Try our new practice tests feature: configure your own test including the number of questions, objectives and time limits
This free CompTIA Security+ practice exam covers basic knowledge in the field of Information Systems Security. To pass the CompTIA Security+ exam, a candidate will need knowledge in Network Security, Compliance and operational security, threats and vulnerabilities, access control and identity management, cryptography, and application, data, and host security. This free practice test will test your knowledge and readiness for the CompTIA Security+ Examination.
Implicit Deny is a security stance that prevents an action (network traffic, file access, etc) unless it is explicitly given. For example, network traffic will all be denied by a firewall unless a rule is given to allow traffic from the source and destination IP addresses.
Which of the following terms involves the sending and receiving of unsolicited messages over Bluetooth?
Bluejacking is the sending of unsolicited messages over Bluetooth to Bluetooth-enabled devices. Bluesnarfing is the unauthorized access to data over Bluetooth.
Bluejacking is the sending of unsolicited messages over Bluetooth to Bluetooth-enabled devices such as mobile phones, PDAs or laptop computers, sending a vCard which typically contains a message in the name field (i.e., for bluedating) to another Bluetooth-enabled device via the OBEX protocol. Bluetooth has a very limited range, usually around 10 metres (32.8 ft) on mobile phones, but laptops can reach up to 100 metres (328 ft) with powerful (Class 1) transmitters.
Bluejacking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaIEEE standard 802.11i, was designed to replace WEP in wireless encryption/authentication. It is commonly known as WPA2 or WiFi Protected Access 2.
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) are the three security certification programs developed after 2000 by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer network. The Alliance defined these in response to serious weaknesses researchers had found in the previous system, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP).WPA (sometimes referred to as the TKIP standard) became available in 2003. The Wi-Fi Alliance intended it as an intermediate measure in anticipation of the availability of the more secure and complex WPA2, which became available in 2004 and is a common shorthand for the full IEEE 802.11i (or IEEE 802.11i-2004) standard. In January 2018, Wi-Fi Alliance announced the release of WPA3 with several security improvements over WPA2.
Wi-Fi Protected Access - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWhich networking device makes it very easy for a malicious user to receive and save packets that were not intended for their workstation?
A HUB forwards all packets out all interfaces, except the one the packet was received on. This means information sent from Host A to Host B, is very easily intercepted by Host C. Even if Host C wasn't addressed in the data header. A HUB is considered a layer 1 (Physical Layer) device in the OSI Model.
An Ethernet hub, active hub, network hub, repeater hub, multiport repeater, or simply hub is a network hardware device for connecting multiple Ethernet devices together and making them act as a single network segment. It has multiple input/output (I/O) ports, in which a signal introduced at the input of any port appears at the output of every port except the original incoming. A hub works at the physical layer (layer 1) of the OSI model. A repeater hub also participates in collision detection, forwarding a jam signal to all ports if it detects a collision. In addition to standard 8P8C ("RJ45") ports, some hubs may also come with a BNC or an Attachment Unit Interface (AUI) connector to allow connection to legacy 10BASE2 or 10BASE5 network segments. Hubs are now largely obsolete, having been replaced by network switches except in very old installations or specialized applications. As of 2011, connecting network segments by repeaters or hubs is deprecated by IEEE 802.3.
Ethernet_hub - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaYou have been tasked with finding and installing an enterprise SNMP solution. Which of the following properly describes the purpose and use of SNMP?
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is a standard protocol used to automatically monitor network equipment.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet Standard protocol for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks and for modifying that information to change device behaviour. Devices that typically support SNMP include cable modems, routers, switches, servers, workstations, printers, and more.SNMP is widely used in network management for network monitoring. SNMP exposes management data in the form of variables on the managed systems organized in a management information base (MIB) which describe the system status and configuration. These variables can then be remotely queried (and, in some circumstances, manipulated) by managing applications. Three significant versions of SNMP have been developed and deployed. SNMPv1 is the original version of the protocol. More recent versions, SNMPv2c and SNMPv3, feature improvements in performance, flexibility and security. SNMP is a component of the Internet Protocol Suite as defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It consists of a set of standards for network management, including an application layer protocol, a database schema, and a set of data objects.
Simple_Network_Management_Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaPenetration testing is an active test, in which some one attempts to penetrate a network solely for security reasons. Any security holes will be addressed afterwords.
