Test your basic knowledge |

Comptia Security +: Vocab

Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. Provides a means to obtain passwords or encryption keys and thus bypass other security measures. This can be accomplished through hardware or software means.






2. Telephone tapping (or wire tapping/wiretapping in the US) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party - often by covert means. The telephone tap or wire tap received its name because historically - the monitoring connec






3. A network that uses standard protocols (TCP/IP)






4. A network that uses proprietary protocols






5. Assuming someone's session who is unaware of what you are doing






6. A self-replicating computer program - similar to a computer virus. A virus attaches itself to - and becomes part of - another executable program; however - a worm is self-contained and does not need to be part of another program to propagate itself.






7. Reasonable doubt






8. If an employee is suspected of wrongdoing - sending them away from work for a while so that their actions can be audited.






9. Someone who hacks






10. Testing a company's network to test for vulnerabilities in their systems so that weaknesses can be fixed. This testing does not actually fix anything.






11. Refers to the formal acceptance by organization executive management that they accept the residual risk associated with using a formally certified information system.






12. White hat l0pht






13. Degaussing is the process of reducing or eliminating an unwanted magnetic field. The Degausser is what actually performs the degaussing.






14. The intercepting of conversations by unintended recipients






15. A card that holds information that must be authenticated to before it can reveal the information that it is holding






16. In cryptography - it is one of the simplest and most widely-known encryption techniques. It is a type of substitution cipher in which each letter in the plaintext is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions further down the alphabet.






17. A computer program (or set of programs) that translates text written in a computer language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language).






18. Making individuals accountable for their actions on a system typically through the use of auditing






19. Non-repudiation is the concept of ensuring that a contract - especially one agreed to via the Internet - cannot later be denied by one of the parties involved.






20. When security is managed at a central point in an organization






21. Technical are IT implemented. Administrative items are things that HR implements. Physical things are things that are tangible.






22. When you know something from a source - and can infer other related information based off of what you know - when you may not necessarily have access to that data normally.






23. A formula - practice - process - design - instrument - pattern - or compilation of information used by a business to obtain an advantage over competitors within the same industry or profession.






24. A military standard defining controls for emanation protection






25. Network devices that operate at layer 3. This device separates broadcast domains.






26. A hidden communications channel on a system that allows for the bypassing of the system security policy






27. Identifying risks and assessing the possible damage that can be caused in order to justify security safeguards






28. 1 - 1024 are the ports registered to Internet applications. Ones on the test include: 20 - ftp 21 - ftp 22 - ssh 23 - telnet 25 - smtp 53 - dns 69 - tftp 80 - http 161 - snmp 443 - ssl






29. Not a picture - but rather vectors of your finger geometry with an acceptable variance built in to provide for slight changes.






30. This is an open international standard for applications that use wireless communications.






31. An attempt to trick the system into believing that something false is real






32. Residual physical representation of data that has been in some way erased. After storage media is erased there may be some physical characteristics that allow data to be reconstructed.






33. A hidden value or set of values that allows access to a program - computer system - or data. It is sometimes erroneously confused with a backdoor - which (in a computer system) is a method of bypassing normal authentication or securing remote access






34. In cryptanalysis and computer security - this attack is a technique for defeating a cipher or authentication mechanism by trying to determine its decryption key or passphrase by searching a large number of possibilities. In contrast with a brute forc






35. The process of certifying a system that has been built to ensure that it meets the security standards that you have said you will use.






36. An instance of a scripting language






37. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.






38. A RFC standard. A mechanism for performing commands on a remote system






39. Continuation of Operations Plan






40. Random Number Base






41. Also known as Rijndael - is a block cipher adopted as an encryption standard by the US government. It is expected to be used worldwide and analyzed extensively - as was the case with its predecessor - the Data Encryption Standard (DES). AES was adopt






42. Internet Relay Chat.






43. The output of a hash function is a digest.






44. A standard protocol for interfacing external application software with an information server - commonly a web server. This allows the server to pass requests from a client web browser to the external application. The web server can then return the ou






45. The real cost of acquiring/maintaining/developing a system






46. Separation of duties (SoD) is the concept of having more than one person required to complete a task.






47. Issued by the United States National Computer Security Center (NCSC - an arm of the NSA) as 'Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria' - a DOD standard 5200.23-STD in December 1985 superseding CSC-STD-001-83 - the TCSEC (frequently referred to as






48. When a DNS server goes out to resolve a name - and gets the wrong response back - it caches the wrong address for the default DNS time period - thus poisoning the cache for that period of time






49. An arrangement in which the keys needed to decrypt encrypted data are held in escrow by a third party - so that someone else (typically government agencies) can obtain them to decrypt messages which they suspect to be relevant to national security.






50. A war dialing utility