CompTIA Security+ certification covers network security, compliance and operation security, threats and vulnerabilities as well as application, data and host security. Also included are access control, identity management, and cryptography. The official exam objectives are 1.0 Network Security, 2.0 Compliance and Operational Security, 3.0 Threats and Vulnerabilities, 4.0 Application Data and Host Security, 5.0 Access Control and Identity Management and 6.0 Cryptography.
The Chief Information Officer (CIO) of your employer has mandated that the internal payroll software be replaced by a cloud based application. The new software is a web based industry standard and will be licensed for use by the company. Which of the following best describes this situation?
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a service model where software and applications are hosted by a service provider for use through a network, normally the internet.
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.SaaS is considered to be part of cloud computing, along with infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), desktop as a service (DaaS), managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), data center as a service (DCaaS), integration platform as a service (iPaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).SaaS apps are typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS became a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), management information systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, field service management, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), geographic information systems (GIS), and service desk management.SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all enterprise software companies.
Software_as_a_service - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAn internal auditor is concerned with privilege creep that is associated with transfers inside the company. Which mitigation measure would detect and correct this?
Privilege creep is the accumulation of access rights beyond what is required for an individual to do their job. Reviewing user rights regularly can prevent privilege creep.
In information security, computer science, and other fields, the principle of least privilege (PoLP), also known as the principle of minimal privilege or the principle of least authority, requires that in a particular abstraction layer of a computing environment, every module (such as a process, a user, or a program, depending on the subject) must be able to access only the information and resources that are necessary for its legitimate purpose.
Principle_of_least_privilege - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaOnly File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and File Transfer Protocol SSL (FTPS) are used for transferring files, and of the two FTPS is the only secure, encrypted protocol.
FTPS (also known FTP-SSL, and FTP Secure) is an extension to the commonly used File Transfer Protocol (FTP) that adds support for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and, formerly, the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL, which is now prohibited by RFC7568) cryptographic protocols. FTPS should not be confused with the SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), a secure file transfer subsystem for the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol with which it is not compatible. It is also different from FTP over SSH, which is the practice of tunneling FTP through an SSH connection.
FTPS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaImplicit Deny describes a configuration where everything is denied by default, and exceptions are granted only when absolutely necessary. This is the most restrictive and secure method to securing a network, but also requires a high level of administration.
Rachael, the security administrator, must configure the corporate firewall to allow all public IP addresses on the internal interface of the firewall to be translated to one public IP address on the external interface of the same firewall. Which of the following should Rachael configure?
Network Address Translation allows a network device (typically a router) to translate IP Addresses. It it most commonly used to hide internal private addresses and instead translates them to a public address. The translation can be one external IP for many internal IPs or a one to one configuration.
Network address translation (NAT) is a method of mapping an IP address space into another by modifying network address information in the IP header of packets while they are in transit across a traffic routing device. The technique was originally used to avoid the need to assign a new address to every host when a network was moved, or when the upstream Internet service provider was replaced, but could not route the network's address space. It has become a popular and essential tool in conserving global address space in the face of IPv4 address exhaustion. One Internet-routable IP address of a NAT gateway can be used for an entire private network.As network address translation modifies the IP address information in packets, NAT implementations may vary in their specific behavior in various addressing cases and their effect on network traffic. The specifics of NAT behavior are not commonly documented by vendors of equipment containing NAT implementations.
Network_address_translation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaIPSec in tunnel mode encrypts a packet and attaches new headers. IPSec in transport mode uses the original headers, encrypting only the packet's data (payload).
In computing, Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts the packets of data to provide secure encrypted communication between two computers over an Internet Protocol network It is used in virtual private networks (VPNs) IPsec includes protocols for establishing mutual authentication between agents at the beginning of a session and negotiation of cryptographic keys to use during the session IPsec can protect data flows between a pair of hosts (host-to-host), between a pair of security gateways (network-to-network), or between a security gateway and a host (network-to-host) IPsec uses cryptographic security services to protect communications over Internet Protocol (IP) networks
IPSec - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAfter a user performed a war driving attack, the network administrator noticed several similar markings where WiFi was available throughout the enterprise. Which of the following is the term used to describe these markings?