A penetration test, colloquially known as a pentest or ethical hacking, is an authorized simulated cyberattack on a computer system, performed to evaluate the security of the system; this is not to be confused with a vulnerability assessment. The test is performed to identify weaknesses (also referred to as vulnerabilities), including the potential for unauthorized parties to gain access to the system's features and data, as well as strengths, enabling a full risk assessment to be completed. The process typically identifies the target systems and a particular goal, then reviews available information and undertakes various means to attain that goal. A penetration test target may be a white box (about which background and system information are provided in advance to the tester) or a black box (about which only basic information—if any—other than the company name is provided). A gray box penetration test is a combination of the two (where limited knowledge of the target is shared with the auditor). A penetration test can help identify a system's vulnerabilities to attack and estimate how vulnerable it is.Security issues that the penetration test uncovers should be reported to the system owner. Penetration test reports may also assess potential impacts to the organization and suggest countermeasures to reduce the risk.The UK National Cyber Security Center describes penetration testing as: "A method for gaining assurance in the security of an IT system by attempting to breach some or all of that system's security, using the same tools and techniques as an adversary might."The goals
Penetration_test - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe employees at the company you work for are complaining about receiving a lot of emails advertising services and goods. What are they experiencing?
The employees are receiving advertisements and other mail unrelated to them, this is known as spam or junk mail. Whaling and Phishing attempts to trick users into providing confidential data. Bluesnarfing is the unauthorized access of data through Bluetooth.
Email spam, also referred to as junk email, spam mail, or simply spam, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email (spamming). The name comes from a Monty Python sketch in which the name of the canned pork product Spam is ubiquitous, unavoidable, and repetitive. Email spam has steadily grown since the early 1990s, and by 2014 was estimated to account for around 90% of total email traffic.Since the expense of the spam is borne mostly by the recipient, it is effectively postage due advertising. Thus, it is an example of a negative externality.The legal definition and status of spam varies from one jurisdiction to another, but nowhere have laws and lawsuits been particularly successful in stemming spam. Most email spam messages are commercial in nature. Whether commercial or not, many are not only annoying as a form of attention theft, but also dangerous because they may contain links that lead to phishing web sites or sites that are hosting malware or include malware as file attachments. Spammers collect email addresses from chat rooms, websites, customer lists, newsgroups, and viruses that harvest users' address books. These collected email addresses are sometimes also sold to other spammers.
Email spam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaSeveral 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 form of social engineering where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as 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, it is the most common type of cybercrime, with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Centre reporting more incidents of phishing than any other type of computer crime.The term "phishing" was first recorded in 1995 in the cracking toolkit AOHell, but may have been used earlier in the hacker magazine 2600. It is a variation of fishing and refers to the use of lures to "fish" for sensitive information.Measures to prevent or reduce the impact of phishing attacks include legislation, user education, public awareness, and technical security measures. The importance of phishing awareness has increased in both personal and professional settings, with phishing attacks among businesses rising from 72% to 86% from 2017 to 2020.
Phishing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaDoS (Denial of Service) attacks are normally done in large numbers (Distributed-DoS) and attempt to overload a service, such as an http server, so that the server can no longer do it's normal function and is rendered inoperable.
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to a network. Denial of service is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled.In a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack), the incoming traffic flooding the victim originates from many different sources. More sophisticated strategies are required to mitigate this type of attack, as simply attempting to block a single source is insufficient because there are multiple sources.A DoS or DDoS attack is analogous to a group of people crowding the entry door of a shop, making it hard for legitimate customers to enter, thus disrupting trade and losing the business money. Criminal perpetrators of DoS attacks often target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks or credit card payment gateways. Revenge, blackmail and hacktivism can motivate these attacks.
Denial-of-service_attack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWhich of the following terms would be used when configuring a firewall to allow certain traffic to pass unobstructed?
Creating a firewall exception will allow that program or data on that port to bypass the firewall. Allowing a session and establishing a tunnel both refer to creating a connection (for example creating an SSH connection). Creating an AP would be creating an Access Point in a wireless network.
In computer security, an access-control list (ACL) is a list of permissions associated with a system resource (object) An ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on given objects Each entry in a typical ACL specifies a subject and an operation For instance, if a file object has an ACL that contains (Alice: read,write Bob: read), this would give Alice permission to read and write the file and only give Bob permission to read it
Access_control_list - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaVishing (Voice Phishing) is a type of phishing attack that uses a telephone or VOIP call to trick an unsuspecting user into divulging important information. Xmas Attack, MAC Spoofing and DDoS are not examples of social engineering, but are malicious attacks.
