CSSLP Online Practice Questions and Answers

Correct Answer:

Correct Answer: A

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is a Cabinet-level office, and is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President (EOP) of the United States. The current OMB Director is Peter Orszag and was appointed by President Barack Obama. The OMB's predominant mission is to assist the President in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget and to supervise its administration in Executive Branch agencies. In helping to formulate the President's spending plans, the OMB evaluates the effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures, assesses competing funding demands among agencies, and sets funding priorities. The OMB ensures that agency reports, rules, testimony, and proposed legislation are consistent with the President's Budget and with Administration policies. Answer: D is incorrect. The DCAA has the aim to monitor contractor costs and perform contractor audits. Answer: C is incorrect. The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is a crypto-logic intelligence agency of the United States government. It is administered as part of the United States Department of Defense. NSA is responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, which involves cryptanalysis. NSA is also responsible for protecting U.S. government communications and information systems from similar agencies elsewhere, which involves cryptography. NSA is a key component of the U.S. Intelligence Community, which is headed by the Director of National Intelligence. The Central Security Service is a co-located agency created to coordinate intelligence activities and co- operation between NSA and U.S. military cryptanalysis agencies. NSA's work is limited to communications intelligence. It does not perform field or human intelligence activities. Answer: B is incorrect. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), known between 1901 and 1988 as the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), is a measurement standards laboratory which is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce. The institute's official mission is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve quality of life.

Correct Answer: BCD

An Information System Security Officer (ISSO) plays the role of a supporter. The responsibilities of an Information System Security Officer (ISSO) are as follows: Manages the security of the information system that is slated for Certification and

Accreditation (CandA). Insures the information systems configuration with the agency's information security policy. Supports the information system owner/information owner for the completion of security-related responsibilities. Takes part in the

formal configuration management process. Prepares Certification and Accreditation (CandA) packages. An Information System Security Engineer (ISSE) plays the role of an advisor. The responsibilities of an Information System Security Engineer

are as follows:

Provides view on the continuous monitoring of the information system. Provides advice on the impacts of system changes. Takes part in the configuration management process. Takes part in the development activities that are required to

implement system changes. Follows approved system changes.

Correct Answer: C

A sabotage attack is an attack that causes software to fail. It also prevents the intended users from accessing software. A sabotage attack is referred to as a denial of service (DoS) or compromise of availability. Answer: B is incorrect. The reconnaissance attack enables an attacker to collect information about software and operating environment. Answer: D is incorrect. The disclosure attack exposes the revealed data to an attacker. Answer: A is incorrect. The enabling attack delivers an easy path for other attacks.

Correct Answer: AC

The Biba and Clark-Wilson access control models are used in the commercial sector. The Biba model is a formal state transition system of computer security policy that describes a set of access control rules designed to ensure data integrity. Data and subjects are grouped into ordered levels of integrity. The model is designed so that subjects may not corrupt data in a level ranked higher than the subject, or be corrupted by data from a lower level than the subject. The Clark-Wilson security model provides a foundation for specifying and analyzing an integrity policy for a computing system. Answer: D is incorrect. The Bell-LaPadula access control model is mainly used in military systems. Answer: B is incorrect. There is no such access control model as Clark-Biba.

Correct Answer: C

An Intrusion detection system (IDS) is software and/or hardware designed to detect unwanted attempts at accessing, manipulating, and/or disabling of computer systems, mainly through a network, such as the Internet. These attempts may take the form of attacks, as examples, by crackers, malware and/or disgruntled employees. An IDS cannot directly detect attacks within properly encrypted traffic. An intrusion detection system is used to detect several types of malicious behaviors that can compromise the security and trust of a computer system. This includes network attacks against vulnerable services, data driven attacks on applications, host based attacks such as privilege escalation, unauthorized logins and access to sensitive files, and malware (viruses, trojan horses, and worms). Answer: D is incorrect. Access Control List (ACL) is the most commonly used object in Cisco IOS. It filters packets or network traffic by controlling whether routed packets are forwarded or blocked at the router's interfaces. According to the criteria specified within the access lists, router determines whether the packets to be forwarded or dropped. Access control list criteria could be the source or destination address of the traffic or other information. The types of Cisco ACLs are Standard IP, Extended IP, IPX, Appletalk, etc. Answer: B is incorrect. Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) is a method of securing data. It secures traffic by using encryption and digital signing. It enhances the security of data as if an IPSec packet is captured, its contents cannot be read. IPSec also provides sender verification that ensures the certainty of the datagram's origin to the receiver. Answer: A is incorrect. Direct- attached storage (DAS) is a digital storage system that is directly attached to a server or workstation, without using a storage network.

Correct Answer: D

The access matrix or access control matrix is an abstract, formal security model of protection state in computer systems that characterizes the rights of each subject with respect to every object in the system. It was first introduced by Butler W. Lampson in 1971. According to the access matrix model, the protection state of a computer system can be abstracted as a set of objects 'O', that is the set of entities that needs to be protected (e.g. processes, files, memory pages) and a set of subjects 'S' that consists of all active entities (e.g. users, processes). Further there exists a set of rights 'R' of the form r(s,o), where s S, o O and r(s,o) R. A right thereby specifies the kind of access a subject is allowed to process with regard to an object. Answer: B is incorrect. The Bell-La Padula Model is a state machine model used for enforcing access control in government and military applications. The model is a formal state transition model of computer security policy that describes a set of access control rules which use security labels on objects and clearances for subjects. Security labels range from the most sensitive (e.g.,"Top Secret"), down to the least sensitive (e.g., "Unclassified" or "Public"). The Bell-La Padula model focuses on data confidentiality and controlled access to classified information, in contrast to the Biba Integrity Model which describes rules for the protection of data integrity. Answer: A is incorrect. The Clark- Wilson model provides a foundation for specifying and analyzing an integrity policy for a computing system. The model is primarily concerned with formalizing the notion of information integrity. Information integrity is maintained by preventing corruption of data items in a system due to either error or malicious intent. The model's enforcement and certification rules define data items and processes that provide the basis for an integrity policy. The core of the model is based on the notion of a transaction. Answer: C is incorrect. The Biba model is a formal state transition system of computer security policy that describes a set of access control rules designed to ensure data integrity. Data and subjects are grouped into ordered levels of integrity. The model is designed so that subjects may not corrupt data in a level ranked higher than the subject, or be corrupted by data from a lower level than the subject.