War chalking is the drawing of sybmols to advertise an open WiFi network.
Warchalking is the drawing of symbols in public places to advertise an open Wi-Fi network. Inspired by hobo symbols, the warchalking marks were conceived by a group of friends in June 2002 and publicised by Matt Jones who designed the set of icons and produced a downloadable document containing them. Within days of Jones publishing a blog entry about warchalking, articles appeared in dozens of publications and stories appeared on several major television news programs around the world.The word is formed by analogy to wardriving, the practice of driving around an area in a car to detect open Wi-Fi nodes. That term in turn is based on wardialing, the practice of dialing many phone numbers hoping to find a modem.Having found a Wi-Fi node, the warchalker draws a special symbol on a nearby object, such as a wall, the pavement, or a lamp post. Those offering Wi-Fi service might also draw such a symbol to advertise the availability of their Wi-Fi location, whether commercial or personal.
Warchalking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAn administrator notices that former temporary employees' accounts are still active on a domain. Which of the following can be implemented to increase security and prevent this from happening?
Using a script to check for inactive accounts is a good idea, but not a preventative measure. Applying an expiration date to temporary employees accounts will prevent them from accessing the network once they leave the company.
Several high level executives at a business have been targeted by phishing attacks. Which of the following terms describes this type of phishing?
Whaling (sometimes called spear phishing) is a phishing attack targeted at high level employees of a company or organization.
Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious software on the victim's infrastructure like ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and often transparently mirror the site being targeted, allowing the attacker to observe everything while the victim is navigating the site, and transverse any additional security boundaries with the victim. As of 2020, phishing is by far the most common attack performed by cybercriminals, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Centre recording over twice as many incidents of phishing than any other type of computer crime.The first recorded use of the term "phishing" was in the cracking toolkit AOHell created by Koceilah Rekouche in 1995; however, it is possible that the term was used before this in a print edition of the hacker magazine 2600. The word is a leetspeak variant of fishing (ph is a common replacement for f ), probably influenced by phreaking, and alludes to the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to "fish" for users' sensitive information.Attempts to prevent or mitigate the impact of phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures. Phishing awareness has become important at home and at the work place. For instance, from 2017 to 2020, phishing attacks have increased from 72% to 86% among businesses.
Phishing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaCHAP (Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol) uses a 3 way handshake to authenticate a user or host, and then will verify the host randomly during it's connection.
In computing, the Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) is an authentication protocol originally used by Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) to validate users. CHAP is also carried in other authentication protocols such as RADIUS and Diameter. Almost all network operating systems support PPP with CHAP, as do most network access servers. CHAP is also used in PPPoE, for authenticating DSL users. As the PPP sends data unencrypted and "in the clear", CHAP is vulnerable to any attacker who can observe the PPP session. An attacker can see the user's name, CHAP challenge, CHAP response, and any other information associated with the PPP session. The attacker can then mount an offline dictionary attack in order to obtain the original password. When used in PPP, CHAP also provides protection against replay attacks by the peer through the use of a challenge which is generated by the authenticator, which is typically a network access server. Where CHAP is used in other protocols, it may be sent in the clear, or it may be protected by a security layer such as Transport Layer Security (TLS). For example, when CHAP is sent over RADIUS using User Datagram Protocol (UDP), any attacker who can see the RADIUS packets can mount an offline dictionary attack, as with PPP. CHAP requires that both the client and server know the clear-text version of the password, although the password itself is never sent over the network. Thus when used in PPP, CHAP provides better security as compared to Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) which
Challenge-Handshake_Authentication_Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWhat will best help you if you need to prevent cross-site scripting on your companies intranet webpage?
When accepting user information into a system, you should use input validation to filter and validate the data provided. This helps ensures the system is not allowing malicious code access to internal software, databases and confidential information.
