CompTIA Security+ Practice Questions

The SOC for a large MSSP is meeting to discuss the lessons learned from a recent incident that took much too long to resolve. This type of incident has become more common in recent weeks and is consuming large amounts of the analysts' time due to manual tasks being performed. Which of the following solutions should the SOC consider to BEST improve its response time?

• A. Configure a NIDS appliance using a Switched Port Analyzer.

• B. Collect OSINT and catalog the artifacts in a central repository.

• C. Implement a SOAR with customizable playbooks.

• D. Install a SIEM with community-driven threat intelligence.

Data exfiltration analysis indicates that an attacker managed to download system configuration notes from a web server. The web-server logs have been deleted, but analysts have determined that the system configuration notes were stored in the database administrator's folder on the web server. Which of the following attacks explains what occurred? (Choose two.)

• A. Pass-the-hash

• B. Directory traversal

• C. SQL injection

• D. Privilege escalation

• E. Cross-site scripting

• F. Request forgery

A junior security analyst is conducting an analysis after passwords were changed on multiple accounts without users' interaction. The SIEM have multiple login entries with the following text: suspicious event - user: scheduledtasks successfully authenticate on AD on abnormal time suspicious event - user: scheduledtasks failed to execute c:\weekly_checkups\amazing-3rdparty-domain-assessment.py suspicious event - user: scheduledtasks failed to execute c:\weekly_checkups\secureyourAD-3rdparty-compliance.sh suspicious event - user: scheduledtasks successfully executed c:\weekly_checkups\amazing-3rdparty-domain-assessment.py \n Which of the following is the MOST likely attack conducted on the environment?

• A. Malicious script

• B. Privilege escalation

• C. Domain hijacking

• D. DNS poisoning

A customer service representative reported an unusual text message that was sent to the help desk. The message contained an unrecognized invoice number with a large balance due and a link to click for more details. Which of the following BEST describes this technique?

• A. Vishing

• B. Whaling

• C. Phishing

• D. Smishing

Which of the following actions would be recommended to improve an incident response process?

• A. Train the team to identify the difference between events and incidents.

• B. Modify access so the IT team has full access to the compromised assets.

• C. Contact the authorities if a cybercrime is suspected.

• D. Restrict communication surrounding the response to the IT team.

A cybersecurity administrator needs to implement a Layer 7 security control on a network and block potential attacks. Which of the following can block an attack at \n Layer 7? (Choose two.)

• A. HIDS

• B. NIPS

• C. HSM

• D. WAF

• E. NAC

• F. NIDS

A business operations manager is concerned that a PC that is critical to business operations will have a costly hardware failure soon. The manager is looking for options to continue business operations without incurring large costs. Which of the following would mitigate the manager's concerns?

• A. Implement a full system upgrade.

• B. Perform a physical-to-virtual migration.

• C. Install uninterruptible power supplies.

• D. Purchase cybersecurity insurance.

An organization has activated an incident response plan due to a malware outbreak on its network. The organization has brought in a forensics team that has identified an internet-facing Windows server as the likely point of initial compromise. The malware family that was detected is known to be distributed by manually logging on to servers and running the malicious code. Which of the following actions would be BEST to prevent reinfection from the infection vector?

• A. Prevent connections over TFTP from the internal network.

• B. Create a firewall rule that blocks a 22 from the internet to the server.

• C. Disable file sharing over port 445 to the server.

• D. Block port 3389 inbound from untrusted networks.

Which of the following uses SAML for authentication?

• A. TOTP

• B. Federation

• C. Kerberos

• D. HOTP

Business partners are working on a security mechanism to validate transactions securely. The requirement is for one company to be responsible for deploying a trusted solution that will register and issue artifacts used to sign, encrypt, and decrypt transaction files. Which of the following is the BEST solution to adopt?

• A. PKI

• B. Blockchain

• C. SAML

• D. OAuth

A security analyst has been asked by the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to: \n ✑ develop a secure method of providing centralized management of infrastructure \n ✑ reduce the need to constantly replace aging end user machines \n ✑ provide a consistent user desktop experience \n Which of the following BEST meets these requirements?

• A. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)

• B. Mobile device management

• C. VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure)

• D. Containerization

Which of the following terms describes a broad range of information that is sensitive to a specific organization?

• A. Public

• B. Top secret

• C. Proprietary

• D. Open-source

A Chief Security Officer (CSO) is concerned that cloud-based services are not adequately protected from advanced threats and malware. The CSO believes there is a high risk that a data breach could occur in the near future due to the lack of detective and preventive controls. Which of the following should be implemented to BEST address the CSO's concerns? (Choose two.)

