SY0-401 Premium Bundle

SY0-401 Premium Bundle

CompTIA Security+ Certification Certification Exam

4.5 
(14835 ratings)
0 QuestionsPractice Tests
0 PDFPrint version
November 23, 2024Last update

CompTIA SY0-401 Free Practice Questions

Q1. During an audit, the security administrator discovers that there are several users that are no longer employed with the company but still have active user accounts. Which of the following should be performed? 

A. Account recovery 

B. Account disablement 

C. Account lockouts 

D. Account expiration 

Answer:

Explanation: 

Account Disablement should be implemented when a user will be gone from a company whether they leave temporary or permanently. In the case of permanently leaving the company the account should be disabled. Disablement means that the account will no longer be an active account. 

Q2. Digital Signatures provide which of the following? 

A. Confidentiality 

B. Authorization 

C. Integrity 

D. Authentication 

E. Availability 

Answer:

Explanation: 

A digital signature is similar in function to a standard signature on a document. It validates the integrity of the message and the sender. 

Q3. The system administrator is tasked with changing the administrator password across all 2000 computers in the organization. Which of the following should the system administrator implement to accomplish this task? 

A. A security group 

B. A group policy 

C. Key escrow 

D. Certificate revocation 

Answer:

Explanation: 

Group policy is used to manage Windows systems in a Windows network domain environment by means of a Group Policy Object (GPO). GPO’s include a number of settings related to credentials, such as password complexity requirements, password history, password length, account lockout settings. 

Q4. Which of the following types of security services are used to support authentication for remote users and devices? 

A. Biometrics 

B. HSM 

C. RADIUS 

D. TACACS 

Answer:

Explanation: 

RADIUS authentication phase takes place when a network client connects to a network access server (NAS) and provides authentication credentials. The NAS will then make use of the authentication credentials to issue a RADIUS authentication request to the RADIUS server, which will then exchange RADIUS authentication messages with the NAS. 

Q5. A network administrator is configuring access control for the sales department which has high employee turnover. Which of the following is BEST suited when assigning user rights to individuals in the sales department? 

A. Time of day restrictions 

B. Group based privileges 

C. User assigned privileges 

D. Domain admin restrictions 

Answer:

Explanation: 

The question states that the sales department has a high employee turnover. You can assign permissions to access resources either to a user or a group. The most efficient way is to assign permissions to a group (group based privileges). Then when a new employee starts, you simply add the new user account to the appropriate groups. The user then inherits all the permissions assigned to the groups. 

Q6. The system administrator has been notified that many users are having difficulty connecting to the company’s wireless network. They take a new laptop and physically go to the access point and connect with no problems. Which of the following would be the MOST likely cause? 

A. The certificate used to authenticate users has been compromised and revoked. 

B. Multiple war drivers in the parking lot have exhausted all available IPs from the pool to deny access. 

C. An attacker has gained access to the access point and has changed the encryption keys. 

D. An unauthorized access point has been configured to operate on the same channel. 

Answer:

Explanation: 

Wireless Access Points can be configured to use a channel. If you have multiple access points within range of each other, you should configure the access points to use different channels. Different channels use different frequencies. If you have two access points using the same channel, their wifi signals will interfere with each other. The question states that that many users are having difficulty connecting to the company’s wireless network. This is probably due to the signal being weakened by interference from another access point using the same channel. When the administrator takes a new laptop and physically goes to the access point and connects with no problems, he is able to connect because he is near the access point and therefore has a strong signal. 

Q7. A security administrator notices large amounts of traffic within the network heading out to an external website. The website seems to be a fake bank site with a phone number that when called, asks for sensitive information. After further investigation, the security administrator notices that a fake link was sent to several users. This is an example of which of the following attacks? 

A. Vishing 

B. Phishing 

C. Whaling 

D. SPAM 

E. SPIM 

Answer:

Explanation: 

Phishing is the act of sending an email to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. Phishing email will direct the user to visit a website where they are asked to update personal information, such as a password, credit card, social security, or bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The website, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the information the user enters on the page. Phishing emails are blindly sent to thousands, if not millions of recipients. By spamming large groups of people, the "phisher" counts on the email being read by a percentage of people who actually have an account with the legitimate company being spoofed in the email and corresponding webpage. Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on "fishing," the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting. 

Q8. A company is about to release a very large patch to its customers. An administrator is required to test patch installations several times prior to distributing them to customer PCs. Which of the following should the administrator use to test the patching process quickly and often? 

A. Create an incremental backup of an unpatched PC 

B. Create an image of a patched PC and replicate it to servers 

C. Create a full disk image to restore after each installation 

D. Create a virtualized sandbox and utilize snapshots 

Answer:

Explanation: 

Q9. Fuzzing is a security assessment technique that allows testers to analyze the behavior of software applications under which of the following conditions? 

A. Unexpected input 

B. Invalid output 

C. Parameterized input 

D. Valid output 

Answer:

Explanation: 

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. 

Q10. Which of the following is a best practice for error and exception handling? 

A. Log detailed exception but display generic error message 

B. Display detailed exception but log generic error message 

C. Log and display detailed error and exception messages 

D. Do not log or display error or exception messages 

Answer:

Explanation: 

A detailed explanation of the error is not helpful for most end users but might provide information that is useful to a hacker. It is therefore better to display a simple but helpful message to the end user and log the detailed information to an access-restricted log file for the administrator and programmer who would need as much information as possible about the problem in order to rectify it. 

Q11. 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 

Answer:

Explanation: 

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. 

Q12. Which of the following will help prevent smurf attacks? 

A. Allowing necessary UDP packets in and out of the network 

B. Disabling directed broadcast on border routers 

C. Disabling unused services on the gateway firewall 

D. Flash the BIOS with the latest firmware 

Answer:

Explanation: 

Q13. Failure to validate the size of a variable before writing it to memory could result in which of the following application attacks? 

A. Malicious logic 

B. Cross-site scripting 

C. SQL injection 

D. Buffer overflow 

Answer:

Explanation: 

Q14. Which of the following authentication services requires the use of a ticket-granting ticket (TGT) server in order to complete the authentication process? 

A. TACACS+ 

B. Secure LDAP 

C. RADIUS 

D. Kerberos 

Answer:

Explanation: 

The basic process of Kerberos authentication is as follows: 

The subject provides logon credentials. 

The Kerberos client system encrypts the password and transmits the protected credentials to the 

KDC. 

The KDC verifies the credentials and then creates a ticket-granting ticket (TGT—a hashed form of 

the subject’s password with the addition of a time stamp that indicates a valid lifetime). The TGT is 

encrypted and sent to the client. 

The client receives the TGT. At this point, the subject is an authenticated principle in the Kerberos 

realm. 

The subject requests access to resources on a network server. This causes the client to request a 

service ticket (ST) from the KDC. 

The KDC verifies that the client has a valid TGT and then issues an ST to the client. The ST 

includes a time stamp that indicates its valid lifetime. 

The client receives the ST. 

The client sends the ST to the network server that hosts the desired resource. 

The network server verifies the ST. If it’s verified, it initiates a communication session with the 

client. From this point forward, Kerberos is no longer involved. 

Q15. An information bank has been established to store contacts, phone numbers and other records. 

An application running on UNIX would like to connect to this index server using port 88. Which of the following authentication services would this use this port by default? 

A. Kerberos 

B. TACACS+ 

C. Radius 

D. LDAP 

Answer:

Explanation: Kerberos makes use of port 88.