In computer science, data validation is the process of ensuring data has undergone data cleansing to ensure they have data quality, that is, that they are both correct and useful. It uses routines, often called "validation rules", "validation constraints", or "check routines", that check for correctness, meaningfulness, and security of data that are input to the system. The rules may be implemented through the automated facilities of a data dictionary, or by the inclusion of explicit application program validation logic of the computer and its application. This is distinct from formal verification, which attempts to prove or disprove the correctness of algorithms for implementing a specification or property.
Data validation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaA SYN Flood attack opens a large amount of SYN requests (the first step in the TCP 3 way handshake) in an attempt to overload a system's memory or network.
A SYN flood is a form of denial-of-service attack in which an attacker rapidly initiates a connection to a server without finalizing the connection. The server has to spend resources waiting for half-opened connections, which can consume enough resources to make the system unresponsive to legitimate traffic.The packet that the attacker sends is the SYN packet, a part of TCP's three-way handshake used to establish a connection.
SYN_flood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaDENY UDP ANY SERVER eq 67 is the proper way of formatting an Access Control List (ACL) rule. The rule states that the firewall should deny any packet using UDP equal to port 67. You may also use the protocol name instead of port like so, DENY TCP ANY SERVER EQ TELNET.
A mantrap is a device designed to physically trap a person in an enclosed area. Typically, this is a set of doors that cannot be opened simultaneously. The idea is that this will help to prevent tailgating, as the intruder will be momentarily trapped inside the same room as the authorized user.
A mantrap, airlock, sally port or access control vestibule is a physical security access control system comprising a small space with two sets of interlocking doors, such that the first set of doors must close before the second set opens. Airlocks have a very similar design, allowing free ingress and egress while also restricting airflow. In a manual mantrap, a guard locks and unlocks each door in sequence. An intercom and/or video camera are often used to allow the guard to control the trap from a remote location. In an automatic mantrap, identification may be required for each door, sometimes even different measures for each door. For example, a key may open the first door, but a personal identification number entered on a number pad opens the second. Other methods of opening doors include proximity cards or biometric devices such as fingerprint readers or iris recognition scans. Metal detectors are often built in to prevent the entrance of people carrying weapons. This use is particularly frequent in banks and jewelry shops. Fire codes require that automatic mantraps allow exit from the intermediate space while denying access to a secure space such as a data center or research lab. A manually-operated mantrap may allow a guard to lock both doors, trapping a suspect between the doors for questioning or detainment.
Mantrap_(access_control) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaYour supervisor asked you to open the necessary ports for a 'secure telnet' What ports should you open?
Your supervisor is most likely describing SSH (Secure Socket Shell) which is protocol that allows secure access to servers. Functionally SSH is very similar to telnet but is encrypted for added security. SSH can also be used to encrypt any text based communication, for example SSH-FTP is FTP using SSH for encryption.
The Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. Its most notable applications are remote login and command-line execution. SSH applications are based on a client–server architecture, connecting an SSH client instance with an SSH server. SSH operates as a layered protocol suite comprising three principal hierarchical components: the transport layer provides server authentication, confidentiality, and integrity; the user authentication protocol validates the user to the server; and the connection protocol multiplexes the encrypted tunnel into multiple logical communication channels.SSH was designed on Unix-like operating systems, as a replacement for Telnet and for unsecured remote Unix shell protocols, such as the Berkeley Remote Shell (rsh) and the related rlogin and rexec protocols, which all use insecure, plaintext transmission of authentication tokens. SSH was first designed in 1995 by Finnish computer scientist Tatu Ylönen. Subsequent development of the protocol suite proceeded in several developer groups, producing several variants of implementation. The protocol specification distinguishes two major versions, referred to as SSH-1 and SSH-2. The most commonly implemented software stack is OpenSSH, released in 1999 as open-source software by the OpenBSD developers. Implementations are distributed for all types of operating systems in common use, including embedded systems.
Secure_Shell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAn investigator recently discovered that an attacker placed a remotely accessible CCTV camera in a public area overlooking several Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs). It is also believed that user accounts belonging to ATM operators may have been compromised. Which of the following attacks has MOST likely taken place?
Shoulder surfing is the act of observing a person access a system, with the intent of memorizing or recording credentials.