• A. A WAF (Web Application Firewall)

• B. A CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker)

• C. An NG-SWG (Next-Generation Security Web Gateway)

• D. Segmentation

• E. Encryption

• F. Containerization

An organization is planning to roll out a new mobile device policy and issue each employee a new laptop. These laptops would access the users' corporate operating system remotely and allow them to use the laptops for purposes outside of their job roles. Which of the following deployment models is being utilized?

• A. MDM (Mobile Device Management) and application management

• B. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and containers

• C. COPE (Corporate-Owned Personally Enabled) and VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure)

• D. CYOD (Choose Your Own Device) and VMs (Virtual Machines)

Certain users are reporting their accounts are being used to send unauthorized emails and conduct suspicious activities. After further investigation, a security analyst notices the following: \n ✑ All users share workstations throughout the day. \n ✑ Endpoint protection was disabled on several workstations throughout the network. \n ✑ Travel times on logins from the affected users are impossible. \n ✑ Sensitive data is being uploaded to external sites. \n All user account passwords were forced to be reset and the issue continued. \n \n Which of the following attacks is being used to compromise the user accounts?

• A. Brute-force

• B. Keylogger

• C. Dictionary

• D. Rainbow

An audit identified PII being utilized in the development environment of a critical application. The Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) is adamant that this data must be removed; however, the developers are concerned that without real data they cannot perform functionality tests and search for specific data. Which of the following should a security professional implement to BEST satisfy both the CPO's and the development team's requirements?

• A. Data anonymization

• B. Data encryption

• C. Data masking

• D. Data tokenization

A company is implementing a DLP (Data Loss Prevention) solution on the file server. The file server has PII, financial information, and health information stored on it. Depending on what type of data that is hosted on the file server, the company wants different DLP rules assigned to the data. Which of the following should the company do to help accomplish this goal?

• A. Classify the data.

• B. Mask the data.

• C. Assign the application owner.

• D. Perform a risk analysis.

A forensics investigator is examining a number of unauthorized payments that were reported on the company's website. Some unusual log entries show users received an email for an unwanted mailing list and clicked on a link to attempt to unsubscribe. One of the users reported the email to the phishing team, and the forwarded email revealed the link to be: \n <a href="https://www.company.com/payto.do?routing=00001111&acct=22223334&amount=250">Click here to unsubscribe</a> \n Which of the following will the forensics investigator MOST likely determine has occurred?

• A. SQL injection

• B. Broken authentication

• C. XSS

• D. XSRF

A report delivered to the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) shows that some user credentials could be exfiltrated. The report also indicates that users tend to choose the same credentials on different systems and applications. Which of the following policies should the CISO use to prevent someone from using the exfiltrated credentials?

• A. MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication)

• B. Lockout

• C. Time-based logins

• D. Password history

A company wants to simplify the certificate management process. The company has a single domain with several dozen subdomains, all of which are publicly accessible on the internet. Which of the following BEST describes the type of certificate the company should implement?

• A. Subject alternative name

• B. Wildcard

• C. Self-signed

• D. Domain validation

Which of the following is an effective tool to stop or prevent the exfiltration of data from a network?

• A. DLP (Data Loss Prevention)

• B. NIDS (Network Intrusion Detection System)

• C. TPM (Trusted Platform Module)

• D. FDE (Full Disk Encryption)

Several attempts have been made to pick the door lock of a secure facility. As a result, the security engineer has been assigned to implement a stronger preventative access control. Which of the following would BEST complete the engineer's assignment?

• A. Replacing the traditional key with an RFID key

• B. Installing and monitoring a camera facing the door

• C. Setting motion-sensing lights to illuminate the door on activity

• D. Surrounding the property with fencing and gates

Which of the following can be used by a monitoring tool to compare values and detect password leaks without providing the actual credentials?

• A. Hashing

• B. Tokenization

• C. Masking

• D. Encryption

A security engineer is building a file transfer solution to send files to a business partner. The users would like to drop off the files in a specific directory and have the server send the file to the business partner. The connection to the business partner is over the internet and needs to be secure. Which of the following can be used?

• A. S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)

• B. LDAPS (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol over SSL)

• C. SSH (Secure SHell)

• D. SRTP (Secure Real Time Protocol)

An administrator needs to protect user passwords and has been advised to hash the passwords. Which of the following BEST describes what the administrator is being advised to do?

• A. Perform a mathematical operation on the passwords that will convert them into unique strings.

• B. Add extra data to the passwords so their length is increased, making them harder to brute force.

• C. Store all passwords in the system in a rainbow table that has a centralized location.

• D. Enforce the use of one-time passwords that are changed for every login session.