Free Practice Questions for ISC SSCP Exam

An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is a system that is used to monitor network traffic or to monitor host audit logs in order to determine if any violations of an organization's system security policy have taken place.

Source: KRUTZ, Ronald L. & VINES, Russel D., The CISSP Prep Guide: Mastering the Ten Domains of Computer Security, 2001, John Wiley & Sons, Page 48.

Displaying the directory contents of a folder can alter the last access time on each listed file.

Using a write blocker is wrong because using a write blocker ensure that you cannot modify the data on the host and it prevent the host from writing to its hard drives.

Made a full-disk image is wrong because making a full-disk image can preserve all data on a hard disk, including deleted files and file fragments.

Created a message digest for log files is wrong because creating a message digest for log files. A message digest is a cryptographic checksum that can demonstrate that the integrity of a file has not been compromised (e.g. changes to the content of a log file)

Domain: LEGAL, REGULATIONS, COMPLIANCE AND INVESTIGATIONS

References:

AIO 3rd Edition, page 783-784

NIST 800-61 Computer Security Incident Handling guide page 3-18 to 3-20

A host-based IDS is resident on a host and reviews the system and event logs in order to detect an attack on the host and to determine if the attack was successful. All critical serves should have a Host Based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) installed. As you are well aware, network based IDS cannot make sense or detect pattern of attacks within encrypted traffic. A HIDS might be able to detect such attack after the traffic has been decrypted on the host. This is why critical servers should have both NIDS and HIDS.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

A HIDS will monitor all or part of the dynamic behavior and of the state of a computer system. Much as a NIDS will dynamically inspect network packets, a HIDS might detect which program accesses what resources and assure that (say) a word-processor hasn\'t suddenly and inexplicably started modifying the system password-database. Similarly a HIDS might look at the state of a system, its stored information, whether in RAM, in the file-system, or elsewhere; and check that the contents of these appear as expected.

One can think of a HIDS as an agent that monitors whether anything/anyone - internal or external - has circumvented the security policy that the operating system tries to enforce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host-based_intrusion_detection_system

Officers and directors of a company are expected to act carefully in fulfilling their tasks. A director shall act in good faith, with the care an ordinarily prudent person in a like position would exercise under similar circumstances and in a manner he reasonably believes is in the best interest of the enterprise. The notion of profit would tend to go against the due care principle.

Source: ANDRESS, Mandy, Exam Cram CISSP, Coriolis, 2001, Chapter 10: Law, Investigation, and Ethics (page 186).

The two most common implementations of Intrusion Detection are Network-based and Host-based.

IDS can be implemented as a network device, such as a router, switch, firewall, or dedicated device monitoring traffic, typically referred to as network IDS (NIDS).

The" (IDS) "technology can also be incorporated into a host system (HIDS) to monitor a single system for undesirable activities. "

A network intrusion detection system (NIDS) is a network device .... that monitors traffic traversing the network segment for which it is integrated." Remember that NIDS are usually passive in nature.

HIDS is the implementation of IDS capabilities at the host level. Its most significant difference from NIDS is that related processes are limited to the boundaries of a single-host system. However, this presents advantages in effectively detecting objectionable activities because the IDS process is running directly on the host system, not just observing it from the network.

Reference(s) used for this question:

Hernandez CISSP, Steven (2012-12-21). Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK, Third Edition ((ISC)2 Press) (Kindle Locations 3649-3652). Auerbach Publications. Kindle Edition.

Poor password selection is frequently a major security problem for any system's security. Administrators should obtain and use password-guessing programs frequently to identify those users having easily guessed passwords.

Because password-cracking programs are very CPU intensive and can slow the system on which it is running, it is a good idea to transfer the encrypted passwords to a standalone (not networked) workstation. Also, by doing the work on a non-networked machine, any results found will not be accessible by anyone unless they have physical access to that system.

Out of the four choice presented above this is the best choice.

However, in real life you would have strong password policies that enforce complexity requirements and does not let the user choose a simple or short password that can be easily cracked or guessed. That would be the best choice if it was one of the choice presented.

Another issue with password cracking is one of privacy. Many password cracking tools can avoid this by only showing the password was cracked and not showing what the password actually is. It is masking the password being used from the person doing the cracking.

Source: National Security Agency, Systems and Network Attack Center (SNAC), The 60 Minute Network Security Guide, February 2002, page 8.

As per FDA data should be attributable, original, accurate, contemporaneous and legible. In an automated system attributability could be achieved by a computer system designed to identify individuals responsible for any input.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, Guidance for Industry - Computerized Systems Used in Clinical Trials, April 1999, page 1.

To assist in Intrusion Detection you would review audit logs for access violations.

