during the setup of IPSec to establish security associations. Option D is incorrect. The Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol provides a framework for authentication and key exchange.

What does geofencing accomplish? A. Provides the location for a mobile device. B. Limits the range a mobile device can be used in. C. Determines WiFi coverage areas. D. Segments the WiFi.

B. Geofencing sets up geographic boundaries, beyond which a device won't work. Option A is incorrect. Geolocation provides geographic location, not geofencing. Options C and D are incorrect because geofencing is not related to WiFi.

Heidi is a security officer for an investment firm. Many of the employees in her firm travel frequently and access the company intranet from remote locations. Heidi is concerned about users logging in from public WiFi, as well as other people seeing information such as login credentials or customer data. Which of the following is Heidi's most significant concern? A. Social engineering B. Shoulder surfing C. Man-in-the-middle attack D. CSRF

B. In this scenario, no technical issues are mentioned—just people seeing information. So shoulder surfing best fits the scenario. Option A is incorrect. No social engineering is involved in this scenario. Option C is incorrect. Although a man-in-the-middle attack on the wireless access point (WAP) could compromise data, that's not what is described in this scenario. Option D is incorrect. Cross-site request forgery is a website attack.

You are responsible for email server security in your company. You want to implement encryption of all emails, using third-party authenticated certificates. What protocol should you implement? A. IMAP B. S/MIME C. PGP D. SMTP-S

B. Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) encrypts email using X.509 certificates that are created and authenticated by a trusted third party. Option A is incorrect. The Internet Message Access Protocol is used for receiving email. It does not send email and is not natively encrypted. Option C is incorrect. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) can be used to encrypt email, but it uses self-generated certificates that are not authenticated by a third party. Option D is incorrect. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Secure is encrypted, but it is only for sending email, not receiving. It can also be done with S/MIME or PGP.

When an attacker breaches one system and uses that as a base to attack a related system, what is this called? A. Man-in-the-middle B. Pivot C. Shimming D. Vishing

B. This is the definition of a pivot. Option A is incorrect. In the man-in-the-middle attack, the attacker is between the client and the server, and to either end, the attacker appears like the legitimate other end. Option C is incorrect. Shimming involves inserting code between a program and a library. Option D is incorrect. Vishing is phishing over the phone line, often VoIP.

Mary works for a large insurance company, on their cybersecurity team. She is investigating a recent incident and discovers that a server was breached using an authorized user's account. After investigating the incident further, Mary believes that the authorized user logged on, and then someone else took over their session. What best describes this attack? A. Man-in-the-middle B. Session hijacking C. Backdoor D. Smurf attack

B. This is the definition of session hijacking. Option A is incorrect. Man-in-the-middle involves having some process between the two ends of communication in order to compromise passwords or cryptography keys. Option C is incorrect. A backdoor is some means for accessing a system that circumvents normal authentication. Option D is incorrect. A Smurf attack is a specific type of denial-of-service attack.

Your company has hired a penetration testing firm to test the company network security. The penetration tester has just been able to achieve guest-level privileges on one lowsecurity system. What best describes this phase of the test? A. Vulnerability scanning B. Initial exploit C. Black-box testing D. White-box testing

B. This is the initial exploit, which involves getting initial access to the system. Option A is incorrect. Vulnerability scanning is an automated process that checks for the presence of known vulnerabilities. Options C and D are incorrect. These both refer to how much information about the network the tester is given. In both black-box and white-box tests, there will still be an initial exploit.

Users in your company report someone has been calling their extension and claiming to be doing a survey for a large vendor. Based on the questions asked in the survey, you suspect that this is a scam to elicit information from your company's employees. What best describes this? A. Spear phishing B. Vishing C. War dialing D. Robocalling

B. This is vishing, or using voice calls for phishing. Option A is incorrect. Spear phishing is targeting a small, specific group. Option C is incorrect. War dialing is dialing numbers hoping a computer modem answers. Option D is incorrect. Robocalling is used to place unsolicited telemarketing calls.

A SYN flood is a DoS attack in which an attacker deliberately violates the three-way handshake and opens a large number of half-open TCP connections. The signature of a SYN flood attack is: A. The source and destination address having the same value B. The source and destination port numbers having the same value C. A large number of SYN packets appearing on a network without the corresponding ACK packets D. A large number of SYN packets appearing on a network with the corresponding reply RST

C. A correct three-way handshake involves the client sending a SYN packet, the server responding with SYN and ACK, and the client completing the handshake with an ACK. If you see a large number SYN packets without the corresponding ACK, that is likely to be a SYN flood. Options A and B are incorrect. Address and port numbers have nothing to do with SYN flood attacks. Option D is incorrect. RST is not the appropriate response to a SYN, and you should not expect to see RSTs in response to a SYN.

ACME Company has several remote offices. The CIO wants to set up permanent secure connections between the remote offices and the central office. What would be the best solution for this? A. L2TP VPN B. IPSEC VPN C. Site-to-site VPN D. Remote-access VPN

C. A site-to-site VPN is a permanent VPN connection between sites. Connecting remote offices is a typical site-to-site VPN implementation. Option A is incorrect. L2TP is a protocol for VPN and could be used for either site-to-site or remote-access VPNs. Option B is incorrect. IPSec is a protocol for VPN and could be used for either site-to-site or remote-access VPNs. Option D is incorrect. A remote-access VPN is used by an individual to remotely access the corporate network.

Enrique is responsible for web application security at his company. He is concerned about attacks such as SQL injection. Which of the following devices would provide the best protection for web attacks on his web application server? A. ACL B. SPI C. WAF D. IDS

C. A web application firewall (WAF) is designed to provide firewall protection that also will protect against specific web attacks. Option A is incorrect. An access control list (ACL) is an important security measure but will not provide protection against web attacks. Option B is incorrect. A stateful packet inspector (SPI) is a robust firewall and will stop attacks such as SYN floods, but it won't provide the best protection against web attacks. Option D is incorrect. An IDS is a good security measure, but it won't provide the best protection against web attacks.

Terrance is conducting a penetration test for a client. The client is a major e-commerce company and is primarily concerned about security for their web server. He has just finished running Nmap and OWASP Zap on the target web server. What is this activity called? A. Passive scanning B. Black-box testing C. Active scanning D. White-box testing

C. Active scanning actually connects to the target network. Option A is incorrect. Passive scanning does not actually connect to the target network. Options B and D are incorrect. Black-box and white-box refer to the amount of information the tester is given.

Which type of virus is most difficult to analyze by reverse engineering? A. Polymorphic B. Macro C. Armored D. Boot sector

C. Armoring can be as simple as very trivial encryption, but any process that makes it difficult to reverse-engineer a virus is armoring. Option A is incorrect. A polymorphic virus periodically changes itself. Option B is incorrect. A macro virus is embedded, as a macro, into a document. Option D is incorrect. A boot sector virus infects the boot sector of a hard drive.

What type of attack uses Bluetooth to access the data from a cell phone when in range? A. Phonejacking B. Bluejacking C. Bluesnarfing D. Evil twin

C. Bluesnarfing accesses data on the cell phone. Option A is incorrect. Phonejacking is not a term used in the industry. Option B is incorrect. Bluejacking sends unwanted text messages to the phone. Option D is incorrect. Evil twin is a WiFi attack.

An attacker enters code into a text box on a website. That text box is used for product reviews. The attacker wants his code to execute the next time a visitor visits that page. What is this attack called? A. SQL injection B. Logic bomb C. Cross-site scripting D. Session hijacking

C. Cross-site scripting involves entering code (script) into a text field that will be displayed to other users. Option A is incorrect. In SQL injection, malformed SQL statements are entered into a text box in an attempt to circumvent the website's security. Option B is incorrect. A logic bomb is software that performs its malicious activity when some condition is met. Option D is incorrect. Session hijacking involves taking over an authenticated session.

Terrance is implementing IPSec. He wants to ensure that the packets are encrypted, and that the packet and all headers are authenticated. What should he implement? A. AH B. ESP C. AH and ESP D. IKE

C. ESP provides encryption and AH provides complete authentication, including the header, so both are needed to meet the requirements. Option A is incorrect. Authentication Header will provide complete packet authentication, including the header, but it won't provide encryption. Option B is incorrect. Encapsulating Security Payload provides both integrity and encryption but only authenticates the data, not the header. Option D is incorrect. Internet Key Exchange is used during the setup of IPSec to establish security associations.

You have been asked to implement a secure protocol for transferring files that uses digital certificates. Which protocol would be the best choice? A. FTP B. SFTP C. FTPS D. SCP

C. FTPS is File Transfer Protocol with SSL/TLS and uses digital certificates to secure file transfer. Option A is incorrect. File Transfer Protocol is not secure. Option B is incorrect. SFTP is secure, but it uses SSH for security and does not use digital certificates. Option D is incorrect. Secure Copy is secure, but it uses SSH for security and does not use digital certificates.

You have been assigned to select a backup communication method for your company to use in case of significant disasters that disrupt normal communication. Which option would provide the most reliability? A. Cellular B. WiFi C. SATCOM D. VoIP

C. Satellite communications are most resistant to disasters that disrupt communications. Option A is incorrect. While cellular is effective and reasonably resilient, it is not as resilient as SATCOM. Option B is incorrect. WiFi can fail for any number of reasons, and a disaster is very likely to affect it. Option D is incorrect. If there is any disruption to the network, then VoIP will not function.

Ahmed is responsible for VoIP at his company. He has been directed to ensure that all VoIP calls have the option to be encrypted. What protocol is best suited for security VoIP calls? A. SIP B. TLS C. SRTP D. SSH

C. Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol (SRTP) is used to encrypt and secure RTP(real-time protocol: manages real-time media connections; broadcast&unicast). RTP is the protocol for transmitting VoIP. Option A is incorrect. Session Initiation Protocol is used to initiate a VoIP call but not to send the VoIP data. Option B is incorrect. TLS is used to secure data, but by itself it cannot secure VoIP. Option D is incorrect. Secure Shell SSH is for remote terminal connection and is not used in VoIP.

