CAS-005 Exam Dumps - CompTIA SecurityX Questions and Answers

Step by Step Explanation:

Understanding the Scenario: The question focuses on the historical design assumptions behind older operational technology (OT)systems, particularly in the context of command, control, and telemetry.

Analyzing the Answer Choices:

A. operating in an isolated/disconnected system: This is the most accurate assumption for many legacy OT systems. Historically, these systems weredesigned to operate in air-gapped environments, completely isolated from external networks (including the internet).

To determine how the acquisition of Company B will impact the attack surface, the following steps are crucial:

A. Documenting third-party connections used by Company B: Understanding all external connections is essential for assessing potential entry points for attackers and ensuring that these connections are secure.

E. Performing an architectural review of Company B's network: This review will identify vulnerabilities and assess the security posture of the acquired company's network, providing a comprehensive understanding of the new attack surface.

These actions will provide a clear picture of the security implications of the acquisition and help in developing a plan to mitigate any identified risks.

HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code)ensures the integrity and authentication of API requests without exposing static or hard-coded private keys. It uses a secret key and a hash function, preventing replay attacks and tampering. VPNs secure the transport layer, MFA protects user accounts (not API-to-database communications), and DSA is a signature algorithm but does not address hard-coding risk directly.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Phishing simulations are a proven method for reinforcing security awareness, meeting compliance training requirements, and improving user incident reporting. In CAS-005, social engineering testing is a recommended component of organizational security culture programs.

DoS attacks (A) and penetration tests (B) assess technical security, not user awareness.

Fake ransomware (D) can cause unnecessary alarm and operational disruption.

Select the Action Items for the Appropriate Locations:

Authorization Server:

Action Item: Grant access

The authorization server's role is to authenticate the user and then issue an authorization code or token that the client application can use to access resources. Granting access involves the server authenticating the resource owner and providing the necessary tokens for the client application.

Resource Server:

Action Item: Access issued tokens

The resource server is responsible for serving the resources requested by the client application. It must verify the issued tokens from the authorization server to ensure the client has the right permissions to access the requested data.

B2B Client Application:

Action Item: Authorize access to other applications

The B2B client application must handle the OAuth flow to authorize access on behalf of the user without requiring direct knowledge of the user's credentials. This includes obtaining authorization tokens from the authorization server and using them to request access to the resource server.

Detailed Explanation:

OAuth 2.0 is designed to provide specific authorization flows for web applications, desktopapplications, mobile phones, and living room devices. The integration involves multiple steps and components, including:

Resource Owner (User):

The user owns the data and resources that are being accessed.

Client Application (B2B Client Application):

Requests access to the resources controlled by the resource owner but does not directly handle the user's credentials. Instead, it uses tokens obtained through the OAuth flow.

Authorization Server:

Handles the authentication of the resource owner and issues the access tokens to the client application upon successful authentication.

Resource Server:

Hosts the resources that the client application wants to access. It verifies the access tokens issued by the authorization server before granting access to the resources.

OAuth Workflow:

The resource owner accesses the client application.

The client application redirects the resource owner to the authorization server for authentication.

The authorization server authenticates the resource owner and asks for consent to grant access to the client application.

Upon consent, the authorization server issues an authorization code or token to the client application.

The client application uses the authorization code or token to request access to the resources from the resource server.

The resource server verifies the token with the authorization server and, if valid, grants access to the requested resources.

The sshd_config file is the main configuration file for the OpenSSH server. To disable weak CBC (Cipher Block Chaining) ciphers for SSH connections, the security engineer should modify the sshd_config file to update the list of allowed ciphers. This file typically contains settings for the SSH daemon, including which encryption algorithms are allowed.

By editing the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and updating the Ciphers directive, weak ciphers can be removed, and only strong ciphers can be allowed. This change ensures that the SSH server does not use insecure encryption methods.

Privileged Access Management (PAM)restricts elevated permissions, reducing the risk of widespread ransomware attacks.Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)protects against credential theft and ensures that even if passwords are compromised, accounts are not easily accessible.Network segmentationbreaks the flat network into secure zones, limiting lateral movement by attackers. SD-WAN and BGP relate to network routing and efficiency, not security architecture specifically. Remote access VPN secures external access but does not solve internal flat network issues. Network Access Control (NAC) is helpful but secondary compared to PAM, MFA, and segmentation in this context.

In the context of establishing a Security Operations Center (SOC) with a threat-modeling function, it's crucial to understand how data flows within the organization's systems. Network and data flow diagrams provide a visual representation of the system's architecture, illustrating how data moves between components, which is essential for identifying potential security weaknesses and antipatterns. Antipatterns are common responses to recurring problems that are ineffective and risk-inducing. By analyzing these diagrams, the consultant can pinpoint areas where security controls may be lacking or misconfigured, thereby facilitating the development of effective threat models.​

While other options like unpatchable IoT devices (Option B) and inventories of cloud resources (Option E) are important for comprehensive security assessments, they are more pertinent during later stages, such as vulnerability management and asset inventory. The initial phase of threat modeling focuses on understanding the system's structure and data flows to identify potential threats, making network and data flow diagrams the most critical information at this stage.​

Advancements in quantum computing pose a significant threat to current encryption systems, especially those based on the difficulty of factoring large prime numbers, such as RSA. Quantum computers have the potential to solve these problems exponentially faster than classical computers, making current cryptographic systems vulnerable.

Why Large Prime Numbers are Vulnerable:

Shor's Algorithm: Quantum computers can use Shor's algorithm to factorize large integers efficiently, which undermines the security of RSA encryption.

Cryptographic Breakthrough: The ability to quickly factor large prime numbers means that encrypted data, which relies on the hardness of thismathematical problem, can be decrypted.

Other options, while relevant, do not capture the primary reason for the shift towards new encryption algorithms:

B. Zero Trust security architectures: While important, the shift to homomorphic encryption is not the main driver for new encryption algorithms.

C. Perfect forward secrecy: It enhances security but is not the main reason for new encryption algorithms.

D. Real-time IP traffic capture: Quantum computers pose a more significant threat to the underlying cryptographic algorithms than to the real-time capture of traffic.

After applying mitigations that reduce the likelihood of a risk’s impact, the next step is toassess the residual risk—the risk that remains after controls are implemented. This ensures the organization understands if the mitigation is sufficient or if further action is needed, aligning with risk management best practices.

Option A:Correct—residual risk assessment is the logical next step to evaluate the effectiveness of mitigations.

Option B:Updating the threat model might follow but isn’t immediate; residual risk comes first.

Option C:Moving to the next risk skips evaluating the current mitigation’s success.

Option D:Recalculating impact magnitude is part of residual risk assessment but isn’t the full process.