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CISSP Operational Security

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. Any type of software that attacks a system or application - also called malicious code






2. Multi-raid - means that one standard RAID level is encapsulated within another.






3. Term used for malware that is focused on hiding its own existence. Typical capabilities include file - folder - process - and network connection hiding. The techniques developed with rootkits are now commonly included in other types of malware






4. DOS - Malformed packet - denial of service involved in sending a malformed ICMP echo request (ping) that was larger than the maximum size of an IP packet. Patching TCPIP stacks of systems removed the vulnerability of this DOS attack






5. Spreading data across multiple hard disks. increases performance and does create data redundancy






6. Malicious code that hooks onto executable code - and requires user interaction to spread. In addition to spreading - the actual payload of the virus - that is - what it is intended to do - could be anything






7. Used to prevent an attack from being able to simply guess the correct password by attempting a large number of possibilities






8. Detection - containment - eradication - recovery - reporting






9. Administrative security control used in MAC systems where access determination is based upon a clearance level of subjects and classification levels of objects. Compartmentalization enforces need to know which necessitates that someone requires acces






10. Process: identify a change - propose a change - assess the risk associated with the change - test - schedule the change - notify impacted parties - implement - report the results to management - all changes must be tracked and auditable - a detailed






11. Distributed denial of service - many to one availability attack






12. An administrative security control that dictates a person should have no more access that the access that is strictly required to perform their job






13. Mirrored sets in a striped set (minimum four disks; even number of disks) provides fault tolerance and improved performance but increases complexity.






14. Incident response stage in which events are analyzed in order to determine whether these events might comprise a security incident. is the event occurring or has it occurred






15. OS - like the smurf attack - leverages a third party - the attacker who has poorly configured third party DNS servers queries an attacker controlled DNS server and cahce the response (the maximum size DNS response). Once the large record is cached by






16. Administrative security control that prescribes that multiple people are required to complete critical or sensitive transactions. The goal is to ensure that in order for someone to be able to abuse their access to sensitive information or transaction






17. Striped set with dedicated parity at the block level - employs a dedicated parity drive rather than having parity data distributed amongst all disks. allows for data recovery in the event that one disk fails






18. Introducing a magnetic field to magnetic storage media. a degausser destroys the integrity of the magnetization of the storage media - making the data unrecoverable






19. Writing the same data on multiple hard disks






20. Administrative control where employees are required to take a vacation. helps determine personnel single points of failure - detection and deterence of fraud - and the risk that comes with employees being unavailable for work. can also detect suspici






21. DOS - resource exhaustion - involves ICMP flooding. The attacker sends ICMP echo request messages with spoofed source addresses of the victim to the directed broadcast address of a network known to be smurf amplifier. As with most resource exhaustive






22. A hot standy - configuration in which the backup systems only begin processing when a failure state is detected






23. Administrative control - a work related contractual agreement that ensures that employees - prior to being given sensitive information - will maintain the confidentiality and sensitivity of this information (also considered a directive control)






24. Masquerading as another endpoint. presenting false information - usually within packets - to trick other systems and hide the origin of the message. done to prevent an identity from becoming uncovered






25. Deleting the file allocation on a storage device. important in security because it does not delete the data - it merely deletes the points that are used to find the data






26. Confidentiality attack on network traffic - involves monitoring packets as they traverse a network.






27. Most often associated with providing an attacker with persistent backdoor access. Trojans provide desirable functionality that the user is seeking but also come with malicious functionality that the user does not anticipate






28. Striped set with dedicated parity at the byte level - data at the byte level is striped across multiple disks - but an additional disk is leveraged for storage of parity information - which is used for recovery in the event of a failure. allows for d






29. Back up any files that had changed since the last full backup






30. An offline technique in which the attacker has gained access to the password hashes or database






31. Dictionary attacks - directs the password cracking tool to use a supplied list of words as potential passwords.






32. Incident response stage in which the process of understanding the cause of the incident so that the system can be readily cleaned and ultimately restored.






33. DOS - resource exhaustion - a variation of the smurf attack - the main difference being that fraggle leverages UDP for the request portion - and stimulates an ICMP port unreachable message being sent to he victim rather than an ICMP echo response






34. Incident response stage in which the affected system(s) are restored to operational status. typically the business unit responsible for the system will dictate when the system will go back online. close monitoring is necessary






35. An online technique that involves attempting to authenticate a particular user to a system






36. Striped set with dual distributed parity - allows for recovery if two disks fail






37. Considered the most secure means of data sanititzation - commonly uses incineration or pulverization






38. Failover cluster - employs multiple systems that are already installed - configured - and plugged in - such that if a failover causes one of the systems to fail - then the other can be seamlessly leveraged to maintain the availability of the service






39. The medium that allows the threat agent to exploit a vulnerability






40. DOS - resource exhaustion - most basic type of resource exhaustive attacks - and involve an attacker - or attacker controlled machines - initiating many connections to the victim - but not responding to the victim's SYN/ACK packets. The victim's conn






41. Denial of service - one to one availability attack






42. Trying all possible password combinations until a correct match between the hashes is found. may make use of rainbow tables which contain precomputed password-hash combinations






43. Incident response stage in which the response team attempts to keep further damage from occurring as a result of the incident. also the phase where a binary forensic backup is made of systems involved in the incident.






44. A means to achieve data redundancy without incurring the same degree of cost as that of mirroring in terms of disk usage and write performance






45. Mirrored set - creates an exact duplicate of all data to an additional disk. allows for data recovery in the event that n-1 disk fails






46. Administrative control where in order to mitigate risk and uncover potential fraud - employee's job or job functions are shifted and changed






47. Striped sets in a mirrored set (minimum four disks; even number of disks) provides fault tolerance and improved performance but increases complexity. The key difference from RAID 1+0 is that RAID 0+1 creates a second striped set to mirror a primary s






48. Two parties conspire to undermine the security of the transaction






49. Have the ability to self-propogate - or spread without user interaction. more well known worms: Code Red - Nimda - SQL Slammer - Blaster - MyDoom - Witty






50. Define a minimum reporting threshold level and help differentiate an attack from noise - but can also cause false negatives