CompTIA SY0-401 Online Practice Questions and Exam Preparation

CompTIA SY0-401 Online Questions & Answers

• Question 1:

  The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) wants to improve security surrounding storage of customer passwords.

  The company currently stores passwords as SHA hashes. Which of the following can the CTO implement requiring the LEAST change to existing systems?

  A. Smart cards
  B. TOTP
  C. Key stretching
  D. Asymmetric keys
  A. Smart cards

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  Smart cards usually come in two forms. The most common takes the form of a rectangular piece of plastic with an embedded microchip. The second is as a USB token. It contains a built in processor and has the ability to securely store and process information. A "contact" smart card communicates with a PC using a smart card reader whereas a "contactless" card sends encrypted information via radio waves to the PC. Typical scenarios in which smart cards are used include interactive logon, e-mail signing, e-mail decryption and remote access authentication. However, smart cards are programmable and can contain programs and data for many different applications. For example smart cards may be used to store medical histories for use in emergencies, to make electronic cash payments or to verify the identity of a customer to an e-retailer. Microsoft provides two device independent APIs to insulate application developers from differences between current and future implementations: CryptoAPI and Microsoft Win32?SCard APIs. The Cryptography API contains functions that allow applications to encrypt or digitally sign data in a flexible manner, while providing protection for the user's sensitive private key data. All cryptographic operations are performed by independent modules known as cryptographic service providers (CSPs). There are many different cryptographic algorithms and even when implementing the same algorithm there are many choices to make about key sizes and padding for example. For this reason, CSPs are grouped into types, in which each supported CryptoAPI function, by default, performs in a way particular to that type. For example, CSPs in the PROV_DSS provider type support DSS Signatures and MD5 and SHA hashing.

• Question 2:

  Which of the following application security testing techniques is implemented when an automated system generates random input data?

  A. Fuzzing
  B. XSRF
  C. Hardening
  D. Input validation
  A. Fuzzing

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  Fuzzing is a software testing technique that involves providing invalid, unexpected, or random data to as inputs to a computer program. The program is then monitored for exceptions such as crashes, or failed validation, or memory leaks.

• Question 3:

  A server administrator discovers the web farm is using weak ciphers and wants to ensure that only stronger ciphers are accepted. Which of the following ciphers should the administrator implement in the load balancer? (Select Two)

  A. SHA-129
  B. DES
  C. MD5
  D. RC4
  E. CRC-32
  A. SHA-129
  D. RC4

• Question 4:

  Which of the following cryptographic methods is most secure for a wireless access point?

  A. WPA with LEAP
  B. TKIP
  C. WEP with PSK
  D. WPA2 with PSK
  D. WPA2 with PSK

• Question 5:

  A network security engineer notices unusual traffic on the network from a single IP attempting to access systems on port 23. Port 23 is not used anywhere on the network. Which of the following should the engineer do to harden the network from this type of intrusion in the future?

  A. Disable unnecessary services on servers
  B. Disable unused accounts on servers and network devices
  C. Implement password requirements on servers and network devices
  D. Enable auditing on event logs
  A. Disable unnecessary services on servers

• Question 6:

  A security administrator has concerns regarding employees saving data on company provided mobile devices. Which of the following would BEST address the administrator's concerns?

  A. Install a mobile application that tracks read and write functions on the device.
  B. Create a company policy prohibiting the use of mobile devices for personal use.
  C. Enable GPS functionality to track the location of the mobile devices.
  D. Configure the devices so that removable media use is disabled.
  D. Configure the devices so that removable media use is disabled.

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  Mobile devices can be plugged into computers where they appear as an additional disk in the same way as a USB drive. This is known as removable media. This would enable users to copy company data onto the mobile devices. By disabling removable media use, the users will not be able to copy data onto the mobile devices.

• Question 7:

  A security administrator has concerns about new types of media which allow for the mass distribution of personal comments to a select group of people. To mitigate the risks involved with this media, employees should receive training on which of the following?

  A. Peer to Peer
  B. Mobile devices
  C. Social networking
  D. Personally owned devices
  C. Social networking

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  There many companies that allow full use of social media in the workplace, believing that the marketing opportunities it holds outweigh any loss in productivity. What they are unknowingly minimizing are the threats that exist. Rather than being all new threats, the social networking/media threats tend to fall in the categories of the same old tricks used elsewhere but in a new format. A tweet can be sent with a shortened URL so that it does not exceed the 140-character limit set by Twitter; unfortunately, the user has no idea what the shortened URL leads to. This makes training your employees regarding the risks social networking entails essential.

• Question 8:

  After Ann, a user, logs into her banking websites she has access to her financial institution mortgage, credit card, and brokerage websites as well. Which of the following is being described?

  A. Trusted OS
  B. Mandatory access control
  C. Separation of duties
  D. Single sign-on
  D. Single sign-on

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  Single sign-on means that once a user (or other subject) is authenticated into a realm, re- authentication is not required for access to resources on any realm entity. The question states that when Ann logs into her banking websites she has access to her financial institution mortgage, credit card, and brokerage websites as well. This describes an SSO scenario.

• Question 9:

  Drag and drop the correct protocol to its default port.

  Select and Place:

  

  

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  FTP uses TCP port 21.

  Telnet uses port 23.

  SSH uses TCP port 22. All protocols encrypted by SSH, including SFTP, SHTTP, SCP, SExec, and slogin, also use TCP port 22. Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) is a secure filetransfer facility based on SSH and Remote Copy Protocol (RCP).

  Secure FTP (SFTP) is a secured alternative to standard File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

  SMTP uses TCP port 25.

  Port 69 is used by TFTP.

  SNMP makes use of UDP ports 161 and 162.

  References:

  Stewart, James Michael, CompTIA Security+ Review Guide, Sybex, Indianapolis, 2014, pp. 42, 45, 51

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers

• Question 10:

  Several users report to the administrator that they are having issues downloading files from the file server. Which of the following assessment tools can be used to determine if there is an issue with the file server?

  A. MAC filter list
  B. Recovery agent
  C. Baselines
  D. Access list
  C. Baselines

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  The standard configuration on a server is known as the baseline. In this question, we can see if anything has changed on the file server by comparing its current configuration with the baseline.

  The IT baseline protection approach is a methodology to identify and implement computer security measures in an organization. The aim is the achievement of an adequate and appropriate level of security for IT systems. This is known as a

  baseline. A baseline report compares the current status of network systems in terms of security updates, performance or other metrics to a predefined set of standards (the baseline).