Principles of information security week 1-4 modules midterm
Shanise is an IT security professional for a large private bank. She got an alert that the bank website received a funds transfer request that was correctly credentialed but flagged as being out of the account owner's usual pattern. If the alert is correct, what type of attack has likely occurred?
A CSRF attack.
Which of the following is a characteristic of a potentially unwanted program (PUP)?
A PUP interferes and obstructs the user with web browsing and pop-up windows.
Ian, a systems administrator, was checking systems on Monday morning when he noticed several alarms on his screen. He found many of the normal settings in his computer and programs changed, but he was sure no one had physically entered his room since Friday. If Ian did not make these changes, which of the events below is the most likely reason for the anomalies?
A backdoor was installed previously and utilized over the weekend to access the computer and the programs.
Which of the following statements correctly describes the disadvantage of a hardware-based keylogger?
A hardware-based keylogger must be physically installed and removed without detection.
Zero-day vulnerabilities and configuration vulnerabilities can heavily impact a system if exploited. How should you differentiate between a zero-day vulnerability and a configuration vulnerability?
A zero-day vulnerability is an unknown vulnerability in released software that is found and exploited by a threat actor, whereas a configuration vulnerability is caused by improper settings in hardware or software.
Which of the following can be used to mitigate a limitation of public sharing centers in OSINT?
AIS
Which threat actors sell their knowledge to other attackers or governments?
Brokers
Which of the following is an example of a request forgery malware?
CSRF
While Andel is logging into his email through a browser, the login window disappears. Andel attempts to log in again and is successful. Days later, he goes to log into his email, and his attempt fails. He receives a message indicating that his username and/or password are invalid. What is Andel likely a victim of?
CSRF
What is another term commonly used to define cross-site request forgery (CSRF):
Client-side request forgery
In an interview, the interviewer introduced the following scenario: An enterprise is hosting all its computing resources on a cloud platform, and you need to identify which vulnerability is most likely to occur. Which of the following should you choose?
Configuration vulnerability
Your company recently purchased routers with new and updated features and deployed them in the highly secure enterprise network without changing the default settings. A few days later, the enterprise network suffered a data breach, and you are assigned to prepare a report on the data breach. Which of the following vulnerabilities should you identify as the source of the breach?
Configuration vulnerability
Which issue can arise from security updates and patches?
Difficulty patching firmware
Which of the following is part of the OS security configuration?
Disabling default passwords and unnecessary ports
Which of the following is a physical social engineering technique?
Dumpster diving
What is meant by "the chain of trust" in boot security?
Each step in the boot sequence relies on the confirmation from the previous boot sequence step.
Which of the following is a feature of a fileless virus?
Fileless viruses are not easy to detect.
Which cookie is created by the website a user is currently browsing to store the customer's browsing preference information
First-party cookie
What is NOT a principle of agile development?
Follow rigid sequential processes
Your enterprise has played fast and loose with customer information for years. While there has been no significant breach of information that could damage the organization and/or their customers, many in the enterprise feel it is only a matter of time before a major leak occurs. Which type of threat actor is an employee who wishes to personally ensure that the enterprise is exposed and blocked from accessing their customers' information until they ensure more secure protocols?
Hacktivist
A federal appeals court recently made a judgment that caused significant public outrage. Soon after the ruling, the court's website was hacked, and the content was replaced with the text "Equal justice for all." Which of the following type of threat actors attacked the court's site?
Hacktivists
Hacktivists and state actors are huge threats to government systems. What is the main difference between hacktivists and state actors?
Hacktivists misuse a computer system or network for socially or politically motivated reasons, whereas state actors are covertly sponsored by a government to attack its foes.
While going through the network log, Sarah, a network security administrator, noticed substantial outbound network traffic. Which activity did Sarah perform?
IOC
An unauthorized person recently accessed your enterprise network. The security team had received a call from the threat actor claiming to be a higher official. They followed the attacker's instructions to log them onto a specific webpage, leading to the exposure of enterprise network credentials. Which of the following social engineering techniques was used here?
Impersonation and phishing
What additional measure should be enacted to increase the security on a computer network after secure boot, protective measures from attacks like antimalware, and intrusion detection systems are implemented in all the computers on the network?
