Matthew is the security administrator for a consulting firm and must enforce access controls that restrict users’ access based upon their previous activity. For example, once a consultant accesses data belonging to Acme Cola, a consulting client, they may no longer access data belonging to any of Acme’s competitors. What security model best fits Matthew’s needs?

1. Clark-Wilson
2. Biba
3. Bell-LaPadula
4. Brewer-Nash

Referring to the figure shown below, what is the earliest stage of a fire where it is possible to use detection technology to identify it?

1. Incipient
2. Smoke
3. Flame
4. Heat

Ralph is designing a physical security infrastructure for a new computing facility that will remain largely unstaffed. He plans to implement motion detectors in the facility but would also like to include a secondary verification control for physical presence. Which one of the following would best meet his needs?

1. CCTV
2. IPS
3. Turnstiles
4. Faraday cages

Harry would like to retrieve a lost encryption key from a database that uses m of n control with m = 4 and n = 8. What is the minimum number of escrow agents required to retrieve the key?

1. 2
2. 4
3. 8
4. 12

Fran’s company is considering purchasing a web-based email service from a vendor and eliminating its own email server environment as a cost-saving measure. What type of cloud computing environment is Fran’s company considering?

1. SaaS
2. IaaS
3. CaaS
4. PaaS

Bob is a security administrator with the federal government and wishes to choose a digital signature approach that is an approved part of the federal Digital Signature Standard under FIPS 186-4. Which one of the following encryption algorithms is not an acceptable choice for use in digital signatures?

1. DSA
2. HAVAL
3. RSA
4. ECDSA

Harry would like to access a document owned by Sally and stored on a file server. Applying the subject/object model to this scenario, who or what is the subject of the resource request?

1. Harry
2. Sally
3. Server
4. Document

Michael is responsible for forensic investigations and is investigating a medium severity security incident that involved the defacement of a corporate website. The web server in question ran on a virtualization platform, and the marketing team would like to get the website up and running as quickly as possible. What would be the most reasonable next step for Michael to take?

1. Keep the website offline until the investigation is complete.
2. Take the virtualization platform offline as evidence.
3. Take a snapshot of the compromised system and use that for the investigation.
4. Ignore the incident and focus on quickly restoring the website.

Helen is a software engineer and is developing code that she would like to restrict to running within an isolated sandbox for security purposes. What software development technique is Helen using?

1. Bounds
2. Input validation
3. Confinement
4. TCB

What concept describes the degree of confidence that an organization has that its controls satisfy security requirements?

1. Trust
2. Credentialing
3. Verification
4. Assurance

What type of security vulnerability are developers most likely to introduce into code when they seek to facilitate their own access, for testing purposes, to software they developed?

1. Maintenance hook
2. Cross-site scripting
3. SQL injection
4. Buffer overflow

In the figure shown below, Sally is blocked from reading the file due to the Biba integrity model. Sally has a Secret security clearance and the file has a Confidential classification. What principle of the Biba model is being enforced?

1. Simple Security Property
2. Simple Integrity Property
3. *-Security Property
4. *-Integrity Property

Tom is responsible for maintaining the security of systems used to control industrial processes located within a power plant. What term is used to describe these systems?

1. POWER
2. SCADA
3. HAVAL
4. COBOL

Sonia recently removed an encrypted hard drive from a laptop and moved it to a new device because of a hardware failure. She is having difficulty accessing encrypted content on the drive despite the fact that she knows the user’s password. What hardware security feature is likely causing this problem?

1. TCB
2. TPM
3. NIACAP
4. RSA

Marcy would like to continue using some old DES encryption equipment to avoid throwing it away. She understands that running DES multiple times improves the security of the algorithm. What is the minimum number of times she must run DES on the same data to achieve security that is cryptographically strong by modern standards?

1. 2
2. 3
3. 4
4. 12

Questions 16–19 refer to the following scenario.

Alice and Bob would like to use an asymmetric cryptosystem to communicate with each other. They are located in different parts of the country but have exchanged encryption keys by using digital certificates signed by a mutually trusted certificate authority.

If Alice wishes to send Bob an encrypted message, what key does she use to encrypt the message?

1. Alice’s public key
2. Alice’s private key
3. Bob’s public key
4. Bob’s private key

When Bob receives the encrypted message from Alice, what key does he use to decrypt the message?