Which of the following attacks can be caused by a user being unaware of their physical surroundings? A. ARP poisoning B. Phishing C. Shoulder surfing D. Smurf attack

C. Shoulder surfing involves literally looking over someone's shoulder in a public place and gathering information, perhaps login passwords. Option A is incorrect. ARP poisoning alters the address resolution protocol tables in the switch. Option B is incorrect. Phishing is an attempt to gather information, often via email, or to convince a user to click a link to, and/or download, an attachment. Option D is incorrect. Smurf is a type of denial-of-service attack.

Your company is instituting a new security awareness program. You are responsible for educating end users on a variety of threats, including social engineering. Which of the following best defines social engineering? A. Illegal copying of software B. Gathering information from discarded manuals and printouts C. Using people skills to obtain proprietary information D. Phishing emails

C. Social engineering is about using people skills to get information you would not otherwise have access to. Option A is incorrect. Despite the word engineering, this has nothing to do with technical means. Option B is incorrect. This would be dumpster diving. Option D is incorrect. Yes, phishing emails use some social engineering, but that is one example of social engineering, not a definition.

You have discovered that someone has been trying to log on to your web server. The person has tried a wide range of likely passwords. What type of attack is this? A. Rainbow table B. Birthday attack C. Dictionary attack D. Spoofing

C. The dictionary attack uses common passwords. Option A is incorrect. Rainbow tables are tables of precomputed hashes. Option B is incorrect. The birthday attack is a method for generating collisions of hashes. Option D is incorrect. No spoofing is indicated in this scenario.

Carlos works in incident response for a mid-sized bank. Users inform him that internal network connections are fine, but connecting to the outside world is very slow. Carlos reviews logs on the external firewall and discovers tens of thousands of ICMP packets coming from a wide range of different IP addresses. What type of attack is occurring? A. Smurf B. DoS C. DDoS D. SYN flood

C. The fact that the attack is coming from multiple sources makes this a distributed denial of service. Option A is incorrect. A Smurf attack involves sending spoofed broadcast packets to the target network's router. Option B is incorrect. Yes, this is a denial-of-service attack, but it is distributed. Option D is incorrect. A SYN flood involves lots of half-open connections.

Frank believes there could be a problem accessing the DHCP server from a specific client. He wants to check by getting a new dynamic IP. What command will do this? A. ipconfig /request B. NETSTAT -renew C. ipconfig /renew D. NETSTAT /request

C. The ipconfig /renew command will request a new IP from the DHCP server. Option A is incorrect. There is no /request flag for ipconfig. Options B and D are incorrect. Netstat has nothing to do with getting a dynamic IP address. Also /request and -renew are not NETSTAT flags.

Mahmoud is considering moving all company desktops to a VDI deployment. Which of the following would be a security advantage of VDI? A. Employees can work from any computer in the company. B. VDI is more resistant to malware. C. Patch management is centrally controlled. D. It eliminates man-in-the-middle attacks.

C. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure does have all patch management centrally controlled. Option A is incorrect. This is a benefit of VDI but not a security benefit. Option B is incorrect. VDI is no more or less resistant to malware than physical desktops. Option D is incorrect. Some vendors claim VDI is less susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks, but no one claims it is immune to them.

What is the primary difference between a vulnerability scan and a penetration test? A. Vulnerability scans are done by employees and penetration tests by outside teams. B. Vulnerability scans only use tools; penetration tests are manual. C. Vulnerability scans just identify issues; penetration tests attempt to exploit them. D. Vulnerability scans are usually white-box tests; penetration tests are black-box tests.

C. Vulnerability scans identify known vulnerabilities. Penetration tests actually exploit those vulnerabilities in order to breach the system.

What is the primary risk from using outdated software? A. It may not have all the features you need. B. It may not have the most modern security features. C. It may no longer be supported by the vendor. D. It may be easier to break into than newer software.

C. When a vendor no longer supports software, there won't be patches for vulnerabilities or other issues. Option A is incorrect. Although this may be true, it is not a security issue. Option B is incorrect. Again, this may be true, but this is not the primary risk. Option D is incorrect. This may or may not be true.

When investigating breaches and attempting to attribute them to specific threat actors, which of the following is not one of the indicators of an APT(advanced persistent threat)? A. Long-term access to the target B. Sophisticated attacks C. The attack comes from a foreign IP address. D. The attack is sustained over time.

C. While you might suppose that a nation-state attacker (the usual attacker behind an advanced persistent threat) would attack from a foreign IP address, they often use a compromised address in the target country as a base for attacks. Options A, B, and D are all incorrect. These are actually signs of an advanced persistent threat.

You have just taken over as the CISO for a large bank. You are concerned about making sure all systems are secure. One major concern you have is security misconfiguration. Which of the following is not a common security misconfiguration? A. Unpatched operating system B. Default accounts with passwords C. Unneeded services running D. No firewall running

D. A firewall not running is not a configuration issue.

An attacker is using a table of precomputed hashes in order to try to get a Windows password. What type of technique is being used? A. Dictionary B. Brute force C. Pass the hash D. Rainbow table

D. A rainbow table is a table of precomputed hashes. Option A is incorrect. A dictionary attack is a table of common words used to guess the password. Option B is incorrect. Brute force involves trying every random possibility. Option C is incorrect. In pass the hash, the attacker has the hash and bypasses the application, passing the hash directly to the backend service.

Teresa is responsible for network administration at a health club chain. She is trying for find a communication technology that uses low power and can spend long periods in low-power sleep modes. Which of the following technologies would be the best fit? A. WiFi B. Cellular C. Bluetooth D. ANT

D. ANT is a proprietary wireless network technology that provides low-power modes and is used in WiFi settings. It has been used in sports-related technologies. Option A is incorrect. WiFi uses power constantly, whether users connect or not. Option B is incorrect. Cellular consumes too much power. Option C is incorrect. The range of Bluetooth is too short.

What is the primary difference between active and passive reconnaissance? A. Active will be done manually, passive with tools. B. Active is done with black-box tests and passive with white-box tests. C. Active is usually done by attackers and passive by testers. D. Active will actually connect to the network and could be detected; passive won't.

D. Active reconnaissance actually connects to the network using techniques such as port scanning. Option A is incorrect. Either can be done manually or with tools. Option B is incorrect. Black-box and white-box refer to the amount of information the tester is given. Option C is incorrect. Attackers and testers use both types of reconnaissance.

Mary is responsible for network security at a medium-sized insurance company. She is concerned that the offices are too open to public traffic and someone could simply connect a laptop to an open RJ45 jack and access the network. Which of the following would best address this concern? A. ACL B. IDS C. VLAN D. Port security

D. By mapping network jacks to specific MAC addresses of machines, you can prevent a rogue machine from being connected. Option A is incorrect. Access control lists won't prevent a rogue device from being connected to a port. Option B is incorrect. Intrusion detection systems won't prevent a rogue device from being connected to a port. Option C is incorrect. If that specific jack is part of a VLAN, it would limit the attacker to only that VLAN, but that is certainly not as reliable or as robust a security measure as port security.

You are responsible for network management at your company. You have been using SNMP for many years. You are currently using SNMP v2. A colleague has recently suggested you upgrade to SNMP v3. What is the primary benefit of SNMP v3? A. It is much faster. B. It integrates with SIEM. C. It uses CHAP authentication. D. It is encrypted.

D. Earlier versions of SNMP sent all traffic in clear text. SNMP v3 sends all data encrypted.

Tom is the network administrator for a small accounting firm. As soon as he comes in to work, users report to him that they cannot connect to the network. After investigating, Tom discovers that none of the workstations can connect to the network and all have an IP address in the form of 169.254.x.x. What has occurred? A. Smurf attack B. Man-in-the-middle attack C. DDoS D. DHCP starvation

D. IP addresses in the range of 169.254 are automatic private IP addresses (APIPA) and indicate the system could not get a dynamic IP address from the DHCP server. This is a typical symptom of DHCP starvation. Option A is incorrect. Smurf attacks involve sending spoofed broadcast messages to the target network's router.

Under which type of attack does an attacker's system appear to be the server to the real client and appear to be the client to the real server? A. Denial of service B. Replay C. Eavesdropping D. Man-in-the-middle

D. In the man-in-the-middle attack, the attacker is between the client and the server, and to either end, the attacker appears like the legitimate other end. Option A is incorrect. This does not describe any denial-of-service attack. Option B is incorrect. A replay attack involves resending login information. Option C is incorrect. Although a man-in-the-middle can be used to perform eavesdropping, in this scenario the best answer is man-in-the-middle.

You are concerned about an attacker enumerating all of your network. What protocol might help at least mitigate this issue? A. HTTPS B. TLS C. IPSec D. LDAPS

D. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol Secure (LDAPS) would at least mitigate the risk. LDAP is a directory of the network (computers, users, etc.). Securing that would help mitigate network enumeration. Option A is incorrect. HTTPS is for secure web pages. Option B is incorrect. TLS will help only if applied to a directory protocol, as it is in LDAPS. Option C is incorrect. A VPN won't solve this issue.

You are responsible for software testing at Acme Corporation. You want to check all software for bugs that might be used by an attacker to gain entrance into the software or your network. You have discovered a web application that would allow a user to attempt to put a 64-bit value into a 4-byte integer variable. What is this type of flaw? A. Memory overflow B. Buffer overflow C. Variable overflow D. Integer overflow

D. Placing a larger integer value into a smaller integer variable is an integer overflow. Option A is incorrect. Memory overflow is not a term used, and memory leak is about allocating memory and not deallocating it. Option B is incorrect. Buffer overflows usually involve arrays. Option C is incorrect. Variable overflow is not a term used in the industry.

Joanne is responsible for all remote connectivity to her company's network. She knows that administrators frequently log in to servers remotely to execute command-line commands and Linux shell commands. She wants to make sure this can only be done if the transmission is encrypted. What protocol should she use? A. HTTPS B. RDP C. Telnet D. SSH

D. Secure Shell gives a remote command-line interface that is encrypted. Option A is incorrect. HyperText Transport Protocol Secure is for encrypting web traffic. Option B is incorrect. Windows Remote Desktop Protocol is not encrypted. Option C is incorrect. Telnet is not encrypted.

