CompTIA A+ 220-1102 Practice Question

Verifying the presence of unauthorized applications or users is essential because unexpected, high network traffic often indicates background activities from unwanted or malicious software, or unauthorized access which could be causing the traffic spike. Checking for updates and restarting devices, while necessary maintenance actions, are not directly focused on identifying the root cause of sudden spikes in traffic. Scanning network devices for vulnerabilities is important for overall security but would generally follow the essential step of checking for suspicious applications or user activities that could be the immediate cause of the traffic issue.