Implement hardening at endpoints with patch management and operating system safeguards
An organization is planning a revamp of the existing computer hardware with new ones. The IT manager has informed department heads that some computers have faced BIOS attacks in the past. He has requested help in preventing future BIOS attacks.As an expert, which of these solutions can you use to effectively improve boot security when the new computers are implemented in the network?
Implement measured boot with UEFI
Which of the following describes a memory leak attack?
In a memory leak attack, the threat actor takes advantage of the programming error of not freeing the memory after executing a process, taking advantage of the device's low memory conditions to attack.
How can a configuration review reduce the impact of a vulnerability scan on the network's overall performance?
It ensures the scan is designed to meet its intended goals by defining scope and sensitivity levels.
Which of the following is a disadvantage of the secure boot process?
It makes third party non-vendor-approved software difficult to implement.
A company monitors the network activity of the organization and stores the logs in a database. You have been asked to identify whether there are any malicious activities in the network. Which of the following can denote the upper and lower bounds of their various network activities?
KRI
Kate decides to download an extension to her favorite browser to quickly store links on her spreadsheet software. While downloading the software, she ignores the opt-out check box that allows the extension to download a search toolbar. What has occurred here?
Kate has installed a potentially unwanted program (PUP).
Kia recently noticed that when she browses her favorite online shopping site, she is immediately redirected to a competitor's site. What is happening here, and what is the best option for Kia to fix this situation?
Kia must uninstall the toolbar software and the accompanying components she has recent installed on her browser.
Which of the following types of platforms is known for its vulnerabilities due to age?
Legacy platform
Terrence, an executive VP of IT at Sigma Bank, noticed that yesterday, there was a major attack on several thousands of bank employees' computers located at geographically different locations where files and data from the computers got deleted. It was also noticed that several confidential files containing customer data were deleted from the bank's server in multiple locations, and the CEO's emails were deleted from the mail server. Since the bank was compliant with cybersecurity measures, Terrence suspects an internal hand in this activity. While going through the records of all employees working in the IT security of the bank, both past and present, he notices that there is an employee, Chris, who has enough experience to launch this attack, was unhappy with his annual review last year, and had left the bank three months ago. If Terrence were able to single Chris out as the one responsible for the attack, what kind of an attack would this be?
Logic bomb
Alice, a vulnerability assessment engineer at a bank, is told to find all the vulnerabilities on an internet-facing web application server running on port HTTPS. When she finishes the vulnerability scan, she finds several different vulnerabilities at different levels. How should she proceed?
Look at the priority and the accuracy of the vulnerability
A company has approached you for their product testing, and you agree to do it. First, you have to install the necessary plugins for the software through the browser, install the software, and run the software again. What procedure should you adopt to ensure that you don't compromise the browser and the computer's operating system?
Making sure that the OS's security options are deployed, run the antivirus/antispyware on the files downloaded, run the software on HSTS/HTTPS mode, and then send a secure cookie to the server.
Keily is a vulnerability assessment engineer. She is told to find surface vulnerabilities on all internet-facing web servers in the network. Which of the following are surface vulnerabilities that she should initially chase?
Missing patches, lack of OS hardening, network design flaw, lack of application hardening, weak passwords, and misconfigurations
What is the secure coding technique that organizes data within the database for minimum redundancy?
Normalization
Sheena wants to make sure that her browser activity is safe and prevent others from intercepting her data as it is transmitted over the browser. What should Sheena do to achieve this objective?
Only visit websites that are hosted over HTTPS or HSTS
John is a project manager with an IT firm, and his current project of developing an ERP application is in the development stage. Currently, the application is not yet mature or stable enough to be placed in a test environment. Which of the following secure coding review techniques is applicable for his project?
Perform static code analysis
Social engineering is a means of eliciting information by relying on the weaknesses of individuals. How should you differentiate between the social engineering techniques of phishing and pharming?
Phishing involves sending an email message or displaying a web announcement that falsely claims to be from a legitimate enterprise, whereas pharming is a redirection technique that attempts to exploit how a URL is converted into its corresponding IP.