Juanita is a network administrator for a large university. The university has numerous systems, each with logs she must monitor and analyze. What would be the best approach for her to view and analyze logs from a central server? A. NAC B. Port forwarding C. IDS D. SIEM

D. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems are designed specifically for log aggregation and analysis. Option A is incorrect. Network Access Control (NAC) scans devices to ensure they meet minimum network security requirements. Option B is incorrect. Port forwarding could be used, in conjunction with other steps, to aggregate logs, but it would not be the best approach. Option C is incorrect. An intrusion detection system (IDS) won't aggregate other systems logs.

John is looking for a new firewall for a small company. He is concerned about DoS attacks, particularly the SYN flood. Which type of firewall would give the best protection against the SYN flood? A. Packet filter B. Application gateway C. Bastion D. SPI

D. The correct answer is stateful packet inspection (SPI). SPI looks at the entire context of the conversation and will stop SYN floods. Option A is incorrect. A packet filter examines each packet in isolation and won't stop the SYN flood. A packet filter is stateless and won't deter the SYN flood. Option B is incorrect. An application gateway may have SPI functionality, but its primary benefit is to protect against a specific application attack, such as web attacks. Option C is incorrect. Bastion is another name for a border firewall and does not indicate the process it uses.

111. Francine is a network administrator for Acme Corporation. She has noticed that one of the servers is now unreachable. After carefully reviewing various logs, she discovers that a large number of broadcast packets were sent to the network router, spoofing the server's IP address. What type of attack is this? A. SYN flood B. ICMP flood C. Buffer overflow D. Smurf attack

D. The sending of spoofed broadcast messages to the target network router is a Smurf attack. Option A is incorrect. In a SYN flood, a large number of SYN packets are sent but not responded to. This leads to a large number of half-open connections. Option B is incorrect. An ICMP flood is a large amount of ICMP (such as ping) packets sent to the target.

Gerald is setting up new wireless access points throughout his company's building. The wireless access points have just the radio transceiver, with no additional functionality. What best describes these wireless access points? A. Fat B. Repeater C. Thick D. Thin

D. The term for this is thin wireless access point. Option A is incorrect. Fat wireless access points have all the functionality and features the wireless network needs. Option B is incorrect. A repeater resends a signal. Option C is incorrect. Thick is another term for fat access point.

What type of attack embeds malicious code into a document or spreadsheet? A. Logic bomb B. Rootkit C. Trojan horse D. Macro virus

D. This is the definition of a macro virus. Option A is incorrect. A logic bomb executes its malicious activity when some condition is met. Option B is incorrect. A rootkit obtains administrative or root access. Option C is incorrect. A Trojan horse connects malware to a legitimate program.

Jared has discovered malware on the workstations of several users. This particular malware provides administrative privileges for the workstation to an external hacker. What best describes this malware? A. Trojan horse B. Logic bomb C. Multipartite virus D. Rootkit

D. This is the definition of a rootkit. Option A is incorrect. A Trojan horse combines malware with a legitimate program. Option B is incorrect. A logic bomb performs its malicious activity when some condition is met. Option C is incorrect. A multipartite virus infects the boot sector and a file.

John is responsible for security of his company's new e-commerce server. He wants to ensure that online transactions are secure. What technology should he use? A. L2TP B. IPSec C. SSL D. TLS

D. Transport Layer Security (TLS) is used to encrypt and secure web traffic. Options A and B are incorrect. L2TP and IPSec are VPN technologies and not appropriate for securing web traffic. Option C is incorrect. Secure Sockets Layer was the appropriate choice a long time ago, but TLS is the successor to SSL and was released in 1999.

Ahmed is responsible for VPN connections at his company. His company uses IPSec exclusively. He has decided to implement IPSec in a mode that encrypts the data of only the packet, not the headers. What is this called? A. Tunneling B. IKE C. ESP D. Transport

D. Transport mode is the mode wherein IPSec encrypts the data, but not the packet header. Option A is incorrect. Tunneling mode does encrypt the header as well as the packet data. Option B is incorrect. Internet Key Exchange (IKE) is used in setting up security associations in IPSec. Option C is incorrect. Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) is used for authentication and encryption in IPSec, whether tunneling or transport mode is used.

You are responsible for security at your company. One of management's biggest concerns is that employees might exfiltrate sensitive data. Which of the following would you implement first? A. IPS B. Routine audits of user machines C. VLAN D. USB blocking

D. USB blocking will prevent anyone from plugging in a USB and taking out data. Option A is incorrect. An IPS would only stop exfiltration of data if it was sent over the network and appeared as an attack. It would not stop hand carrying out of data. Option B is incorrect. This is a more time-consuming option and would not be the first thing you implement. Option C is incorrect. Virtual local area networks (VLANs) won't help with this issue.

Maria is responsible for monitoring IDS activity on her company's network. Twice in the past month there has been activity reported on the IDS that investigation has shown was legitimate traffic. What best describes this? A. False negative B. Passive C. Active D. False positive

D. When an IDS (or any security device) labels legitimate traffic as an attack, that is called a false positive. Option A is incorrect. A false negative is when an attack is mislabeled as legitimate. Option B is incorrect. Passive refers to how the IDS responds to suspicious activity. The question does not tell you if this is passive or active. Option C is incorrect. Active refers to how the IDS responds to suspicious activity. The question does not tell you if this is passive or active.

Which of the following best describes software that will provide the attacker with remote access to the victim's machine, but that is wrapped with a legitimate program in an attempt to trick the victim into installing it? A. RAT B. Backdoor C. Trojan horse D. Macro virus

A remote access Trojan (RAT) is malware that gives the attacker remote access to the victim machine. Option B is incorrect. While a backdoor will give access, it is usually something in the system put there by programmers, not introduced by malware. Option C is incorrect. A RAT is a type of Trojan horse, but Trojan horse is more general than what is described in the scenario. Option D is incorrect. A macro virus is a virus embedded in a document.

One of your users cannot recall the password for their laptop. You want to recover that password for them. You intend to use a tool/technique that is popular with hackers, and it consists of searching tables of precomputed hashes to recover the password. What best describes this? A. Rainbow table B. Backdoor C. Social engineering D. Dictionary attack

A. A rainbow table is a table of precomputed hashes, used to retrieve passwords. Option B is incorrect. A backdoor is used to gain access to a system, not recover passwords. Options C and D are incorrect. While both of these can be used to gain access to passwords, they are not tables of precomputed hashes.

Your company has hired a penetration testing firm to test the network. For the test, you have given the company details on operating systems you use, applications you run, and network devices. What best describes this type of test? A. White-box test B. External test C. Black-box test D. Threat test

A. A white-box test involves providing extensive information, as described in this scenario. Option B is incorrect. A white-box test could be internal or external. Option C is incorrect. This is the opposite of a black-box test. Option D is incorrect. Threat test is not a term used in penetration testing.

You are investigating a recent breach at Acme Company. You discover that the attacker used an old account of someone no longer at the company. The account was still active. Which of the following best describes what caused this vulnerability to exist? A. Improperly configured accounts B. Untrained users C. Using default configuration D. Failure to patch systems

A. Accounts should be configured to expire. If this had occurred, then the account would no longer be active. Option B is incorrect. While properly trained users are important, that is not what caused this issue. Options C and D are incorrect. These are unrelated to an old account still being active.

Maria is a salesperson with your company. After a recent sales trip, she discovers that many of her logins have been compromised. You carefully scan her laptop and cannot find any sign of any malware. You do notice that she had recently connected to a public WiFi at a coffee shop, and it is only since that connection that she noticed her logins had been compromised. What would most likely explain what has occurred? A. She connected to a rogue AP. B. She downloaded a Trojan horse. C. She downloaded spyware. D. She is the victim of a buffer overflow attack.

A. Although many things could explain what she is experiencing, the scenario most closely matches connecting to a rogue access point where her login credentials were stolen. Options B and C are incorrect. Both involve malware, and the scenario states no sign of malware was found. Option D is incorrect. This does not match the symptoms of a buffer overflow attack.

John is concerned about disgruntled employees stealing company documents and exfiltrating them from the network. He is looking for a solution that will detect likely exfiltration and block it. What type of system is John looking for? A. IPS B. SIEM C. Honeypot D. Firewall

A. Any of these systems could help with detecting malicious activity by an insider, but the intrusion prevention system will block such activity, if detected. Option B is incorrect. SIEMs simply aggregate logs. Option C is incorrect. A honeypot can be useful in trapping a malicious actor but not in stopping data exfiltration. Option D is incorrect. Firewalls can block traffic, but normally data exfiltration looks like normal traffic and is hard for a firewall to block.

You have noticed that when in a crowded area, you sometimes get a stream of unwanted text messages. The messages end when you leave the area. What describes this attack? A. Bluejacking B. Bluesnarfing C. Evil twin D. Rogue access point

A. Bluejacking involves sending unsolicited messages to Bluetooth devices when they are in range. Option B is incorrect. Bluesnarfing involves getting data from the Bluetooth device. Options C and D are incorrect. Evil twin uses a rogue access point whose name is similar or identical to that of a legitimate access point.

Frank has discovered that someone was able to get information from his smartphone using a Bluetooth connection. The attacker was able to get his contact list and some emails he had received. What is this type of attack called? A. Bluesnarfing B. Session hijacking C. Backdoor attack D. CSRF

A. Bluesnarfing uses Bluetooth to extract data from a Bluetooth device. Option B is incorrect. Session hijacking is taking over an authenticated session. Option C is incorrect. Backdoors are built-in methods to circumvent authentication. Option D is incorrect. Cross-site request forgery sends fake requests to a website that purport to be from a trusted, authenticated user.

Jared discovers that attackers have breached his WiFi network. They have gained access via the wireless access point (WAP) administrative panel, and have logged on with the credentials the WAP shipped with. What best describes this issue? A. Default configuration B. Race conditions C. Failure to patch D. Weak encryption

A. Credentials the WAP shipped with are an example of default configuration. Option B is incorrect. Race conditions involve multithreaded applications accessing shared variables. Option C is incorrect. Patches won't change the default password. Option D is incorrect. Encryption does not affect logging into the administrative screen.