The following answers are incorrect:

access control lists. This is incorrect because access control lists determine who has access to what but do not detect intrusions.

security clearances. This is incorrect because security clearances determine who has access to what but do not detect intrusions.

host-based authentication. This is incorrect because host-based authentication determine who have been authenticated to the system but do not dectect intrusions.

The data or information owner also referred to as "Data Owner" would be the best person. That is the individual or officer who is ultimately responsible for the protection of the information and can therefore decide what are the adequate security controls according to the data sensitivity and data criticality. The auditor would be the best person to determine the adequacy of controls and whether or not they are working as expected by the owner.

The function of the auditor is to come around periodically and make sure you are doing what you are supposed to be doing. They ensure the correct controls are in place and are being maintained securely. The goal of the auditor is to make sure the organization complies with its own policies and the applicable laws and regulations.

Organizations can have internal auditors and/ or external auditors. The external auditors commonly work on behalf of a regulatory body to make sure compliance is being met. For example CobiT, which is a model that most information security auditors follow when evaluating a security program. While many security professionals fear and dread auditors, they can be valuable tools in ensuring the overall security of the organization. Their goal is to find the things you have missed and help you understand how to fix the problem.

The Official ISC2 Guide (OIG) says:

IT auditors determine whether users, owners, custodians, systems, and networks are in compliance with the security policies, procedures, standards, baselines, designs, architectures, management direction, and other requirements placed on systems. The auditors provide independent assurance to the management on the appropriateness of the security controls. The auditor examines the information systems and determines whether they are designed, configured, implemented, operated, and managed in a way ensuring that the organizational objectives are being achieved. The auditors provide top company management with an independent view of the controls and their effectiveness.

Example:

Bob is the head of payroll. He is therefore the individual with primary responsibility over the payroll database, and is therefore the information/data owner of the payroll database. In Bob's department, he has Sally and Richard working for him. Sally is responsible for making changes to the payroll database, for example if someone is hired or gets a raise. Richard is only responsible for printing paychecks. Given those roles, Sally requires both read and write access to the payroll database, but Richard requires only read access to it. Bob communicates these requirements to the system administrators (the "information/data custodians") and they set the file permissions for Sally's and Richard's user accounts so that Sally has read/write access, while Richard has only read access.

So in short Bob will determine what controls are required, what is the sensitivily and criticality of the Data. Bob will communicate this to the custodians who will implement the requirements on the systems/DB. The auditor would assess if the controls are in fact providing the level of security the Data Owner expects within the systems/DB. The auditor does not determine the sensitivity of the data or the crititicality of the data.

The other answers are not correct because:

A "system auditor" is never responsible for anything but auditing... not actually making control decisions but the auditor would be the best person to determine the adequacy of controls and then make recommendations.

A "system manager" is really just another name for a system administrator, which is actually an information custodian as explained above.

A "Data or information user" is responsible for implementing security controls on a day-to-day basis as they utilize the information, but not for determining what the controls should be or if they are adequate.

References:

Official ISC2 Guide to the CISSP CBK, Third Edition , Page 477

Schneiter, Andrew (2013-04-15). Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK, Third Edition : Information Security Governance and Risk Management ((ISC)2 Press) (Kindle Locations 294-298). Auerbach Publications. Kindle Edition.

Harris, Shon (2012-10-25). CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, 6th Edition (Kindle Locations 3108-3114).

Information Security Glossary

Responsibility for use of information resources

Controls provide accountability for individuals who are accessing sensitive information. This accountability is accomplished through access control mechanisms that require identification and authentication and through the audit function. These controls must be in accordance with and accurately represent the organization's security policy. Assurance procedures ensure that the control mechanisms correctly implement the security policy for the entire life cycle of an information system.

Source: KRUTZ, Ronald L. & VINES, Russel D., The CISSP Prep Guide: Mastering the Ten Domains of Computer Security, 2001, John Wiley & Sons, Page 33.

The security controls and mechanisms that are in place must have a degree of transparency.

This enables the user to perform tasks and duties without having to go through extra steps because of the presence of the security controls. Transparency also does not let the user know too much about the controls, which helps prevent him from figuring out how to circumvent them. If the controls are too obvious, an attacker can figure out how to compromise them more easily.

Security (more specifically, the implementation of most security controls) has long been a sore point with users who are subject to security controls. Historically, security controls have been very intrusive to users, forcing them to interrupt their work flow and remember arcane codes or processes (like long passwords or access codes), and have generally been seen as an obstacle to getting work done. In recent years, much work has been done to remove that stigma of security controls as a detractor from the work process adding nothing but time and money. When developing access control, the system must be as transparent as possible to the end user. The users should be required to interact with the system as little as possible, and the process around using the control should be engineered so as to involve little effort on the part of the user.