You work for an enterprise that provides various cybersecurity services. You are assigned to examine an enterprise's network and suggest security measures modifications, if necessary. On examining the network, you find that the enterprise hosts most of its computing resources on a cloud platform and few resources on-premises, and both seem to have secure settings implemented. You also find that the enterprise computers use the Windows XP operating system. Which of the following vulnerabilities should you insist on fixing first?
Platform vulnerability
Which of the following is a social engineering method that attempts to influence the subject before the event occurs?
Prepending
What does ransomware do to an endpoint device?
Ransomware attacks the endpoint device holding it hostage by preventing it from functioning unless the user fulfills the ransom payment demanded.
Robert is a black box penetration tester who conducted pen testing attacks on all of the network's application servers. He was able to exploit a vulnerability and gain access to the system using a mimikatz tool. Which of the following activities did he perform using mimikatz, and which task should he perform next?
Robert used mimikatz for credential harvesting, and should perform privilege escalation using a high-privileged account next.
Ronald is a software architect at MindSpace Software. He has been approached to develop a critical application for a finance company. The company has asked him to ensure that the employed coding process is secure. They have also requested that the project be completed in a few months, with a minimum version of the identified functionalities provided. The other functionalities can be developed later and added to the software while the application is live.Which development process would be ideal for Ronald to employ to achieve this objective?
Ronald can employ the SecDevOps model to meet the requirements of the client.
Which type of malware can hide its agenda inside other processes, making it undetectable, and what is it usually used for?
Rootkit, a malware that uses the lower layers of the operating system or undocumented functions to make alterations to the operating system's processes
A web application with an SQL server database is found to be compromised by an attacker. On examination, the email IDs of the database have been found modified. This was due to improper validation in the input fields exploited by the attacker. What is the probable attack in the above scenario?
SQL injection
A cyber analyst needs to quickly do a vulnerability scan on an enterprise network with many devices. Which approach should the analyst take?
Scan the most important devices for as long as it takes for each device
In cybersecurity, a threat actor is an individual or an entity responsible for cyber incidents against the technical equipment of enterprises and users. How should you differentiate an attack by a script kiddie from that of a gray hat hacker?
Script kiddies use automated attack software created by other hackers for personal gain, whereas gray hat hackers create their own attack software to showcase vulnerabilities present in a system to the world.
What is meant by "infrastructure as code" in SecDevOps?
SecDevOps method of managing software and hardware using principles of developing code
Smitha, an employee working in the accounts department, reported to the information security officer that she could not access her computer. James, the security officer, noticed the following on Smitha's system: On booting the computer, the following message was flashing on the computer screen with the IRS logo:" This computer is locked by the Internal Revenue Service. It has come to our attention that you are transferring funds to other agencies using this computer without compliance with the local income tax laws. As per section 22 of the U.S. Income Tax Act, the transmission of funds without applicable taxes is prohibited. Your IP address is identified in this fraudulent transaction and is locked to prevent further unlawful activities. This offense attracts a penalty of $400.00 for the first offense. You are hereby given 16 hours to resolve this issue, failing which you shall be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. You may make a secure payment by clicking on the following link. If you face any issues, you may reach out to us at [email protected]."The message will not close, nor is there access to applications or files on the computer; however, James can open shared files and folders on Smitha's computer through the network. What is your inference about the problem faced by Smitha on her computer?
Smitha computer is compromised by ransomware
Daniel accidentally installed a vulnerable application. Which of the following system exploitations would NOT be caused by the vulnerable application?
Social engineering and phishing attacks
What is a variation of a common social engineering attack targeting a specific user?
Spear phishing
Which attack embeds malware-distributing links in instant messages?
Spim
Over the last few days, several employees in your enterprise reported seeing strange messages containing links in their company's IM account. Even though no one has clicked on the messages, they are spreading throughout the network. Which type of malicious activity is this?
Spimming
Which of the following uses vulnerable applications to modify Microsoft registry keys?
System tampering
What is a risk to data when training a machine learning (ML) application?
Tainted training data for machine learning
Which of the following describes the action of an SQL injection into a database server?