Coleen is the web security administrator for an online auction website. A small number of users are complaining that when they visit the website and log in, they are told the service is down and to try again later. Coleen checks and she can visit the site without any problem, even from computers outside the network. She also checks the web server log and there is no record of those users ever connecting. Which of the following might best explain this? A. Typosquatting B. SQL injection C. Cross-site scripting D. Cross-site request forgery

A. From the description it appears that they are not logging into the real web server but rather a fake server. That indicates typosquatting: have a URL that is named very similarly to a real site so that when users mistype the real site's URL they will go to the fake site. Options B, C, and D are all incorrect. These are all methods of attacking a website, but in this case, the actual website was not attacked. Instead, some users are visiting a fake site. Chapter 1: Threats, Attacks, and Vulnerabilities 219

Acme Company uses its own internal certificate server for all internal encryption. However, their certificate authority only publishes a CRL(certificate revocation list) once per week. Does this pose a danger, and if so what? A. Yes, this means a revoked certificate could be used for up to seven days. B. No, this is standard for all certificate authorities. C. Yes, this means it would be easy to fake a certificate. D. No, since this is being used only internally.

A. If a certificate is revoked, it can be used until the new certificate revocation list is published. Options B, C, and D are all incorrect. They do not accurately describe the scenario given.

Valerie is responsible for security testing applications in her company. She has discovered that a web application, under certain conditions, can generate a memory leak. What, type of attack would this leave the application vulnerable to? A. DoS B. Backdoor C. SQL injection D. Buffer overflow

A. If an attacker can induce the web application to generate the memory leak, then eventually the web application will consume all memory on the web server and the web server will freeze up.

An attacker is trying to get malformed queries sent to the backend database to circumvent the web page's security. What type of attack depends on the attacker entering text into text boxes on a web page that is not normal text, but rather odd-looking commands that are designed to be inserted into database queries? A. SQL injection B. Clickjacking C. Cross-site scripting D. Bluejacking

A. SQL injection places malformed SQL into text boxes. Option B is incorrect. Clickjacking attempts to trick the user into clicking on something other than what he or she intended. Option C is incorrect. Cross-site scripting puts scripts into text fields that will be viewed by other users. Option D is incorrect. Bluejacking is a Bluetooth attack.

While investigating a malware outbreak on your company network, you discover something very odd. There is a file that has the same name as a Windows system DLL, and even has the same API interface, but handles input very differently, in a manner to help compromise the system, and it appears that applications have been attaching to this file, rather than the real system DLL. What best describes this? A. Shimming B. Trojan horse C. Backdoor D. Refactoring

A. Shimming is when the attacker places some malware between an application and some other file, and intercepts the communication to that file (usually to a library or system API). Option B is incorrect. A Trojan horse might be used to get the shim onto the system, but that is not described in this scenario. Option C is incorrect. A backdoor is a means to circumvent system authorization and get direct access to the system. Option D is incorrect. Refactoring is the process of changing names of variables, functions, etc. in a program.

You are investigating a breach of a large technical company. You discover that there have been several different attacks over a period of a year. The attacks were sustained, each lasting several weeks of continuous attack. The attacks were somewhat sophisticated and originated from a variety of IP addresses, but all the IP addresses are within your country. Which threat actor would you most suspect of being involved in this attack? A. Nation-state B. Hacktivist C. Script kiddie D. A lone highly skilled hacker

A. The fact that the IP addresses are within your country might make you discard the nation-state attacker, but it is common for nation-state attackers to use compromised IP addresses in the target country from which to attack. The other symptoms—a sophisticated attack, over time—are hallmarks of nation-state attackers.

You are performing a penetration test of your company's network. As part of the test, you will be given a login with minimal access and will attempt to gain administrative access with this account. What is this called? A. Privilege escalation B. Session hijacking C. Root grabbing D. Climbing

A. The term for attempting to gain any privileges beyond what you have is privilege escalation. Option B is incorrect. Session hijacking is taking over an authenticated session. Options C and D are incorrect. These are not terms used in the industry.

What type of attack uses a second wireless access point (WAP) that broadcasts the same SSID as a legitimate access point, in an attempt to get users to connect to the attacker's WAP? A. Evil twin B. IP spoofing C. Trojan horse D. MAC spoofing

A. The terms evil twin and rogue access point both refer to fake access points that broadcast what appear to be legitimate SSIDs. Options B, C, and D are incorrect. They do not adequately explain this attack.

Louis is investigating a malware incident on one of the computers on his network. He has discovered unknown software that seems to be opening a port, allowing someone to remotely connect to the computer. This software seems to have been installed at the same time as a small shareware application. Which of the following best describes this malware? A. RAT B. Backdoor C. Logic bomb D. Rootkit

A. This is a remote-access Trojan (RAT), malware that opens access for someone to remotely access the system. Option B is incorrect. A backdoor does provide access but it is usually in the system due to programmers putting it there, not due to malware on the system. Option C is incorrect. A logic bomb executes its misdeeds when some logical condition is met. Option D is incorrect. A rootkit provides root or administrative access to the system

What type of attack is based on entering fake entries into a target networks domain name server? A. DNS poisoning B. ARP poisoning C. Bluesnarfing D. Bluejacking

A. This is an exact description of DNS poisoning or domain hijacking. Option B is incorrect. ARP poisoning involves altering the MAC-IP tables in a switch. Options C and D are incorrect. These are both Bluetooth attacks.

John has discovered that an attacker is trying to get network passwords by using software that attempts a number of passwords from a list of common passwords. What type of attack is this? A. Dictionary B. Rainbow table C. Brute force D. Session hijacking

A. This is an example of a dictionary attack. The attacker uses a list of words that are believed to be likely passwords. Option B is incorrect. A rainbow table is a precomputed table of hashes. Option C is incorrect. Brute force tries every possible random combination. If attacker has the original plaintext and ciphertext for a message, they can determine the key space used through brute force attempts targeting the keyspace. Option D is incorrect. Session hijacking is when the attacker takes over an authenticated session.

What type of attack involves users clicking on something different on a website than what they intended to click on? A. Clickjacking B. Bluesnarfing C. Bluejacking D. Evil twin

A. This is the classic description of clickjacking. Options B and C are incorrect. These are Bluetooth attacks. Option D is incorrect. Nothing in this scenario requires or describes an evil twin.

Teresa is a security officer at ACME Inc. She has discovered an attack where the attacker sent multiple broadcast messages to the network routers, spoofing an IP address of one of the network servers. This caused the network to send a flood of packets to that server and it is no longer responding. What is this attack called? A. Smurf attack B. DDoS attack C. TCP hijacking attack D. TCP SYN flood attack

A. This is the definition of a Smurf attack. Option B is incorrect. The scenario does not state if this attack is coming from multiple sources, thus being distributed (i.e., distributed denial of service). Option C is incorrect. A hijacking attack attempts to take over an authenticated session. Option D is incorrect. The signature of a SYN flood is multiple half-open connections.

Gerald is a network administrator for a small financial services company. Users are reporting odd behavior that appears to be caused by a virus on their machines. After isolating the machines that he believes are infected, Gerald analyzes them. He finds that all the infected machines received an email purporting to be from accounting, with an Excel spreadsheet, and the users opened the spreadsheet. What is the most likely issue on these machines? A. A macro virus B. A boot sector virus C. A Trojan horse D. A RAT

A. This is the definition of a macro virus. Option B is incorrect. A boot sector virus infects the boot sector of the hard drive. Option C is incorrect. A Trojan horse is malware that is tied to a legitimate program. In this scenario, the malware is actually embedded in an Office document. The two are similar, but not the same. Option D is incorrect. A remote access Trojan (RAT) is a Trojan horse that gives the attacker remote access to the machine.

Which of the following best describes a zero-day vulnerability? A. A vulnerability that has been known to the vendor for zero days B. A vulnerability that has not yet been breached C. A vulnerability that can be quickly exploited (i.e., in zero days) D. A vulnerability that will give the attacker brief access (i.e., zero days)

A. This is the definition of a zero-day attack.

Someone has been rummaging through your company's trash bins seeking to find documents, diagrams, or other sensitive information that has been thrown out. What is this called? A. Dumpster diving B. Trash diving C. Social engineering D. Trash engineering

A. This is the term for rummaging through the waste/trash. Options B and D are incorrect. These terms, though grammatically correct, are simply not the terms used in the industry. Option C is incorrect. Nothing in this scenario describes social engineering.

You have been asked to test your company network for security issues. The specific test you are conducting involves primarily using automated and semiautomated tools to look for known vulnerabilities with the various systems on your network. Which of the following best describes this type of test? A. Vulnerability scan B. Penetration test C. Security audit D. Security test

A. Vulnerability scan uses automated tools such as Nessus and Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer to find known vulnerabilities. Option B is incorrect. Penetration tests seek to actually exploit the vulnerabilities and break into systems. Option C is incorrect. Security audits usually focus on checking policies, incident reports, and other documents. Option D is incorrect. Security test is a generic term for any sort of test.

John is running an IDS on his network. Users sometimes report that the IDS flags legitimate traffic as an attack. What describes this? A. False positive B. False negative C. False trigger D. False flag

A. When an IDS or antivirus mistakes legitimate traffic for an attack, this is called a false positive. Option B is incorrect. A false negative is when the IDS mistakes an attack for legitimate traffic. It is the opposite of a false positive. Options C and D are both incorrect. While these may be grammatically correct, these are not the terms used in the industry.

A sales manager at your company is complaining about slow performance on his computer. When you thoroughly investigate the issue, you find spyware on his computer. He insists that the only thing he has downloaded recently was a freeware stock trading application. What would best explain this situation? A. Logic bomb B. Trojan horse C. Rootkit D. Macro virus

B. A Trojan horse wraps a malicious program to a legitimate program. When the user downloads and installs the legitimate program, they get the malware. Option A is incorrect. A logic bomb is malware that does its misdeeds when some condition is met. Option C is incorrect. A rootkit is malware that gets administrative, or root access. Option D is incorrect. A macro virus is a virus that is embedded in a document as a macro.