1. Alice’s public key
2. Alice’s private key
3. Bob’s public key
4. Bob’s private key

Which one of the following keys would Bob not possess in this scenario?

1. Alice’s public key
2. Alice’s private key
3. Bob’s public key
4. Bob’s private key

Alice would also like to digitally sign the message that she sends to Bob. What key should she use to create the digital signature?

1. Alice’s public key
2. Alice’s private key
3. Bob’s public key
4. Bob’s private key

What name is given to the random value added to a password in an attempt to defeat rainbow table attacks?

1. Hash
2. Salt
3. Extender
4. Rebar

Which one of the following is not an attribute of a hashing algorithm?

1. They require a cryptographic key.
2. They are irreversible.
3. It is very difficult to find two messages with the same hash value.
4. They take variable-length input.

What type of fire suppression system fills with water when the initial stages of a fire are detected and then requires a sprinkler head heat activation before dispensing water?

1. Wet pipe
2. Dry pipe
3. Deluge
4. Preaction

Susan would like to configure IPsec in a manner that provides confidentiality for the content of packets. What component of IPsec provides this capability?

1. AH
2. ESP
3. IKE
4. ISAKMP

Which one of the following cryptographic goals protects against the risks posed when a device is lost or stolen?

1. Nonrepudiation
2. Authentication
3. Integrity
4. Confidentiality

What logical operation is described by the truth table below?

1. OR
2. AND
3. XOR
4. NOR

How many bits of keying material does the Data Encryption Standard use for encrypting information?

1. 56 bits
2. 64 bits
3. 128 bits
4. 256 bits

In the figure shown below, Harry’s request to write to the data file is blocked. Harry has a Secret security clearance and the data file has a Confidential classification. What principle of the Bell-LaPadula model blocked this request?

1. Simple Security Property
2. Simple Integrity Property
3. *-Security Property
4. Discretionary Security Property

Florian and Tobias would like to begin communicating using a symmetric cryptosystem but they have no prearranged secret and are not able to meet in person to exchange keys. What algorithm can they use to securely exchange the secret key?

1. IDEA
2. Diffie-Hellman
3. RSA
4. MD5

Under the Common Criteria, what element describes the security requirements for a product?

1. TCSEC
2. ITSEC
3. PP
4. ST

Which one of the following is not one of the basic requirements for a cryptographic hash function?

1. The function must work on fixed-length input.
2. The function must be relatively easy to compute for any input.
3. The function must be one way.
4. The function must be collision free.

How many possible keys exist for a cipher that uses a key containing 5 bits?

1. 10
2. 16
3. 32
4. 64

What cryptographic principle stands behind the idea that cryptographic algorithms should be open to public inspection?

1. Security through obscurity
2. Kerchoff principle
3. Defense in depth
4. Heisenburg principle

Referring to the figure shown below, what is the name of the security control indicated by the arrow?

1. Mantrap
2. Turnstile
3. Intrusion prevention system
4. Portal

Which one of the following does not describe a standard physical security requirement for wiring closets?

1. Place only in areas monitored by security guards.
2. Do not store flammable items in the closet.
3. Use sensors on doors to log entries.
4. Perform regular inspections of the closet.

In the figure shown below, Sally is blocked from writing to the data file by the Biba integrity model. Sally has a Secret security clearance and the file is classified Top Secret. What principle is preventing her from writing to the file?

1. Simple Security Property
2. Simple Integrity Property
3. *-Security Property
4. *-Integrity Property

Which one of the following security controls is least often required in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environments?

1. Remote wiping
2. Passcodes
3. Application control
4. Device encryption

What is the minimum number of independent parties necessary to implement the Fair Cryptosystems approach to key escrow?

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4

In what state does a processor’s scheduler place a process when it is prepared to execute but the CPU is not currently available?

1. Ready
2. Running
3. Waiting
4. Stopped

Alan is reviewing a system that has been assigned the EAL1 evaluation assurance level under the Common Criteria. What is the degree of assurance that he may have about the system?

1. It has been functionally tested.
2. It has been structurally tested.
3. It has been formally verified, designed, and tested.
4. It has been methodically designed, tested, and reviewed.

Which one of the following components is used to assign classifications to objects in a mandatory access control system?