The SQL injection inserts specially created structured query language statements to manipulate the database server, giving control of the database to the attacker, who can then manipulate the database.
Natasha, a network security administrator for an online travel portal, noticed that her website was the victim of an SQL injection. She decided to study the SQL queries to find which one made this vulnerability in the database, and she noticed the following SQL code piece executed on the database: 'whatever' AND email IS NULL; What has been accessed by the attacker running this SQL injection?
The attacker has determined the names of different types of fields in the database.
An attacker has changed the value of a variable used when copying files from one cloud server to a local drive. What is the most likely motive behind the attack?
The attacker is using an integer overflow attack to initiate a buffer overflow that can allow them to take over the machine.
ABC Technologies had its computer network compromised through a cybersecurity breach. A cybersecurity expert was employed to analyze and identify what caused the attack and the damage caused by the attack. He checked an available database for this purpose and found the threat actor behind the attack. He also found out the cybercriminal has been attempting to sell the company's valuable data on the internet. Which are the most probable methods used by the cybersecurity expert to get to this stage of the investigation?
The cybersecurity expert checked with CISCP and also investigated the dark web.
A few computers at a high-security software firm location have been compromised. The threat actor took user videos, confidential information like bank account IDs and passwords, email IDs and passwords, and computer screenshots. These confidential data have been shared every three hours from the computers to the threat actor. Which of the following is correct, based on the evaluation of the above observation?
This is a software keylogger attack, as screenshots, video captures, and keystrokes have been routinely monitored and periodically shared.
The files in James's computer were found spreading within the device without any human action. As an engineer, you were requested to identify the problem and help James resolve it. During file code inspection, you noticed that certain types of files in the computer have similar codes. You found that the problem is coming from a set of codes that are not part of the actual files, appended at the bottom of the file. You also noticed a transfer control code written at the beginning of the files giving control to the code at the bottom of the file. Which type of infection is this a characteristic of?
This is a typical characteristic of an endpoint device infected with a file-based virus attack.
Zeda Corporation provides online training solutions to global customers. To provide e-learning solutions, it integrates with multiple vendor platforms. This ensures seamless transfer to multiple operators' solutions through sign on. Joe, an IT security administrator, noticed that a threat actor has attacked the platform and stolen the user data. The source of this vulnerability was identified as one of the integrated external applications. What type of attack is this?
This is an API attack.
Several websites use URLs similar to one of the most globally popular websites, attempting to attract traffic if a user misspells the popular website's URL. What is this social engineering technique called?
Typo squatting
Why was the BIOS framework relocated to flash memory from a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) in later development?
Using CMOS, when in ROM, BIOS could not correctly locate the address of the OS, which is not a problem with flash memory.
Your enterprise experienced several technical issues over the last few days. There were multiple instances of passwords needing to be changed and other issues causing downtime. Management has started receiving voicemails regarding fraudulent activities on their accounts. While the voicemails sound authentic, the help desk concludes that they are fake. What type of malicious activity will this be considered?
Vishing
There is often confusion between vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. What is the best explanation of the difference between vulnerability scanning and penetration testing?
Vulnerability scanning is performed using an automated tool to scan a network for known vulnerability signatures. Penetration testing involves attempting to manually uncover deep vulnerabilities just as a threat actor would, and then exploiting them.
In an application development model, which of the following uses a sequential development process?
Waterfall development
Which of the following is a configuration vulnerability?
Weak encryption
William downloaded some free software to help him with photo editing. A few days later, William noticed several personal photographs were modified and posted to various social media pages with obscene comments. He also noticed that there were videos of him that were morphed and circulated on adult websites. The videos were obviously taken using his webcam. What should William do to fix his problem and prevent it from happening again in the future?
William should run an antimalware program and scan for all known RATs, then quarantine and remove the infected file(s). To prevent this in the future, he should only download software from trusted websites.
What is the inbuild application available to prevent threat actors from modifying the registry in a Windows 10 operating system?
Windows 10 tamper protection
A cybercriminal attempts to trick a computer's user into sharing their personal information by implementing content to discreetly capture user information over the actual webpage.What should the user implement to avoid this situation?