You are a security administrator for a medium-sized bank. You have discovered a piece of software on your bank's database server that is not supposed to be there. It appears that the software will begin deleting database files if a specific employee is terminated. What best describes this? A. Worm B. Logic bomb C. Trojan horse D. Rootkit

B. A logic bomb is malware that performs its malicious activity when some condition is met. Option A is incorrect because a worm is malware that self-propagates. Option C is incorrect because a Trojan horse is malware attached to a legitimate program. Option D is incorrect because a rootkit is malware that gets root or administrative privileges.

You have noticed that when in a crowded area, data from your cell phone is stolen. Later investigation shows a Bluetooth connection to your phone, one that you cannot explain. What describes this attack? A. Bluejacking B. Bluesnarfing C. Evil twin D. RAT

B. Bluesnarfing involves accessing data from a Bluetooth device when it is in range. Option A is incorrect. Bluejacking involves sending unsolicited messages to Bluetooth devices when they are in range. Option C is incorrect. Evil twin uses a rogue access point whose name is similar or identical to that of a legitimate access point. Option D is incorrect. A RAT is a remote-access Trojan. Nothing in this scenario points to a RAT being the cause of the stolen data.

What type of attack exploits the trust that a website has for an authenticated user to attack that website by spoofing requests from the trusted user? A. Cross-site scripting B. Cross-site request forgery C. Bluejacking D. Evil twin

B. Cross-site request forgery sends fake requests to a website that purport to be from a trusted, authenticated user. Option A is incorrect. Cross-site scripting exploits the trust the user has for the website and embeds scripts into that website. Option C is incorrect. Bluejacking is a Bluetooth attack. Option D is incorrect. Nothing in this scenario requires or describes an evil twin.

Which of the following is an attack that seeks to attack a website, based on the website's trust of an authenticated user? A. XSS B. CSRF C. Buffer overflow D. RAT

B. Cross-site request forgery sends forged requests to a website, supposedly from a trusted user. Option A is incorrect. Cross-site scripting is the injection of scripts into a website to exploit the users. Option C is incorrect. A buffer overflow tries to put more data in a variable than the variable can hold. Option D is incorrect. A remote-access Trojan (RAT) is malware that gives the attacker access to the system.

Juanita is a network administrator for a small accounting firm. The users on her network are complaining of slow connectivity. When she examines the firewall logs, she observes a large number of half-open connections. What best describes this attack? A. DDoS B. SYN flood C. Buffer overflow D. ARP poisoning

B. Half-open connections are the hallmark of a SYN flood. Option A is incorrect. We know from the question that this is a denial of service, but nothing indicates that it is (or is not) a distributed denial of service. Option C is incorrect. Buffer overflow involves putting too much data into a variable or array. Option D is incorrect. ARP poisoning is altering the ARP table in a switch; it is not related to website hacking.

Frank is a network administrator for a small college. He discovers that several machines on his network are infected with malware. That malware is sending a flood of packets to a target external to the network. What best describes this attack? A. SYN flood B. DDoS C. Botnet D. Backdoor

B. His machines are part of a distributed denial-of-service attack. Option A is incorrect. This scenario describes a generic DDoS, not a specific one like SYN flood. Option C is incorrect. These machines could be part of a botnet, or just have a trigger that causes them to launch the attack at a specific time. The real key in this scenario is the DDoS attack. Option D is incorrect. A backdoor gives an attacker access to the target system.

You are responsible for technical support at your company. Users are all complaining of very slow Internet connectivity. When you examine the firewall, you find a large number of incoming connections that are not completed, all packets coming from a single IP address. What best describes this attack? A. DDoS B. SYN flood C. Buffer overflow D. ARP poisoning

B. Large, half-open connections are the hallmark of a SYN flood. Option A is incorrect. These are all coming from a single IP address, so they cannot be a distributed denial-of-service attack. Option C is incorrect. A buffer overflow seeks to put more data in a variable than it is designed to hold. Option D is incorrect. ARP poisoning poisons the address resolution table of a switch.

What is the term used to describe a virus that can infect both program files and boot sectors? A. Polymorphic B. Multipartite C. Stealth D. Multiple encrypting

B. Multipartite viruses combine boot sector with file infection. Option A is incorrect. Polymorphic viruses periodically change their signature or even their code. Option C is incorrect. Stealth viruses use one or more techniques to make them harder to find. Option D is incorrect. This is not an industry term for any sort of virus.

Acme Company is using smart cards that use near-field communication (NFC) rather than needing to be swiped. This is meant to make physical access to secure areas more secure. What vulnerability might this also create? A. Tailgating B. Eavesdropping C. IP spoofing D. Race conditions

B. Near-field communication (NFC) is susceptible to an attacker eavesdropping on the signal.

John is conducting a penetration test of a client's network. He is currently gathering information from sources such as archive.org, netcraft.com, social media, and information websites. What best describes this stage? A. Active reconnaissance B. Passive reconnaissance C. Initial exploitation D. Pivot

B. Passive reconnaissance is any reconnaissance that is done without actually connecting to the target. Option A is incorrect. Active reconnaissance involves communicating with the target network, such as doing a port scan. Option C is incorrect. The initial exploitation is not information gathering; it is actually breaking into the target network. Option D is incorrect. A pivot is when you have breached one system and use that to move to another system.

Frank has just taken over as CIO of a mid-sized insurance company. One of the first things he does is order a thorough inventory of all network equipment. He discovers two routers that are not documented. He is concerned that if they are not documented, they might not be securely configured, tested, and safe. What best describes this situation? A. Poor user training B. System sprawl C. Failure to patch systems D. Default configuration

B. System sprawl occurs when a system grows and there are devices on the system that are not documented. Options A, C, and D are all incorrect. While these are all serious security issues, they are unrelated to the scenario presented.

John is responsible for physical security at a large manufacturing plant. Employees all use a smart card in order to open the front door and enter the facility. Which of the following is a common way attackers would circumvent this system? A. Phishing B. Tailgating C. Spoofing the smart card D. RFID spoofing

B. Tailgating involves simply following a legitimate user through the door once he or she has opened it. Option C is incorrect. It is possible to generate a fake smartcard, but that is a very uncommon attack. Option D is incorrect. Again, this is possible but is very uncommon.

John is analyzing strange behavior on computers in his network. He believes there is malware on the machines. The symptoms include strange behavior that persists, even if he boots the machine to a Linux Live CD. What is the most likely cause? A. Ransomware B. Boot sector virus C. Rootkit D. Key logger

B. The correct answer is a boot sector virus, which is one that will affect the boot sector of the hard drive. Thus, what operating system you boot to is irrelevant. Option A is incorrect. There is no element of ransom in the description of this attack. Option C is incorrect. A rootkit can sometimes also affect the boot sector, but in this case the boot sector virus is the most accurate description. Option D is incorrect. Nothing in this description indicates key logging.

Frank is deeply concerned about attacks to his company's e-commerce server. He is particularly worried about cross-site scripting and SQL injection. Which of the following would best defend against these two specific attacks? A. Encrypted web traffic B. Filtering user input C. A firewall D. An IDS

B. The primary and best way to defend against the attacks mentioned is filtering user input. Option A is incorrect. Encrypting the web traffic will not have any effect on these two attacks. Option C is incorrect. A web application firewall (WAF) might mitigate these attacks, but it would be secondary to filtering user input. Option D is incorrect. An IDS will simply detect the attack—it won't stop it.

Which of the following best describes a collection of computers that have been compromised and are being controlled from one central point? A. Zombienet B. Botnet C. Nullnet D. Attacknet

B. The term for this is botnet, usually spelled as one word. Options A, C, and D are all incorrect. Although these terms might sound the same, they are simply not the terms used in the industry.

Users are complaining that they cannot connect to the wireless network. You discover that the WAPs are being subjected to a wireless attack designed to block their WiFi signals. Which of the following is the best label for this attack? A. IV attack B. Jamming C. WPS attack D. Botnet

B. This is a classic description of jamming. Option A is incorrect. IV attacks are obscure cryptographic attacks on stream ciphers. Option C is incorrect. WiFi protected setup (WPS) uses a PIN to connect to the wireless access point (WAP). The WPS attack attempts to intercept that PIN in transmission, connect to the WAP, and then steal the WPA2 password. Option D is incorrect. A botnet is a group of machines that are being used, without their consent, as part of an attack.

An attacker is trying to get access to your network. He is sending users on your network a link to a freeware stock-monitoring program. However, that stock-monitoring program has attached to it software that will give the attacker access to any machine that it is installed on. What type of attack is this? A. Rootkit B. Trojan horse C. Spyware D. Boot sector virus

B. This is a classic example of a Trojan horse. Option A is incorrect. A rootkit gives root or administrative access. Option C is incorrect. Spyware is malware that records user activities. Option D is incorrect. A boot sector virus is a virus that infects the boot sector of the hard drive.

Juanita is a network administrator for Acme Company. Some users complain that they keep getting dropped from the network. When Juanita checks the logs for the wireless access point (WAP), she finds that a deauthentication packet has been sent to the WAP from the users' IP addresses. What seems to be happening here? A. Problem with users' WiFi configuration B. Disassociation attack C. Session hijacking D. Backdoor attack

B. This is a classic example of a disassociation attack. The attacker tricks users into disassociating from the device. Option A is incorrect. Misconfiguration won't cause authenticated users to de-authenticate. Option C is incorrect. Session hijacking involves taking over an authenticated session. Option D is incorrect. Backdoors are built-in methods to circumvent authentication.

You are a network security administrator for a bank. You discover that an attacker has exploited a flaw in OpenSSL and forced some connections to move to a weak cipher suite version of TLS, which the attacker could breach. What type of attack was this? A. Disassociation attack B. Downgrade attack C. Session hijacking D. Brute force

B. This is a classic example of a downgrade attack. Option A is incorrect. In a disassociation attack, the attacker attempts to force the victim into disassociating from a resource. Option C is incorrect. Session hijacking is when the attacker takes over an authenticated session. Option D is incorrect. Brute force attempts every possible random combination to get the password or encryption key.

