SDSI Practice Test 5 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A design team is implementing Cisco ISE for a hybrid work environment. Which Cisco ISE architectural component is responsible for processing RADIUS and TACACS+ requests while offloading policy decision logic from the Administration node?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Policy Service Node (PSN). The Policy Service Node (PSN) is the Cisco ISE persona that receives and processes RADIUS and TACACS+ authentication, authorization, and accounting requests from network devices. PSNs run the policy engine locally, evaluating identity and posture against policy sets, so the PAN does not have to handle every live authentication. This offloads policy decision logic and provides horizontal scalability and redundancy for access requests.

Answer

Primary Administration Node (PAN)

Answer

Monitoring Node (MnT)

Answer

Policy Information Point (PIP)

Question 2

You are designing the security for a SaaS application access scenario. What is the role of the Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)?

Accepted Answer

To gain visibility into SaaS application usage and prevent data exfiltration.. A CASB sits between users and cloud/SaaS providers, providing visibility into sanctioned and unsanctioned SaaS usage, enforcing DLP policies, and preventing data exfiltration. It operates via API mode, forward proxy, or reverse proxy to inspect traffic and apply granular controls. This makes it the correct answer for gaining SaaS visibility and stopping exfiltration.

Answer

To manage local network switches.

Answer

To encrypt all internet-bound traffic at the gateway.

Answer

To provide physical security for data centers.

Question 3

In a design for a Zero Trust architecture, what is the primary function of the Policy Decision Point (PDP)?

Accepted Answer

To evaluate access requests based on policy. In Zero Trust architecture, the Policy Decision Point (PDP) evaluates access requests against policy, identity, device posture, and context to decide whether to grant, deny, or limit access. It is the brain that makes the authorization decision, which is then enforced by the Policy Enforcement Point (PEP).

Answer

To audit session traffic

Answer

To provide identity management

Answer

To enforce the policy on the endpoint

Question 4

Which document is essential for the SOC to standardize how they handle identified security incidents?

Accepted Answer

Incident Response Plan (IRP).. The Incident Response Plan (IRP) is the document that standardizes how a SOC detects, responds to, and recovers from security incidents. It defines roles, escalation paths, communication procedures, and step-by-step playbooks, ensuring a consistent and repeatable response. This makes it the essential reference for incident handling.

Answer

Vulnerability Assessment Report.

Answer

Vendor Product Data Sheets.

Answer

Network Topology Map.

Question 5

In an AI-based security architecture, which data source provides the most value for training an ML model to detect unauthorized data exfiltration?

Accepted Answer

NetFlow/IPFIX logs. NetFlow/IPFIX logs provide detailed metadata about network flows, including source/destination IPs, ports, protocols, and byte counts, which are highly valuable for training ML models to detect data exfiltration patterns (e.g., large transfers to unusual destinations). This data source captures the network behavior necessary to identify anomalies indicative of exfiltration.

Answer

User password history

Answer

System process logs

Answer

DHCP lease logs

Question 6

Which THREE of the following represent common challenges when implementing automated security in a legacy environment?

Accepted Answer

Cultural resistance to change. Cultural resistance to change (A) is a correct challenge because security automation alters established operational workflows and requires staff to trust tooling over manual, experience-based procedures, and legacy IT teams often resist ceding control to automated remediation. Fragmented or inconsistent log data (D) is correct because legacy systems frequently emit proprietary or non-standard formats (e.g., syslog variants, flat files, no CEF/LEEF normalization), which breaks correlation, SIEM ingestion, and automated event-driven response. Lack of native API support in legacy devices (E) is correct because many older appliances and applications expose only CLI, SNMP, or screen-scraping interfaces rather than REST/SOAP APIs, forcing brittle scripting and preventing clean integration with orchestration and SOAR platforms. Option B is not a challenge in this context, since documentation is generally beneficial and not a barrier to automation, and option C is incorrect because excessive API performance is a benefit, not a problem — the real legacy issue is the absence or poor performance of APIs.

Answer

Too much documentation

Answer

Excessive API performance

Question 7

When designing a secure API environment, which THREE tasks should the API Gateway handle? (Choose THREE)

Accepted Answer

Authentication and authorization verification. Option B is correct because the API Gateway is the central entry point for all client requests, so it should verify authentication tokens (e.g., JWT, OAuth 2.0 access tokens) and enforce authorization policies before forwarding traffic to backend services. Option C is correct because the gateway's core function is to route incoming requests to the appropriate backend microservices based on path, host, headers, or other routing rules, acting as a reverse proxy. Option D is correct because the gateway should enforce request rate limiting (e.g., token bucket or leaky bucket algorithms) to protect backend services from abuse, DoS attacks, and traffic spikes. Option A is not correct because application data storage belongs to backend databases or storage services, not the API Gateway, which should remain stateless. Option E is not correct because hard-coding all business logic in the gateway creates a monolithic bottleneck and violates microservice separation of concerns; business logic belongs in the backend services.

Answer

Application data storage

Answer

Hard-coding all business logic

Question 8

During a risk assessment, which THREE factors are considered critical for determining the design requirements of a secure infrastructure? (Choose three)

Accepted Answer

Regulatory and compliance requirements. Option A (Regulatory and compliance requirements) is correct because laws and standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, or ISO 27001 impose mandatory controls (encryption, access logging, retention) that directly shape the architecture and security baselines of the infrastructure. Option C (Current threat intelligence and landscape) is correct because knowing the active threat actors, TTPs, and emerging vulnerabilities (e.g., from MITRE ATT&CK or CVE feeds) determines which defensive controls, segmentation, and monitoring capabilities must be designed in. Option E (Criticality of business data and assets) is correct because classifying data and assets by business impact drives the required protection level, such as tiered controls, redundancy, and recovery objectives (RTO/RPO) for the most critical systems. Option B is not a security design driver, since office location and square footage are facilities-planning details rather than risk factors affecting control selection. Option D is also not relevant, as headcount and department budget are organizational and financial inputs, not determinants of the technical security requirements themselves.

Answer

Office physical location and square footage

Answer

Employee headcount and department budget

Question 9

You are designing an API security strategy. Which mechanism is used to verify the integrity and authenticity of API requests in a microservices environment?

Accepted Answer

JSON Web Tokens (JWT). JSON Web Tokens (JWT) are signed (and optionally encrypted) tokens that carry claims about the caller and can be cryptographically verified by any microservice using the issuer's public key. This signature verification provides both integrity (the token was not tampered with) and authenticity (it was issued by a trusted identity provider), which is exactly what is needed to validate API requests in a distributed microservices environment. JWTs are stateless, so each service can verify them independently without a central session store.

Answer

SSL/TLS termination at the server

Answer

Static IP allowlisting

Answer

Standard Basic Authentication

Question 10

You are designing a microsegmentation strategy using Cisco Secure Workload (formerly Tetration) for a multi-tier application. Which mechanism allows you to enforce fine-grained security policies between application tiers while maintaining visibility across the hybrid cloud?

Accepted Answer

Using policy-based agents on endpoints to enforce segmentation. Cisco Secure Workload uses lightweight software agents installed on workloads (servers, VMs, containers) that enforce microsegmentation policies at the workload level, independent of the underlying network. These agents provide visibility into all flows (including east-west traffic within the same subnet) and enforce fine-grained allow/deny policies between application tiers. Because enforcement is host-based, the same policy model works across on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud environments, which is essential for hybrid cloud visibility and control.

Answer

Applying static ACLs on the core switch

Answer

Implementing Cisco ASA zone-based firewalling

Answer

Configuring VRF-Lite on the distribution layer