1. Security label
2. Security token
3. Security descriptor
4. Security capability

What type of software program exposes the code to anyone who wishes to inspect it?

1. Closed source
2. Open-source
3. Fixed source
4. Unrestricted source

Adam recently configured permissions on an NTFS filesystem to describe the access that different users may have to a file by listing each user individually. What did Adam create?

1. An access control list
2. An access control entry
3. Role-based access control
4. Mandatory access control

Betty is concerned about the use of buffer overflow attacks against a custom application developed for use in her organization. What security control would provide the strongest defense against these attacks?

1. Firewall
2. Intrusion detection system
3. Parameter checking
4. Vulnerability scanning

Which one of the following terms is not used to describe a privileged mode of system operation?

1. User mode
2. Kernel mode
3. Supervisory mode
4. System mode

James is working with a Department of Defense system that is authorized to simultaneously handle information classified at the Secret and Top Secret levels. What type of system is he using?

1. Single state
2. Unclassified
3. Compartmented
4. Multistate

Kyle is being granted access to a military computer system that uses System High mode. What is not true about Kyle’s security clearance requirements?

1. Kyle must have a clearance for the highest level of classification processed by the system, regardless of his access.
2. Kyle must have access approval for all information processed by the system.
3. Kyle must have a valid need to know for all information processed by the system.
4. Kyle must have a valid security clearance.

Gary intercepts a communication between two individuals and suspects that they are exchanging secret messages. The content of the communication appears to be the image shown below. What type of technique may the individuals use to hide messages inside this image?

1. Visual cryptography
2. Steganography
3. Cryptographic hashing
4. Transport layer security

Which one of the following terms accurately describes the Caesar cipher?

1. Transposition cipher
2. Block cipher
3. Shift cipher
4. Strong cipher

In the ring protection model shown below, what ring contains the operating system’s kernel?

1. Ring 0
2. Ring 1
3. Ring 2
4. Ring 3

In an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment where a vendor supplies a customer with access to storage services, who is normally responsible for removing sensitive data from drives that are taken out of service?

1. Customer’s security team
2. Customer’s storage team
3. Customer’s vendor management team
4. Vendor

Which one of the following is an example of a code, not a cipher?

1. Data Encryption Standard
2. “One if by land; two if by sea”
3. Shifting letters by three
4. Word scramble

Which one of the following systems assurance processes provides an independent third-party evaluation of a system’s controls that may be trusted by many different organizations?

1. Certification
2. Definition
3. Verification
4. Accreditation

Process _______________ ensures that any behavior will affect only the memory and resources associated with a process.

1. Restriction
2. Isolation
3. Limitation
4. Parameters

Harold is assessing the susceptibility of his environment to hardware failures and would like to identify the expected lifetime of a piece of hardware. What measure should he use for this?

1. MTTR
2. MTTF
3. RTO
4. MTO

What type of fire extinguisher is useful only against common combustibles?

1. Class A
2. Class B
3. Class C
4. Class D

Gary is concerned about applying consistent security settings to the many mobile devices used throughout his organization. What technology would best assist with this challenge?

1. MDM
2. IPS
3. IDS
4. SIEM

Alice sent a message to Bob. Bob would like to demonstrate to Charlie that the message he received definitely came from Alice. What goal of cryptography is Bob attempting to achieve?

1. Authentication
2. Confidentiality
3. Nonrepudiation
4. Integrity

Rhonda is considering the use of new identification cards for physical access control in her organization. She comes across a military system that uses the card shown below. What type of card is this?

1. Smart card
2. Proximity card
3. Magnetic stripe card
4. Phase three card

Gordon is concerned about the possibility that hackers may be able to use the Van Eck radiation phenomenon to remotely read the contents of computer monitors in his facility. What technology would protect against this type of attack?

1. TCSEC
2. SCSI
3. GHOST
4. TEMPEST

In the diagram shown below of security boundaries within a computer system, what component’s name has been replaced with XXX?

1. Kernel
2. TCB
3. Security perimeter
4. User execution

Sherry conducted an inventory of the cryptographic technologies in use within her organization and found the following algorithms and protocols in use. Which one of these technologies should she replace because it is no longer considered secure?

1. MD5
2. 3DES
3. PGP
4. WPA2

What action can you take to prevent accidental data disclosure due to wear leveling on an SSD device before reusing the drive?