Mike is a network administrator with a small financial services company. He has received a popup window that states his files are now encrypted and he must pay .5 bitcoins to get them decrypted. He tries to check the files in question, but their extensions have changed, and he cannot open them. What best describes this situation? A. Mike's machine has a rootkit. B. Mike's machine has ransomware. C. Mike's machine has a logic bomb. D. Mike's machine has been the target of whaling.

B. This is a classic example of ransomware. Option A is incorrect. A rootkit provides access to administrator/root privileges. Option C is incorrect. A logic bomb executes its malicious activity when some condition is met. Option D is incorrect. This scenario does not describe whaling.

Which of the following best describes malware that will execute some malicious activity when a particular condition is met (i.e., if condition is met, then execute)? A. Boot sector virus B. Logic bomb C. Buffer overflow D. Sparse infector virus

B. This is the definition of a logic bomb. Option A is incorrect. A boot sector virus infects the boot sector of the hard drive. Option C is incorrect. A buffer overflow occurs when the attacker attempts to put more data in a variable than it can hold. Option D is incorrect. A sparse infector virus performs its malicious activity intermittently(irregular intervals) to make it harder to detect.

What type of attack is based on sending more data to a target variable than the data can actually hold? A. Bluesnarfing B. Buffer overflow C. Bluejacking D. DDoS

B. This is the description of a buffer overflow. Option A is incorrect. Bluesnarfing is a Bluetooth attack. Option C is incorrect. Bluejacking is a Bluetooth attack. Option D is incorrect. This is not a distributed denial of service.

What best describes an attack that attaches some malware to a legitimate program so that when the user installs the legitimate program, they inadvertently install the malware? A. Backdoor B. Trojan horse C. RAT D. Polymorphic virus

B. This is, in fact, the definition of a Trojan horse.

Your company outsourced development of an accounting application to a local programming firm. After three months of using the product, one of your accountants accidentally discovers a way to log in and bypass all security and authentication. What best describes this? A. Logic bomb B. Trojan horse C. Backdoor D. Root-kit

C. A backdoor is a method for bypassing normal security and directly accessing the system. Option A is incorrect. A logic bomb is malware that performs its misdeeds when some condition is met. Option B is incorrect. A Trojan horse wraps a malicious program to a legitimate program. When the user downloads and installs the legitimate program, they get the malware. Option D is incorrect. A rootkit is malware that gets root or administrative privileges.

Frank has been asked to conduct a penetration test of a small bookkeeping firm. For the test, he has only been given the company name, the domain name for their website, and the IP address of their gateway router. What best describes this type of test? A. White-box test B. External test C. Black-box test D. Threat test

C. A black-box test involves absolutely minimal information. Option A is incorrect. A white-box test involves very complete information being given to the tester. Option B is incorrect. This scenario is probably done from outside the network, but external test is not the correct terminology. Option D is incorrect. Threat test is not a term used in penetration testing.

When a program has variables, especially arrays, and does not check the boundary values before inputting data, what attack is the program vulnerable to? A. XSS B. CRSF C. Buffer overflow D. Logic bomb

C. A buffer overflow is possible when boundaries are not checked and the attacker tries to put in more data than the variable can hold. Option A is incorrect. Cross-site scripting is a web page attack. Option B is incorrect. Cross-site request forgery is a web page attack. Option D is incorrect. A logic bomb is malware that performs its misdeed when some condition is met.

You are responsible for incident response at a mid-sized bank. You have discovered that someone was able to successfully breach your network and steal data from your database server. All servers are configured to forward logs to a central logging server. However, when you examine that central log, there are no entries after 2:13 a.m. two days ago. You check the servers, and they are sending logs to the right server, but they are not getting there. Which of the following would be most likely to explain this? A. Your log server has a backdoor. B. Your log server has been hit with a buffer overflow attack. C. Your switches have been hit with ARP poisoning. D. Your IDS is malfunctioning and blocking log transmissions.

C. ARP poisoning is used to change the ARP tables routing data to a different MAC address, which would explain why there were no entries. Option A is incorrect. A backdoor would not explain that the log entries were sent, but not received. Option B is incorrect. A buffer overflow would not explain that the log entries were sent but not received. Option D is incorrect. An IDS would not stop log entries even if it was malfunctioning.

Farès is the network security administrator for a company that creates advanced routers and switches. He has discovered that his company's networks have been subjected to a series of advanced attacks over a period of time. What best describes this attack? A. DDoS B. Brute force C. APT D. Disassociation attack

C. An advanced persistent threat (APT) involves sophisticated (i.e., advanced) attacks over a period of time (i.e., persistent) Option A is incorrect. A distributed denial of service could be a part of an APT, but in and of itself is unlikely to be an APT. Option B is incorrect. Brute force attempts every possible random combination to get the password or encryption key. Option D is incorrect. In a disassociation attack, the attacker attempts to force the victim into disassociating from a resource.

What is the primary difference between an intrusive and a nonintrusive vulnerability scan? A. An intrusive scan is a penetration test. B. A nonintrusive scan is just a document check. C. An intrusive scan could potentially disrupt operations. D. A nonintrusive scan won't find most vulnerabilities.

C. An intrusive scan could possibly cause some disruption of operations. For this reason, it should be conducted outside normal business hours. Option A is incorrect. A penetration test actually attempts to breach the network by exploiting vulnerabilities. Option B is incorrect. An audit is primarily a document check. Option D is incorrect. Both intrusive and nonintrusive vulnerability scans can be effective at finding vulnerabilities.

Which of the following is commonly used in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack? A. Phishing B. Adware C. Botnet D. Trojan

C. Botnets are often used to launch DDoS attacks, with the attack coming from all the computers in the botnet simultaneously. Option A is incorrect. Phishing attacks attempt to get the user to give up information, click on a link, or open an attachment. Option B is incorrect. Adware consists of unwanted pop-up ads. Option D is incorrect. A Trojan horse attaches malware to a legitimate program.

Your company has hired an outside security firm to perform various tests of your network. During the vulnerability scan you will provide that company with logins for various systems (i.e., database server, application server, web server, etc.) to aid in their scan. What best describes this? A. A white-box test B. A gray-box test C. A privileged scan D. An authenticated user scan

C. By giving the tester logins, you are allowing him to conduct a privileged scan (i.e., a scan with some privileges). Options A and B are incorrect. These describe the level of knowledge the tester is given of the network. A privilege scan cannot be a black-box test, but it could be either white-box or gray-box. Option D is incorrect. While this is grammatically correct, it is not the term used in the industry.

What type of attack depends on the attacker entering JavaScript into a text area that is intended for users to enter text that will be viewed by other users? A. SQL injection B. Clickjacking C. Cross-site scripting D. Bluejacking

C. Cross-site scripting involves entering a script into text areas that other users will view. Option A is incorrect. SQL injection is not about entering scripts, but rather SQL commands. Option B is incorrect. Clickjacking is about tricking users into clicking on the wrong thing. Option D is incorrect. Bluejacking is a Bluetooth attack.

You are responsible for network security at Acme Company. Users have been reporting that personal data is being stolen when using the wireless network. They all insist they only connect to the corporate wireless access point (WAP). However, logs for the WAP show that these users have not connected to it. Which of the following could best explain this situation? A. Session hijacking B. Clickjacking C. Rogue access point D. Bluejacking

C. If users have been connecting but the WAP does not show them connecting, then they have been connecting to a rogue access point. This could be the cause of an architecture and design weakness such as a network without segmentation and control of devices connecting to the network. Option A is incorrect. Session hijacking involves taking over an already authenticated session. Most session hijacking attacks involve impersonation. The attacker attempts to gain access to another user's session by posing as that user. Option B is incorrect. Clickjacking involves causing visitors to a website to click on the wrong item. Option D is incorrect. Bluejacking is a Bluetooth attack.

Your wireless network has been breached. It appears the attacker modified a portion of data used with the stream cipher and utilized this to expose wirelessly encrypted data. What is this attack called? A. Evil twin B. Rogue WAP C. IV attack D. WPS Attack

C. Initialization vectors are used with stream ciphers. An IV attack attempts to exploit a flaw to use the IV to expose encrypted data. Options A and B are incorrect. Nothing in this scenario requires or describes a rogue access point/evil twin. Option D is incorrect. WiFi protected setup (WPS) uses a PIN to connect to the wireless access point (WAP). The WPS attack attempts to intercept that PIN in transmission, connect to the WAP, and then steal the WPA2 password.

Which type of virus is able to alter its own code to avoid being detected by antivirus software? A. Boot sector B. Hoax C. Polymorphic D. Stealth

C. Polymorphic viruses periodically change their signature or even their code. Option A is incorrect. A boot sector virus infects the boot sector of the hard drive. Option B is incorrect. This is not a hoax—it is an actual virus. Option D is incorrect. The category of stealth virus is very broad and might include polymorphic as well as armored and sparse infectors, but the scenario is more specific, pointing to polymorphic.

You work for a large retail company that processes credit card purchases. You have been asked to test your company network for security issues. The specific test you are conducting involves primarily checking policies, documentation, and past incident reports. Which of the following best describes this type of test? A. Vulnerability scan B. Penetration test C. Security audit D. Security test

C. Security audits typically focus on checking policies, documents, and so forth. Option A is incorrect. Vulnerability scans use automated and semiautomated processes to check for known vulnerabilities. Option B is incorrect. Penetration tests attempt to actually exploit vulnerabilities and breach systems. Option D is incorrect. Security test is too general a term.

Joanne is concerned about social engineering. She is particularly concerned that this technique could be used by an attacker to obtain information about the network, including possibly even passwords. What countermeasure would be most effective in combating social engineering? A. SPI firewall B. An IPS C. User training D. Strong policies

C. Social engineering can only be countered by user training and education. Options A and B are incorrect. No technology can prevent social engineering. Option D is incorrect. Strong policies can only help if users are well trained in the policies.