Voice phishing, or vishing, is the use of telephony (often Voice over IP telephony) to conduct phishing attacks. Landline telephone services have traditionally been trustworthy; terminated in physical locations known to the telephone company, and associated with a bill-payer. Now however, vishing fraudsters often use modern Voice over IP (VoIP) features such as caller ID spoofing and automated systems (IVR) to impede detection by law enforcement agencies. Voice phishing is typically used to steal credit card numbers or other information used in identity theft schemes from individuals. Usually, voice phishing attacks are conducted using automated text-to-speech systems that direct a victim to call a number controlled by the attacker, however some use live callers. Posing as an employee of a legitimate body such as the bank, police, telephone or internet provider, the fraudster attempts to obtain personal details and financial information regarding credit card, bank accounts (e.g. the PIN), as well as personal information of the victim. With the received information, the fraudster might be able to access and empty the account or commit identity fraud. Some fraudsters may also try to persuade the victim to transfer money to another bank account or withdraw cash to be given to them directly. Callers also often pose as law enforcement or as an Internal Revenue Service employee. Scammers often target immigrants and the elderly, who are coerced to wire hundreds to thousands of dollars in response to threats of arrest or deportation.Bank account data is not the only sensitive information being targeted. Fraudsters sometimes
Voice_phishing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaPKI, or Public-Key-Infrastructure uses asymmetric encryption. There is a public key, and a private key, anything encrypted with a key can only be decrypted with the opposing key.
Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic algorithms based on mathematical problems termed one-way functions. Security of public-key cryptography depends on keeping the private key secret; the public key can be openly distributed without compromising security.In a public-key encryption system, anyone with a public key can encrypt a message, yielding a ciphertext, but only those who know the corresponding private key can decrypt the ciphertext to obtain the original message.For example, a journalist can publish the public key of an encryption key pair on a web site so that sources can send secret messages to the news organization in ciphertext. Only the journalist who knows the corresponding private key can decrypt the ciphertexts to obtain the sources' messages—an eavesdropper reading email on its way to the journalist cannot decrypt the ciphertexts. However, public-key encryption does not conceal metadata like what computer a source used to send a message, when they sent it, or how long it is. Public-key encryption on its own also does not tell the recipient anything about who sent a message—it just conceals the content of a message in a ciphertext that can only be decrypted with the private key. In a digital signature system, a sender can use a private key together with a message to create a signature. Anyone with the corresponding public key can verify whether the signature matches the
Public-key cryptography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaUsing programming or scripting in an input field, in an attempt to find a vulnerability, is known as what?
An injection is when a hacker uses a computer language such as PHP, JavaScript, or SQL in an input field to trick a program into running the injected script, thus taking control of the program.
Code injection is the exploitation of a computer bug that is caused by processing invalid data. The injection is used by an attacker to introduce (or "inject") code into a vulnerable computer program and change the course of execution. The result of successful code injection can be disastrous, for example, by allowing computer viruses or computer worms to propagate. Code injection vulnerabilities occur when an application sends untrusted data to an interpreter. Injection flaws are most often found in SQL, LDAP, XPath, NoSQL queries, OS commands, XML parsers, SMTP headers, program arguments, etc. Injection flaws tend to be easier to discover when examining source code than via testing. Scanners and fuzzers can help find injection flaws.Injection can result in data loss or corruption, lack of accountability, or denial of access. Injection can sometimes lead to complete host takeover. Certain types of code injection are errors in interpretation, giving special meaning to user input. Similar interpretation errors exist outside the world of computer science such as the comedy routine Who's on First?. In the routine, there is a failure to distinguish proper names from regular words. Likewise, in some types of code injection, there is a failure to distinguish user input from system commands. Code injection techniques are popular in system hacking or cracking to gain information, privilege escalation or unauthorized access to a system. Code injection can be used malevolently for many purposes, including: Arbitrarily modifying values in a database through SQL injection. The impact of this can range from website defacement to serious
Code_injection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaMD5 (Message-Digest algorithm 5) is a hashing algorithm, commonly used to verify integrity when downloading or transferring files. MD5 is used before and after the file transfer and the generated 128 bit digests can be compared. If they match, the file is exactly the same. If not, some sort of error or malicious attack has occurred.