Correct Answer: BCD

The main steps of performing risk analysis are as follows: Estimate the potential losses to the assets by determining their value. Evaluate the potential threats to the assets. Establish the threats probability and regularity. Answer: A is incorrect. Valuations of the critical assets in hard costs is one of the final steps taken after performing the risk analysis.

Correct Answer: D

The Department of Defense Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (DIACAP) is a process defined by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) for managing risk. The Certification Determination and Accreditation phase is the third phase in the DIACAP process. Its subordinate tasks are as follows: Analyze residual risk. Issue certification determination. Make accreditation decision. Answer: A is incorrect. Phase 1 is known as Initiate and Plan IA CandA. Answer: C is incorrect. Phase 2 is used to implement and validate assigned IA controls. Answer: E is incorrect. Phase 3 is used to make certification determination and accreditation decisions. Answer: B is incorrect. Phase 5 is known as decommission system and is used to conduct activities related to the disposition of the system data and objects.

Correct Answer: D

Workstation scanning provides help to ensure that the standard software configuration exists with the most recent security patches and software. It helps to locate uncontrolled or unauthorized software. A full workstation vulnerability scan of the standard corporate desktop configuration must be implemented on a regularly basis. Answer: B is incorrect. The discovery scanning technique is used to gather adequate information regarding each network device to identify what type of device it is, its operating system, and if it is running any externally vulnerable services, like Web services, FTP, or email. Answer: C is incorrect. A full server vulnerability scan helps to determine if the server OS has been configured to the corporate standards and identify if applications have been updated with the latest security patches and software versions. Answer: A is incorrect. Port scanning technique describes the process of sending a data packet to a port to gather information about the state of the port.

Correct Answer: A

Assessment, monitoring, and assurance determines the necessary compliance that are offered by risk management practices and assessment of risk levels.

Correct Answer: BC

Following are the benefits of information classification for an organization: It helps identify which protections apply to which information. It helps identify which information is the most sensitive or vital to an organization. It supports the tenets of

confidentiality, integrity, and availability as it pertains to data.

Answer: D is incorrect. The concept of integrity ensures that modifications are not made to data by unauthorized personnel or processes. It also ensures that unauthorized modifications are not made to data by authorized personnel or

processes. Answer: A is incorrect. Information classification cannot reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Correct Answer: A

The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a commonly-used protocol for managing the security of a message transmission on the Internet. SSL has recently been succeeded by Transport Layer Security (TLS), which is based on SSL. SSL uses a program layer located between the Internet's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Transport Control Protocol (TCP) layers. SSL is included as part of both the Microsoft and Netscape browsers and most Web server products. URLs that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http:. Answer: C is incorrect. S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is a standard for public key encryption and signing of e- mail encapsulated in MIME. S/MIME provides the following cryptographic security services for electronic messaging applications: authentication, message integrity, non-repudiation of origin (using digital signatures), privacy, and data security (using encryption). Answer: D is incorrect. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a client/server TCP/IP protocol used on the World Wide Web (WWW) to display Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) pages. HTTP defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. For example, when a client application or browser sends a request to the server using HTTP commands, the server responds with a message containing the protocol version, success or failure code, server information, and body content, depending on the request. HTTP uses TCP port 80 as the default port. Answer: B is incorrect. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a computer network that is implemented in an additional software layer (overlay) on top of an existing larger network for the purpose of creating a private scope of computer communications or providing a secure extension of a private network into an insecure network such as the Internet. The links between nodes of a Virtual Private Network are formed over logical connections or virtual circuits between hosts of the larger network. The Link Layer protocols of the virtual network are said to be tunneled through the underlying transport network.

Correct Answer: ABCDE

The mission and business process level is the Tier 2. It addresses risks from the mission and business process perspective. It is guided by the risk decisions at Tier 1. The various Tier 2 activities are as follows: It defines the core missions and business processes for the organization. It also prioritizes missions and business processes, with respect to the goals and objectives of the organization. It defines the types of information that an organization requires, to successfully execute the stated missions and business processes. It helps in developing an organization-wide information protection strategy and incorporating high-level information security requirements. It specifies the degree of autonomy for the subordinate organizations.

Correct Answer: C

CandA consists of four phases in a DITSCAP assessment. These phases are the same as NIACAP phases. The order of these phases is as follows: 1.Definition: The definition phase is focused on understanding the IS business case, the mission, environment, and architecture. This phase determines the security requirements and level of effort necessary to achieve Certification and Accreditation (CandA). 2.Verification: The second phase confirms the evolving or modified system's compliance with the information. The verification phase ensures that the fully integrated system will be ready for certification testing. 3.Validation: The third phase confirms abidance of the fully integrated system with the security policy. This phase follows the requirements slated in the SSAA. The objective of the validation phase is to show the required evidence to support the DAA in accreditation process. 4.Post Accreditation: The Post Accreditation is the final phase of DITSCAP assessment and it starts after the system has been certified and accredited for operations. This phase ensures secure system management, operation, and maintenance to save an acceptable level of residual risk.