1. Reformatting
2. Disk encryption
3. Degaussing
4. Physical destruction

Tom is a cryptanalyst and is working on breaking a cryptographic algorithm’s secret key. He has a copy of an intercepted message that is encrypted and he also has a copy of the decrypted version of that message. He wants to use both the encrypted message and its decrypted plaintext to retrieve the secret key for use in decrypting other messages. What type of attack is Tom engaging in?

1. Chosen ciphertext
2. Chosen plaintext
3. Known plaintext
4. Brute force

A hacker recently violated the integrity of data in James’s company by modifying a file using a precise timing attack. The attacker waited until James verified the integrity of a file’s contents using a hash value and then modified the file between the time that James verified the integrity and read the contents of the file. What type of attack took place?

1. Social engineering
2. TOCTOU
3. Data diddling
4. Parameter checking

What standard governs the creation and validation of digital certificates for use in a public key infrastructure?

1. X.509
2. TLS
3. SSL
4. 802.1x

What is the minimum fence height that makes a fence difficult to climb easily, deterring most intruders?

1. 3 feet
2. 4 feet
3. 5 feet
4. 6 feet

Johnson Widgets strictly limits access to total sales volume information, classifying it as a competitive secret. However, shipping clerks have unrestricted access to order records to facilitate transaction completion. A shipping clerk recently pulled all of the individual sales records for a quarter and totaled them up to determine the total sales volume. What type of attack occurred?

1. Social engineering
2. Inference
3. Aggregation
4. Data diddling

What physical security control broadcasts false emanations constantly to mask the presence of true electromagnetic emanations from computing equipment?

1. Faraday cage
2. Copper-infused windows
3. Shielded cabling
4. White noise

In a Software as a Service cloud computing environment, who is normally responsible for ensuring that appropriate firewall controls are in place?

1. Customer’s security team
2. Vendor
3. Customer’s networking team
4. Customer’s infrastructure management team

Alice has read permissions on an object and she would like Bob to have those same rights. Which one of the rules in the Take-Grant protection model would allow her to complete this operation?

1. Create rule
2. Remove rule
3. Grant rule
4. Take rule

In what type of attack does the attacker replace the legitimate BIOS on a computer with a malicious alternative that allows them to take control of the system?

1. Phlashing
2. Phreaking
3. Phishing
4. Phogging

Which one of the following computing models allows the execution of multiple concurrent tasks within a single process?

1. Multitasking
2. Multiprocessing
3. Multiprogramming
4. Multithreading

Alan intercepts an encrypted message and wants to determine what type of algorithm was used to create the message. He first performs a frequency analysis and notes that the frequency of letters in the message closely matches the distribution of letters in the English language. What type of cipher was most likely used to create this message?

1. Substitution cipher
2. AES
3. Transposition cipher
4. 3DES

The Double DES (2DES) encryption algorithm was never used as a viable alternative to the original DES algorithm. What attack is 2DES vulnerable to that does not exist for the DES or 3DES approach?

1. Chosen ciphertext
2. Brute force
3. Man in the middle
4. Meet in the middle

Grace would like to implement application control technology in her organization. Users often need to install new applications for research and testing purposes, and she does not want to interfere with that process. At the same time, she would like to block the use of known malicious software. What type of application control would be appropriate in this situation?

1. Blacklisting
2. Greylisting
3. Whitelisting
4. Bluelisting

Warren is designing a physical intrusion detection system for his data center and wants to include technology that issues an alert if the communications lines for the alarm system are unexpectedly cut. What technology would meet this requirement?

1. Heartbeat sensor
2. Emanation security
3. Motion detector
4. Faraday cage

John and Gary are negotiating a business transaction and John must demonstrate to Gary that he has access to a system. He engages in an electronic version of the “magic door” scenario shown below. What technique is John using?

1. Split-knowledge proof
2. Zero-knowledge proof
3. Logical proof
4. Mathematical proof

Raj is selecting an encryption algorithm for use in his organization and would like to be able to vary the strength of the encryption with the sensitivity of the information. Which one of the following algorithms allows the use of different key strengths?

1. Blowfish
2. DES
3. Skipjack
4. IDEA

Referring to the fire triangle shown below, which one of the following suppression materials attacks a fire by removing the fuel source?