One of the salespeople in your company reports that his computer is behaving sluggishly. You check but don't see any obvious malware. However, in his temp folder you find JPEGs that look like screenshots of his desktop. Which of the following is the most likely cause? A. He is stealing data from the company. B. There is a backdoor on his computer. C. There is spyware on his computer. D. He needs to update his Windows.

C. Some spyware takes screen captures of the system, and it is common for such spyware to hide them in the temp folder. Option A is incorrect. There is no evidence of any corporate data, just screenshots from the salesperson's own machine. And if he was stealing data, he would not draw attention to his computer by reporting a problem. Option B is incorrect. Nothing in this scenario indicates a backdoor. Option D is incorrect. Updates won't affect this.

John is analyzing what he believes is a malware outbreak on his network. Many users report their machines are behaving strangely. The anomalous behavior seems to occur sporadically and John cannot find a pattern. What is the most likely cause? A. APT B. Boot sector virus C. Sparse infector virus D. Key logger

C. Sparse infector viruses perform their malicious activity sporadically. Option A is incorrect. This does not describe an advanced persistent threat. Option B is incorrect. A boot sector virus infects the boot sector of the hard drive. Option D is incorrect. A keylogger is spyware that records keystrokes.

Ahmed is a sales manager with a major insurance company. He has received an email that is encouraging him to click on a link and fill out a survey. He is suspicious of the email, but it does mention a major insurance association, and that makes him think it might be legitimate. Which of the following best describes this attack? A. Phishing B. Social engineering C. Spear phishing D. Trojan horse

C. The correct answer is spear phishing. Spear phishing is targeted to a specific group, in this case insurance professionals. Attackers can find individuals from public sources to target. This is known as open source intelligence. Option A is incorrect because that is too broad a category. Option B is incorrect because, though social engineering is a part of every phishing attack, this is more than just social engineering. Option D is incorrect because this is not a Trojan horse. In fact, malware is not even part of the attack.

Fred is on the incident response team for a major insurance company. His specialty is malware analysis. He is studying a file that is suspected of being a virus that infected the company network last month. The file seems to intermittently have bursts of malicious activity, interspersed with periods of being dormant. What best describes this malware? A. A macro virus B. A logic bomb C. A sparse infector virus D. A polymorphic virus

C. The intermittent burst of malicious activity is the definition of a sparse infector virus. Option A is incorrect. A macro virus is embedded in a document as a macro. Option B is incorrect. A logic bomb executes its misdeeds when a specific condition is met. Option D is incorrect. A polymorphic virus changes its signature, or even its code, periodically.

Teresa is the security manager for a mid-sized insurance company. She receives a call from law enforcement, telling her that some computers on her network participated in a massive denial-of-service (DoS) attack. Teresa is certain that none of the employees at her company would be involved in a cybercrime. What would best explain this scenario? A. It is a result of social engineering. B. The machines all have backdoors. C. The machines are bots. D. The machines are infected with crypto-viruses.

C. The machines in her network are being used as bots, and the users are not aware that they are part of a DDoS attack. Option A is incorrect. Social engineering is when someone tries to manipulate you into giving information. Techniques involved in social engineering attacks include consensus, scarcity, and familiarity. Option B is incorrect. There is a slight chance that all computers could have a backdoor, but that is very unlikely, and attackers normally don't manually log into each machine to do a distributed denial of service (DDoS)—it would be automated, as through a bot. Option D is incorrect. Crypto-viruses are not related to DDoS attacks.

You are responsible for incident response at Acme bank. The Acme bank website has been attacked. The attacker used the login screen, but rather than enter login credentials, he or she entered some odd text: ' or '1' = '1. What is the best description for this attack? A. Cross-site scripting B. Cross-site request forgery C. SQL injection D. ARP poisoning

C. The text shown is the classic example of a basic SQL injection to log in to a site. Option A is incorrect. Cross-site scripting would have JavaScript in the text field. Option B is incorrect. Cross-site request forgery would not involve any text being entered in the web page. Option D is incorrect. ARP poisoning is altering the ARP table in a switch; it is not related to website hacking.

Tyrell is responsible for selecting cryptographic products for his company. The company wants to encrypt the drives of all laptops. The product they have selected uses 128-bit AES encryption for full disk encryption, and users select a password to decrypt the drive. What, if any, would be the major weakness in this system? A. None; this is a good system. B. The 128-bit AES key is too short. C. The passwords users select are the weak link. D. The AES algorithm is the problem; they should use DES.

C. The user-selected password is always a weak link in hard drive encryption. Option A is incorrect. Yes, it is good system, but there is a weakness. Option B is incorrect. 128-bit AES is more than adequate for corporate purposes. Option D is incorrect. DES is outdated, and AES should be used.

Mary has discovered that a web application used by her company does not always handle multithreading properly, particularly when multiple threads access the same variable. This could allow an attacker who discovered this vulnerability to exploit it and crash the server. What type of error has Mary discovered? A. Buffer overflow B. Logic bomb C. Race conditions D. Improper error handling

C. This is a classic definition of a race condition: when multiple threads in an application are using the same variable and the situation is not properly handled. Option A is incorrect. A buffer overflow is attempting to put more data in a buffer than it is designed to hold. Option B is incorrect. A logic bomb is malware that performs its misdeed when some logical condition is met. Option D is incorrect. As the name suggests, improper error handling is the lack of adequate or appropriate error handling mechanisms within software.

Juan is responsible for incident response at a large financial institution. He discovers that the company WiFi has been breached. The attacker used the same login credentials that ship with the wireless access point (WAP). The attacker was able to use those credentials to access the WAP administrative console and make changes. Which of the following best describes what caused this vulnerability to exist? A. Improperly configured accounts B. Untrained users C. Using default configuration D. Failure to patch systems

C. This is a classic example of the problem with default configurations. Option A is incorrect. Configuring the accounts is not the issue; changing default passwords and settings is. Option B is incorrect. Yes, training users is important, but that's not the issue in this scenario. Option D is incorrect. Patching systems is important, but that won't change default settings.

John is a network administrator for Acme Company. He has discovered that someone has registered a domain name that is spelled just one letter different than his company's domain. The website with the misspelled URL is a phishing site. What best describes this attack? A. Session hijacking B. Cross-site request forgery C. Typosquatting D. Clickjacking

C. This is a classic example of typosquatting. The website is off by only one or two letters, hoping that when users to the real website mistype the URL they will go to the fake website. Option A is incorrect. Session hijacking is taking over an authenticated session. Option B is incorrect. Cross-site request forgery sends fake requests to a website that purport to be from a trusted, authenticated user. Option D is incorrect. Clickjacking attempts to trick users into clicking on something other than what they intended.

You have discovered that there are entries in your network's domain name server that point legitimate domains to unknown and potentially harmful IP addresses. What best describes this type of attack? A. A backdoor B. An APT C. DNS poisoning D. A Trojan horse

C. This is the definition of DNS poisoning. Option A is incorrect. A backdoor provides access to the system by circumventing normal authentication. Option B is incorrect. An APT is an advanced persistent threat. Option D is incorrect. A Trojan horse ties a malicious program to a legitimate program.

You are concerned about a wide range of attacks that could affect your company's web server. You have recently read about an attack wherein the attacker sends more data to the target than the target is expecting. If done properly, this could cause the target to crash. What would best prevent this type of attack? A. An SPI firewall B. An active IDS/IPS C. Checking buffer boundaries D. Checking user input

C. You are concerned about buffer overflows, and thus checking buffer boundaries is the best defense. Options A and B are incorrect. While these technological solutions can always be a benefit for security, they are unlikely to address buffer overflow attacks effectively. Option D is incorrect. Checking user input helps defend against SQL injection and crosssite scripting.

When an attacker tries to find an input value that will produce the same hash as a password, what type of attack is this? A. Rainbow table B. Brute force C. Session hijacking D. Collision attack

D. A collision is when two different inputs produce the same hash. Option A is incorrect. A rainbow table is a table of precomputed hashes. Option B is incorrect. Brute force attempts every possible random combination to get the password or encryption key. Option C is incorrect. Session hijacking is when the attacker takes over an authenticated session.

You work for a security company that performs penetration testing for clients. You are conducting a test of an e-commerce company. You discover that after compromising the web server, you can use the web server to launch a second attack into the company's internal network. What best describes this? A. Internal attack B. White-box testing C. Black-box testing D. A pivot

D. A pivot occurs when you exploit one machine and use that as a basis to attack other systems. Option A is incorrect. Pivots can be done from internal or external tests. Options B and C are incorrect. These describe how much information the tester is given in advance, not how the tester performs the test.

Gerald is a network administrator for Acme Company. Users are reporting odd behavior on their computers. He believes this may be due to malware, but the behavior is different on different computers. What might best explain this? A. It is not malware, but hardware failure. B. It is a boot sector virus. C. It is a macro virus. D. It is a polymorphic virus.

D. A polymorphic virus changes from time to time, and that would explain the different behavior on different computers. Option A is incorrect. The scenario is about malware. Option B is incorrect. A boot sector virus infects the boot sector of the hard drive. Option C is incorrect. A macro virus is embedded into a document as a macro.

You are a security administrator for a bank. You are very interested in detecting any breaches or even attempted breaches of your network, including those from internal personnel. But you don't want false positives to disrupt work. Which of the following devices would be the best choice in this scenario? A. IPS B. WAF C. SIEM D. IDS

D. An intrusion detection system will simply report issues, and not block the traffic. Option A is incorrect. An intrusion prevention system will stop suspected traffic, and in the event of a false positive, will shut down legitimate traffic. Option B is incorrect. A web application firewall (WAF), as the name suggests, primarily protects a web server against external attacks. Option C is incorrect. SIEMs aggregate logs for analysis.

Elizabeth is investigating a network breach at her company. She discovers a program that was able to execute code within the address space of another process by using the target process to load a specific library. What best describes this attack? A. Logic bomb B. Session hijacking C. Buffer overflow D. DLL injection

D. In a DLL injection, the malware attempts to inject code into the process of some library. This is a rather advanced attack. Option A is incorrect. A logic bomb executes its misdeed when some condition is met. Option B is incorrect. Session hijacking is taking over an authenticated session. Option C is incorrect. Buffer overflows are done by sending more data to a variable than it can hold.