X-Frame
Which HTTP response header should be used to prevent attackers from displaying their content on a website?
X-Frame-Option
Attackers have taken over a site commonly used by an enterprise's leadership team to order new raw materials. The site is also visited by leadership at several other enterprises, so taking this site will allow for attacks on many organizations. Which type of malicious activity is this?
a watering hole
You have been assigned to decide the process used for software application development at your company. Since the products need to be developed and deployed as each module is completed, you chose to go with agile application development. Your manager has requested you consider SecDevOps.Which of the following is a significant and key feature of using SecDevOps that can be considered for selecting this project's development model?
automation
Which threat actors violate computer security for personal gain?
black hat hacker
Dillip is assigned the role of a SOC developer who must build different teams under the SOC. He must build a new team that will put security defenses in place to prevent another team from penetrating the network. Which team should he build to monitor the other team's attacks and shore up security defenses as necessary?
blue team
Japan's cybercrime control center noticed that around 200,000 Tokyo computers are infected by bots, and all these bots are remotely controlled by a single attacker. What is this attacker referred to as?
bot herder
Which type of threat actor would benefit the most from accessing your enterprise's new machine learning algorithm research and development program?
competitors
A learning management system application has been written in Python. While running the application code, the specific program or application that converts the program into machine language is called what?
compiler
Which of the following is an attack vector used by threat actors to penetrate a system?
Which of the following is the most common method for delivering malware?
Kile is assigned a role as a grey box penetration tester in the financial sector. He has to conduct a pen testing attack on all the application servers in the network. Which of the following tasks should he perform first while conducting a penetration testing attack on a network?
footprinting
Makayla has created software for automating the accounting process at ABL Manufacturing. She completed the software development, with testing done during development at individual stages. Before putting the software into production, Mary, who is in charge of the testing software, ran the application using tools and generated a report giving the various inputs and corresponding exceptions generated by the application.What process did Mary use?
fuzzing
Which endpoint application runs on an endpoint device that only detects an attack in an endpoint device?
hids
Threat actors focused on financial gain often attack which of the following main target categories?
individual users
Which of the following computing platforms is highly vulnerable to attacks?
legacy
Which of the following is a subset of artificial intelligence?
machine learning
What is an officially released software security update intended to repair a vulnerability called?
patch
Khalid joins a security team where he is assigned an SOC developer role and has to build different teams under SOC. Which of the following teams should he build to deal with providing real-time feedback related to security incidents and threat detections, which can then be utilized to facilitate better prioritization of threats and a mature way of detecting threats?
purple team
Which of the following is a form of malware attack that uses specialized communication protocols?
rat
What type of attack occurs when the threat actor snoops and intercepts the digital data transmitted by the computer and resends that data, impersonating the user?
replay
What is the name of the process where a website validates user input before the application uses the input?
sanitizing
A company has its network compromised. As an expert professional, the organization has hired you to identify the probable cause of the attack and fix it. As a security professional, you have noticed the pattern of compromise is unlike anything previously seen. You are looking to find new information on vulnerabilities like the attack that occurred. Which of the following actions would help achieve this objective?
the dark web
A vulnerability assessment engineer performed vulnerability scanning on active directory servers and discovered that the active directory server is using a lower version of Kerberos. To alert management to the risk behind using a lower version of Kerberos, he needs to explain what an attacker can do to leverage the vulnerabilities in it. Which of the following actions can the attacker perform after exploiting vulnerabilities in Kerberos?
use privilege escalation
A machine where the operating system runs an application on top of an operating system is called
virtual machine
Juan, a cybersecurity expert, has been hired by an organization whose networks have been compromised by a malware attack. After analyzing the network systems, Juan submits a report to the company mentioning that the devices are infected with malware that uses a split infection technique on files. Which malware attack is Juan reporting?
virus
Your company is considering updating several electronic devices used in the enterprise network. The third-party service provider that your company approached says that they require access to the enterprise network in order to implement the updates. As the chief information security officer, you are asked to analyze the requirement and submit a report on potential vulnerabilities when giving a third-party access to the network. Which of the following vulnerabilities should you list as the most likely to affect the enterprise network?
weakest link