1. Water
2. Soda acid
3. Carbon dioxide
4. Halon

Howard is choosing a cryptographic algorithm for his organization and he would like to choose an algorithm that supports the creation of digital signatures. Which one of the following algorithms would meet his requirement?

1. RSA
2. DES
3. AES
4. Blowfish

Laura is responsible for securing her company’s web-based applications and wishes to conduct an educational program for developers on common web application security vulnerabilities. Where can she turn for a concise listing of the most common web application issues?

1. CVE
2. NSA
3. OWASP
4. CSA

The Bell-LaPadula and Biba models implement state machines in a fashion that uses what specific state machine model?

1. Information flow
2. Noninterference
3. Cascading
4. Feedback

The _________ of a process consist(s) of the limits set on the memory addresses and resources that the process may access.

1. Perimeter
2. Confinement limits
3. Metes
4. Bounds

What type of motion detector senses changes in the electromagnetic fields in monitored areas?

1. Infrared
2. Wave pattern
3. Capacitance
4. Photoelectric

Which one of the following fire suppression systems uses a suppressant that is no longer manufactured due to environmental concerns?

1. FM-200
2. Argon
3. Inergen
4. Halon

Which one of the following statements is correct about the Biba model of access control?

1. It addresses confidentiality and integrity.
2. It addresses integrity and availability.
3. It prevents covert channel attacks.
4. It focuses on protecting objects from external threats.

In Transport Layer Security, what type of key is used to encrypt the actual content of communications between a web server and a client?

1. Ephemeral session key
2. Client’s public key
3. Server’s public key
4. Server’s private key

Beth would like to include technology in a secure area of her data center to protect against unwanted electromagnetic emanations. What technology would assist her with this goal?

1. Heartbeat sensor
2. Faraday cage
3. Piggybacking
4. WPA2

In a virtualized computing environment, what component is responsible for enforcing separation between guest machines?

1. Guest operating system
2. Hypervisor
3. Kernel
4. Protection manager

Rick is an application developer who works primarily in Python. He recently decided to evaluate a new service where he provides his Python code to a vendor who then executes it on their server environment. What type of cloud computing environment is this service?

1. SaaS
2. PaaS
3. IaaS
4. CaaS

A software company developed two systems that share information. System A provides information to the input of System B, which then reciprocates by providing information back to System A as input. What type of composition theory best describes this practice?

1. Cascading
2. Feedback
3. Hookup
4. Elementary

Tommy is planning to implement a power conditioning UPS for a rack of servers in his data center. Which one of the following conditions will the UPS be unable to protect against if it persists for more than a few minutes?

1. Fault
2. Blackout
3. Sag
4. Noise

Which one of the following humidity values is within the acceptable range for a data center operation?

1. 0%
2. 10%
3. 25%
4. 40%

Chris is designing a cryptographic system for use within his company. The company has 1,000 employees, and they plan to use an asymmetric encryption system. How many total keys will they need?

1. 500
2. 1,000
3. 2,000
4. 4,950

What term is used to describe the formal declaration by a designated approving authority (DAA) that an IT system is approved to operate in a specific environment?

1. Certification
2. Accreditation
3. Evaluation
4. Approval

Object-oriented programming languages use a black box approach to development, where users of an object do not necessarily need to know the object’s implementation details. What term is used to describe this concept?

1. Layering
2. Abstraction
3. Data hiding
4. Process isolation

Todd wants to add a certificate to a certificate revocation list. What element of the certificate goes on the list?

1. Serial number
2. Public key
3. Digital signature
4. Private key

Alison is examining a digital certificate presented to her by her bank’s website. Which one of the following requirements is not necessary for her to trust the digital certificate?

1. She knows that the server belongs to the bank.
2. She trusts the certificate authority.
3. She verifies that the certificate is not listed on a CRL.
4. She verifies the digital signature on the certificate.

Which one of the following is an example of a covert timing channel when used to exfiltrate information from an organization?

1. Sending an electronic mail message
2. Posting a file on a peer-to-peer file sharing service
3. Typing with the rhythm of Morse code
4. Writing data to a shared memory space

Which one of the following would be a reasonable application for the use of self-signed digital certificates?

1. E-commerce website
2. Banking application
3. Internal scheduling application
4. Customer portal