md5sum is a computer program that calculates and verifies 128-bit MD5 hashes, as described in RFC 1321. The MD5 hash functions as a compact digital fingerprint of a file. As with all such hashing algorithms, there is theoretically an unlimited number of files that will have any given MD5 hash. However, it is very unlikely that any two non-identical files in the real world will have the same MD5 hash, unless they have been specifically created to have the same hash.The underlying MD5 algorithm is no longer deemed secure. Thus, while md5sum is well-suited for identifying known files in situations that are not security related, it should not be relied on if there is a chance that files have been purposefully and maliciously tampered. In the latter case, the use of a newer hashing tool such as sha256sum is recommended. md5sum is used to verify the integrity of files, as virtually any change to a file will cause its MD5 hash to change. Most commonly, md5sum is used to verify that a file has not changed as a result of a faulty file transfer, a disk error or non-malicious meddling. The md5sum program is included in most Unix-like operating systems or compatibility layers such as Cygwin. The original C code was written by Ulrich Drepper and extracted from a 2001 release of glibc.
Md5sum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWardriving is the act of searching for unsecured WiFi network in a moving vehicle using a mobile device such as a laptop or smartphone.
Wardriving is the act of searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks, usually from a moving vehicle, using a laptop or smartphone. Software for wardriving is freely available on the internet. Warbiking, warcycling, warwalking and similar use the same approach but with other modes of transportation.
Wardriving - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaSecure Shell, is a tunnel encryption using port 22. It is commonly used as a secure alternative to telnet. SSH can also be used to encrypt just about any plain-text protocol, for example FTP over SSH. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Security Layer (TLS) are very similar to SSH but are most commonly used in HTTPS. Blowfish is an older, but still common symmetric-key block cipher.
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 encyclopediaYou are creating a new network for your company, you only want to purchase one public IP but have many hosts that will be on the network. What will ensure this is possible?
PAT (Port Address Translation) uses TCP Port numbers to "translate" a group of private IP addresses to a single public IP addresses (one to many). You may also see this one-to-many IP translation called Network Address Translation (NAT) with overload. Both would be acceptable answers here and the terms are both commonly used by different vendors.
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 bypass 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 encyclopediaA network or host designed to attract malicious users away from actual sensitive materials, is known as what?
A honeypot is used to try and lead a hacker away from real content, and is monitored to detect any unauthorized access.
In computer terminology, a honeypot is a computer security mechanism set to detect, deflect, or, in some manner, counteract attempts at unauthorized use of information systems. Generally, a honeypot consists of data (for example, in a network site) that appears to be a legitimate part of the site which contains information or resources of value to attackers. It is actually isolated, monitored, and capable of blocking or analyzing the attackers. This is similar to police sting operations, colloquially known as "baiting" a suspect.The main use for this network decoy is to distract potential attackers from more important information and machines on the real network, learn about the forms of attacks they can suffer, and examine such attacks during and after the exploitation of a honeypot. Given the increase in attacks, it is relevant to have a way to prevent and see vulnerabilities in a specific network system. That is, a decoy is used to protect a network from present or future attacks.
Honeypot (computing) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaA smart card is a physical token, which holds a certificate used to authenticate your identify. A pin number or password is generally required as well.
Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance. Biometric identifiers are the distinctive, measurable characteristics used to label and describe individuals. Biometric identifiers are often categorized as physiological characteristics which are related to the shape of the body. Examples include, but are not limited to fingerprint, palm veins, face recognition, DNA, palm print, hand geometry, iris recognition, retina, odor/scent, voice, shape of ears and gait. Behavioral characteristics are related to the pattern of behavior of a person, including but not limited to mouse movement, typing rhythm, gait, signature, behavioral profiling, and credentials. Some researchers have coined the term behaviometrics to describe the latter class of biometrics.More traditional means of access control include token-based identification systems, such as a driver's license or passport, and knowledge-based identification systems, such as a password or personal identification number. Since biometric identifiers are unique to individuals, they are more reliable in verifying identity than token and knowledge-based methods; however, the collection of biometric identifiers raises privacy concerns about the ultimate use of this information.
Biometrics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWhich of the following terms describes installing an Operating System inside of a host Operating System?
Virtualization is a broad term used to describe the use of virtual hardware. This can be to install an operating system or emulator, or to run a software that would not otherwise be compatible with an OS.
In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, storage devices, and computer network resources. Virtualization began in the 1960s, as a method of logically dividing the system resources provided by mainframe computers between different applications. An early and successful example is IBM CP/CMS. The control program CP provided each user with a simulated stand-alone System/360 computer. Since then, the meaning of the term has broadened.
Virtualization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaLooks like thats it! You can go back and review your answers or click the button below to grade your test.