For example, requiring a user to swipe an access card through a reader is an effective way to ensure a person is authorized to enter a room. However, implementing a technology (such as RFID) that will automatically scan the badge as the user approaches the door is more transparent to the user and will do less to impede the movement of personnel in a busy area.

In another example, asking a user to understand what applications and data sets will be required when requesting a system ID and then specifically requesting access to those resources may allow for a great deal of granularity when provisioning access, but it can hardly be seen as transparent. A more transparent process would be for the access provisioning system to have a role-based structure, where the user would simply specify the role he or she has in the organization and the system would know the specific resources that user needs to access based on that role. This requires less work and interaction on the part of the user and will lead to more accurate and secure access control decisions because access will be based on predefined need, not user preference.

When developing and implementing an access control system special care should be taken to ensure that the control is as transparent to the end user as possible and interrupts his work flow as little as possible.

The following answers were incorrect:

All of the other detractors were incorrect.

Reference(s) used for this question:

HARRIS, Shon, All-In-One CISSP Certification Exam Guide, 6th edition. Operations Security, Page 1239-1240

Harris, Shon (2012-10-25). CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, 6th Edition (Kindle Locations 25278-25281). McGraw-Hill. Kindle Edition.

Schneiter, Andrew (2013-04-15). Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK, Third Edition : Access Control ((ISC)2 Press) (Kindle Locations 713-729). Auerbach Publications. Kindle Edition.

Companies can set predefined thresholds for the number of certain types of errors that will be allowed before the activity is considered suspicious. The threshold is a baseline for violation activities that may be normal for a user to commit before alarms are raised. This baseline is referred to as a clipping level.

The following are incorrect answers:

Clipping levels enable a security administrator to customize the audit trail to record only those violations which are deemed to be security relevant. This is not the best answer, you would not record ONLY security relevant violations, all violations would be recorded as well as all actions performed by authorized users which may not trigger a violation. This could allow you to indentify abnormal activities or fraud after the fact.

Clipping levels enable the security administrator to customize the audit trail to record only actions for users with access to user accounts with a privileged status. It could record all security violations whether the user is a normal user or a privileged user.

Clipping levels enable a security administrator to view all reductions in security levels which have been made to user accounts which have incurred violations. The keyword "ALL" makes this question wrong. It may detect SOME but not all of violations. For example, application level attacks may not be detected.

Reference(s) used for this question:

Harris, Shon (2012-10-18). CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, 6th Edition (p. 1239). McGraw-Hill. Kindle Edition.

and

TIPTON, Hal, (ISC)2, Introduction to the CISSP Exam presentation.

The primary purpose of a honeypot is to study the attack methods of an attacker for the purposes of understanding their methods and improving defenses.

"To lure hackers into attacking unused systems" is incorrect. Honeypots can serve as decoys but their primary purpose is to study the behaviors of attackers.

"To entrap and track down possible hackers" is incorrect. There are a host of legal issues around enticement vs entrapment but a good general rule is that entrapment is generally prohibited and evidence gathered in a scenario that could be considered as "entrapping" an attacker would not be admissible in a court of law.

"To set up a sacrificial lamb on the network" is incorrect. While a honeypot is a sort of sacrificial lamb and may attract attacks that might have been directed against production systems, its real purpose is to study the methods of attackers with the goals of better understanding and improving network defenses.

References

AIO3, p. 213

As stated in SP 800-34 Rev. 1:

To be effective, the plan must be maintained in a ready state that accurately reflects system requirements, procedures, organizational structure, and policies. During the Operation/Maintenance phase of the SDLC, information systems undergo frequent changes because of shifting business needs, technology upgrades, or new internal or external policies.

As a general rule, the plan should be reviewed for accuracy and completeness at an organization-defined frequency (at least once a year for the purpose of the exam) or whenever significant changes occur to any element of the plan. Certain elements, such as contact lists, will require more frequent reviews.

Remember, there could be two good answers as specified above. Either once a year or whenever significant changes occur to the plan. You will of course get only one of the two presented within you exam.

Reference(s) used for this question:

NIST SP 800-34 Revision 1

The two current conceptual approaches to Intrusion Detection methodology are knowledge-based ID systems and behavior-based ID systems, sometimes referred to as signature-based ID and statistical anomaly-based ID, respectively.

Source: KRUTZ, Ronald L. & VINES, Russel D., The CISSP Prep Guide: Mastering the Ten Domains of Computer Security, 2001, John Wiley & Sons, Page 63.

If audit trails have been properly defined and implemented, they will record information that can assist in detecting intrusions.

Source: HARRIS, Shon, All-In-One CISSP Certification Exam Guide, McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2002, Chapter 4: Access Control (page 186).