In computer security, shoulder surfing is a type of social engineering technique used to obtain information such as personal identification numbers (PINs), passwords and other confidential data by looking over the victim's shoulder. Unauthorized users watch the keystrokes inputted on a device or listen to sensitive information being spoken, which is also known as eavesdropping.
Shoulder surfing (computer security) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAs a security administrator, you decide to force expiration of all user passwords. Which of the following best supports this reasoning?
By force expiring all passwords, every network user will be required to change their password at next login. This is a good method to reset all passwords if you suspect some have been obtained maliciously.
A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of password-protected services that a typical individual accesses can make memorization of unique passwords for each service impractical. Using the terminology of the NIST Digital Identity Guidelines, the secret is held by a party called the claimant while the party verifying the identity of the claimant is called the verifier. When the claimant successfully demonstrates knowledge of the password to the verifier through an established authentication protocol, the verifier is able to infer the claimant's identity. In general, a password is an arbitrary string of characters including letters, digits, or other symbols. If the permissible characters are constrained to be numeric, the corresponding secret is sometimes called a personal identification number (PIN). Despite its name, a password does not need to be an actual word; indeed, a non-word (in the dictionary sense) may be harder to guess, which is a desirable property of passwords. A memorized secret consisting of a sequence of words or other text separated by spaces is sometimes called a passphrase. A passphrase is similar to a password in usage, but the former is generally longer for added security.
Password - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaTelnet is a remote command line interface tool, which uses port 23 to communicate.
Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control information in an 8-bit byte oriented data connection over the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). Telnet was developed in 1969 beginning with RFC 15, extended in RFC 855, and standardized as Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet Standard STD 8, one of the first Internet standards. The name stands for "teletype network".Historically, Telnet provided access to a command-line interface on a remote host. However, because of serious security concerns when using Telnet over an open network such as the Internet, its use for this purpose has waned significantly in favor of SSH.The term telnet is also used to refer to the software that implements the client part of the protocol. Telnet client applications are available for virtually all computer platforms. Telnet is also used as a verb. To telnet means to establish a connection using the Telnet protocol, either with a command line client or with a graphical interface. For example, a common directive might be: "To change your password, telnet into the server, log in and run the passwd command." In most cases, a user would be telnetting into a Unix-like server system or a network device (such as a router).
Telnet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWhich of the following can allow Emily, a security analyst, to encrypt individual files on a system?
Encrypting File System allows for a Microsoft Windows system to encrypt individual files or entire file system encryption
The Encrypting File System (EFS) on Microsoft Windows is a feature introduced in version 3.0 of NTFS that provides filesystem-level encryption. The technology enables files to be transparently encrypted to protect confidential data from attackers with physical access to the computer. EFS is available in all versions of Windows except the home versions (see Supported operating systems below) from Windows 2000 onwards. By default, no files are encrypted, but encryption can be enabled by users on a per-file, per-directory, or per-drive basis. Some EFS settings can also be mandated via Group Policy in Windows domain environments.Cryptographic file system implementations for other operating systems are available, but the Microsoft EFS is not compatible with any of them. See also the list of cryptographic file systems.
Encrypting File System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWhich of the following types of application attacks would be used to specifically gain unauthorized information from databases that did not have any input validation implemented?
SQL injection is a code injection technique where a user input is actually given a SQL code, used to display or insert information into a database. Validating and sanitizing user input will prevent this type of attack.
SQL injection is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution (e.g. to dump the database contents to the attacker). SQL injection must exploit a security vulnerability in an application's software, for example, when user input is either incorrectly filtered for string literal escape characters embedded in SQL statements or user input is not strongly typed and unexpectedly executed. SQL injection is mostly known as an attack vector for websites but can be used to attack any type of SQL database. SQL injection attacks allow attackers to spoof identity, tamper with existing data, cause repudiation issues such as voiding transactions or changing balances, allow the complete disclosure of all data on the system, destroy the data or make it otherwise unavailable, and become administrators of the database server. In a 2012 study, it was observed that the average web application received four attack campaigns per month, and retailers received twice as many attacks as other industries.
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