Daryl is investigating a recent breach of his company's web server. The attacker used sophisticated techniques and then defaced the website, leaving messages that were denouncing the company's public policies. He and his team are trying to determine the type of actor who most likely committed the breach. Based on the information provided, who was the most likely threat actor? A. A script B. A nation-state C. Organized crime D. Hacktivists

D. The fact that the website is defaced in a manner related to the company's public policies is the definition of hacktivism. Options A, B, and C are incorrect. None of these account for the statements adverse to the company's policies, which is why hacktivism is the real cause.

Terrance is examining logs for the company e-commerce web server. He discovers a number of redirects that cannot be explained. After carefully examining the website, he finds some attacker performed a watering hole attack by placing JavaScript in the website and is redirecting users to a phishing website. Which of the following techniques would be best at preventing this in the future? A. An SPI firewall B. An active IDS/IPS C. Checking buffer boundaries D. Checking user input

D. The primary method for stopping both cross-site scripting and SQL injection is to check or filter user input. Option A is incorrect. A web application firewall might help, but a basic SPI firewall won't prevent this. Option B is incorrect. Most IDSs/IPSs won't detect cross-site scripting, and even if one will, option A is still the best way to prevent cross-site scripting. Option C is incorrect. This is not a buffer overflow, and checking buffer boundaries won't help.

Mahmoud is responsible for managing security at a large university. He has just performed a threat analysis for the network, and based on past incidents and studies of similar networks, he has determined that the most prevalent threat to his network is low-skilled attackers who wish to breach the system, simply to prove they can or for some low-level crime, such as changing a grade. Which term best describes this type of attacker? A. Hacktivist B. Amateur C. Insider D. Script kiddie

D. The term for low-skilled hackers is script kiddie. Option A is incorrect. Nothing indicates this is being done for ideological reasons. Option B is incorrect. "Amateur" may be an appropriate description, but the correct term is script kiddie. Option C is incorrect. Nothing in this scenario indicates an insider threat.

This is a common security issue that is extremely hard to control in large environments. It occurs when a user has more computer rights, permissions, and privileges than what is required for the tasks the user needs to perform. What best describes this scenario? A. Excessive rights B. Excessive access C. Excessive permissions D. Excessive privileges

D. The term used in the industry is excessive privileges, and it is the opposite of good security practice, which states that each user should have least privileges (i.e., just enough privileges to do his or her job). Options A through C are incorrect. While these are grammatically correct, they are not the terms used in the industry.

Some users on your network use Acme Bank for their personal banking. Those users have all recently been the victim of an attack, wherein they visited a fake Acme Bank website and their logins were compromised. They all visited the bank website from your network, and all of them insist they typed in the correct URL. What is the most likely explanation for this situation? A. Trojan horse B. IP spoofing C. Clickjacking D. DNS poisoning

D. This appears to be a situation where your network's DNS server is compromised and sending people to a fake site. Option A is incorrect. A Trojan horse is malware tied to a legitimate program. Option B is incorrect. IP spoofing would be using a fake IP address, but that is not described in this scenario. In fact, the users are not even typing in IP addresses—they are typing in URLs. Option C is incorrect. Clickjacking involves tricking users into clicking something other than what they intended.

You are the manager for network operations at your company. One of the accountants sees you in the hall and thanks you for your team keeping his antivirus software up to date. When you ask him what he means, he mentions that one of your staff, named Mike, called him and remotely connected to update the antivirus. You don't have an employee named Mike. What has occurred? A. IP spoofing B. MAC spoofing C. Man-in-the-middle attack D. Social engineering

D. This is a classic example of an attacker using social engineering on the accountant, in order to gain access to his system. Options A and B are incorrect. This scenario does not describe either IP or MAC spoofing. Option C is incorrect. A man-in-the-middle attack would require an attacker to get in between a source and destination for some sort of electronic communication. That is not described in this scenario.

Farès is the CISO of a bank. He has received an email that is encouraging him to click on a link and fill out a survey. Being security conscious, he normally does not click on links. However, this email calls him by name and claims to be a follow-up to a recent conference he attended. Which of the following best describes this attack? A. Clickjacking B. Social engineering C. Spear phishing D. Whaling

D. This is a classic example of whaling, phishing that targets a specific individual. Option A is incorrect. Clickjacking is an attack that tries to trick users into clicking on something other than what they believe they are clicking on. Option B is incorrect. While all phishing uses some social engineering, whaling is the most accurate description of this attack. Option C is incorrect. Spear phishing targets a group, not a single individual.

John is a salesman for an automobile company. He recently downloaded a program from an unknown website, and now his client files have their file extensions changed, and he cannot open them. He has received a popup window that states his files are now encrypted and he must pay .5 bitcoins to get them decrypted. What has happened? A. His machine has a rootkit. B. His machine has a logic bomb. C. His machine has a boot sector virus. D. His machine has ransomware.

D. This is a textbook example of how ransomware works. Option A is incorrect. A rootkit gives administrative, or root, access. Option B is incorrect. A logic bomb executes its malicious activity when some specific condition is met. Option C is incorrect. A boot sector virus, as the name suggests, infects the boot sector of the target computer.

When a multithreaded application does not properly handle various threads accessing a common value, what flaw is this? A. Memory leak B. Buffer overflow C. Integer overflow D. Race condition

D. This is the definition of a race condition. Option A is incorrect. Memory leaks occur when memory is allocated, but not deallocated. Option B is incorrect. A buffer overflow is when more data is put into a variable than it can hold. Option C is incorrect. An integer overflow occurs when an attempt is made to put an integer that is too large into a variable, such as trying to put a 64-bit integer into a 32-bit variable.

Zackary is a malware investigator with a cybersecurity firm. He is investigating malware that is able to compromise a target program by finding null references in the target program and dereferencing them, causing an exception to be generated. What best describes this type of attack? A. DLL injection B. Buffer overflow C. Memory leak D. Pointer dereference

D. This is the definition of pointer dereferencing. It is a somewhat obscure and sophisticated attack on a target program. Option A is incorrect. In a DLL injection, the malware tries to inject code into the memory process space of a library. Option B is incorrect. In a buffer overflow, the attacker sends more data to a variable than it can hold. Option C is incorrect. A memory leak occurs when memory is allocated in some programming function but not deallocated. Each time the function is called, more system memory is used up.

Which of the following is the term for an attack wherein malware inserts itself as a library, such as a DLL, between an application and the real system library the application is attempting to communicate with? A. Application spoofing B. Jamming C. Evil twin D. Shimming

D. This is the definition of shimming. Option A is incorrect. Application spoofing is not a term used in the industry. Options B and C are incorrect. These are both wireless attacks.

You are responsible for incident response at Acme Corporation. You have discovered that someone has been able to circumvent the Windows authentication process for a specific network application. It appears that the attacker took the stored hash of the password and sent it directly to the backend authentication service, bypassing the application. What type of attack is this? A. Hash spoofing B. Evil twin C. Shimming D. Pass the hash

D. This scenario is the definition of passing the hash. Option C is incorrect. Shimming is inserting malicious code between an application and a library.

When phishing attacks are so focused that they target a specific individual, they are called what? A. Spear phishing B. Targeted phishing C. Phishing D. Whaling

D. Whaling is targeting a specific individual. Option A is incorrect. Spear phishing targets a small group. Option B is incorrect. Targeted phishing is not a term used in the industry. Option C is incorrect. Phishing is the generic term for a wide range of related attacks.

You are responsible for incident response at Acme Company. One of your jobs is to attempt to attribute attacks to a specific type of attacker. Which of the following would not be one of the attributes you consider in attributing the attack? A. Level of sophistication B. Resources/funding C. Intent/motivation D. Amount of data stolen

D. Whether the attacker is an organized criminal, hacktivist, nation-state attacker, or script kiddie, the amount of data stolen could be large or small. Options A, B, and C are all incorrect. These are exactly the attributes of an attack you do examine to determine the most likely attacker.

Farès has discovered that attackers have breached his wireless network. They seem to have used a brute-force attack on the WiFi-protected setup PIN to exploit the WAP and recover the WPA2 password. What is this attack called? A. Evil twin B. Rogue WAP C. IV attack D. WPS Attack

D. WiFi protected setup (WPS) uses a PIN to connect to the wireless access point (WAP). The WPS attack attempts to intercept that PIN in transmission, connect to the WAP, and then steal the WPA2 password. Options A and B are incorrect. Nothing in this scenario requires or describes a rogue access point/evil twin. Option C is incorrect. An IV attack is an obscure cryptographic attack.

There are some computers on your network that use Windows XP. They have to stay on Windows XP due to a specific application they are running. That application won't run on newer operating systems. What security concerns does this situation give you? A. No special concerns; this is normal. B. The machines cannot be patched; XP is no longer supported. C. The machines cannot coordinate with an SIEM since XP won't support that. D. The machines are more vulnerable to DoS attacks.

Option B is correct. When using products the vendor no longer supports, also known as end-of-life, one major concern is that there won't be patches available for any issues or vulnerabilities. Option A is incorrect; this is certainly not normal. Option C is incorrect. SIEMs aggregate logs and are operating system agnostic. Option D is incorrect. An older system is not necessarily more susceptible to denial-ofservice (DoS) attacks.

Jared is responsible for network security at his company. He has discovered behavior on one computer that certainly appears to be a virus. He has even identified a file he thinks might be the virus. However, using three separate antivirus programs, he finds that none can detect the file. Which of the following is most likely to be occurring? A. The computer has a RAT. B. The computer has a zero-day exploit. C. The computer has a logic bomb. D. The computer has a rootkit.

Option B is correct; zero-day exploits are new, and they are not in the virus definitions for the antivirus programs. This makes them difficult to detect, except by their behavior. Options A, C, and D are incorrect. These are all forms of malware, but should be picked up by at least one of the antivirus programs.