- (Exam Topic 1)
A financial institution would like to store its customer data in a cloud but still allow the data to be accessed and manipulated while encrypted. Doing so would prevent the cloud service provider from being able to decipher the data due to its sensitivity. The financial institution is not concerned about computational overheads and slow speeds. Which of the following cryptographic techniques would BEST meet the requirement?
Correct Answer:B
Symmetric encryption allows data to be encrypted and decrypted using the same key. This is useful when the data needs to be accessed and manipulated while still encrypted. References: CompTIA Security+ Study Guide, Exam SY0-601, Chapter 6
- (Exam Topic 1)
Ann, a customer, received a notification from her mortgage company stating her PII may be shared with partners, affiliates, and associates to maintain day-to-day business operations.
Which of the following documents did Ann receive?
Correct Answer:A
Ann received an annual privacy notice from her mortgage company. An annual privacy notice is a statement from a financial institution or creditor that outlines the institution's privacy policy and explains how the institution collects, uses, and shares customers' personal information. It informs the customer about their rights under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and the institution's practices for protecting their personal information. References:
CompTIA Security+ Certification Exam Objectives - Exam SY0-601
- (Exam Topic 2)
An internet company has created a new collaboration application. To expand the user base, the company wants to implement an option that allows users to log in to the application with the
credentials of her popular websites. Which of the following should the company implement?
Correct Answer:A
SSO stands for Single Sign-On, which is a technology that allows users to log in to multiple websites using a single set of credentials, such as a username and password or a digital certificate. SSO eliminates the need for users to create and remember multiple accounts and passwords for different websites, and simplifies the authentication process. SSO also enhances security by reducing the risk of password reuse, phishing, and identity theft.
An internet company that has created a new collaboration application can implement SSO to allow users to log in to the application with the credentials of other popular websites, such as Google, Facebook, or Twitter. This way, users do not have to create a new account for the application, and can use their existing accounts from other websites that they trust and use frequently. This can increase the user base and the convenience of the application.
Some examples of SSO technologies are OpenID, OAuth, and SAML. These technologies provide different ways of establishing trust and exchanging information between the websites that act as identity providers (IDPs) and the websites that act as relying parties (RPs). The IDPs are the websites that authenticate the users and provide their credentials or attributes to the RPs. The RPs are the websites that accept the users’ credentials or attributes from the IDPs and grant them access to their services.
- (Exam Topic 2)
A company is implementing MFA for all applications that store sensitive data. The IT manager wants MFA to be non-disruptive and user friendly Which of the following technologies should the IT manager use when implementing MFA?
Correct Answer:C
Push notifications are a type of technology that allows an application or a service to send messages or alerts to a user’s device without requiring the user to open the application or the service. They can be used for multi-factor authentication (MFA) by sending a prompt or a code to the user’s device that the user has to approve or enter to verify their identity. They can be non-disruptive and user friendly because they do not require the user to remember or type anything, and they can be delivered instantly and securely.
- (Exam Topic 2)
A security analyst is investigating a report from a penetration test. During the penetration test, consultants were able to download sensitive data from a back-end server. The back-end server was exposing an API that should have only been available from the company’s mobile application. After reviewing the back-end server logs, the security analyst finds the following entries:
Which of the following is the most likely cause of the security control bypass?
Correct Answer:B
User-agent spoofing is a technique that involves changing the user-agent string of a web browser or other client to impersonate another browser or device. The user-agent string is a piece of information that identifies the client to the web server and can contain details such as the browser name, version, operating system, and device type. User-agent spoofing can be used to bypass security controls that rely on the user-agent string to determine the legitimacy of a request. In this scenario, the consultants were able to spoof the user-agent string of the company’s mobile application and access the API that should have been restricted to it.