SDSI Secure Infrastructure Design — 50 Questions

Question 1

Which THREE design elements are required for a high-availability firewall pair?

Accepted Answer

Heartbeat mechanisms.. High availability requires connectivity, state synchronization, and failure detection.

Answer

Shared MAC addresses across interfaces.

Question 2

Which THREE components of the Cisco Secure stack provide visibility into encrypted traffic?

Accepted Answer

Cisco Umbrella.. Visibility requires decryption and analysis tools that can handle SSL/TLS traffic.

Answer

DHCP snooping.

Answer

Standard Layer 3 routing.

Question 3

You are designing a security architecture for a multi-cloud environment using Cisco Secure Firewall. Which feature should be enabled to enforce consistent security policies across AWS and Azure instances using FMC?

Accepted Answer

Unified Security Policy Object Management. The Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) allows for object-based grouping and policy application across multi-cloud environments, ensuring consistency.

Answer

Cloud-Native Policy Mapping

Answer

Virtual Private Cloud Bridging

Answer

Multi-Cloud Dynamic Routing

Question 4

Which TWO Cisco technologies are critical for implementing a Zero Trust architecture for the workforce? (Select 2)

Accepted Answer

Cisco Duo. Duo ensures the identity is trusted, and Secure Endpoint/AnyConnect ensures the device is trusted.

Answer

Cisco ACI

Answer

Cisco Webex

Answer

Cisco Catalyst 9000

Question 5

You are designing a security architecture for a hybrid cloud environment using Cisco Secure Firewall. Which design pattern effectively mitigates the risk of lateral movement between VPCs in AWS while maintaining centralized policy enforcement?

Accepted Answer

Utilizing a Transit Gateway with a centralized inspection VPC and VPC attachments.. Using a Transit Gateway with a centralized inspection VPC forces traffic through a firewall cluster, enabling consistent policy enforcement.

Answer

Relying solely on AWS Security Groups for inter-VPC traffic.

Answer

Implementing an Overlay Network using Cisco ACI Remote Leaf.

Answer

Deploying individual firewall appliances in each VPC.

Question 6

A company is migrating to a SASE architecture using Cisco+ Secure Connect. Which component is responsible for the unified identity-based access control for remote users?

Accepted Answer

Cisco Duo integration within the Secure Connect platform.. Cisco+ Secure Connect integrates Duo for identity verification and Cisco Umbrella for secure web gateway functions.

Answer

AnyConnect standalone VPN gateway.

Answer

Firepower Management Center cloud connector.

Answer

On-premises ISE cluster.

Question 7

Which TWO design considerations are essential when implementing a Zero Trust architecture for IoT devices in a campus environment using Cisco ISE and TrustSec?

Accepted Answer

Utilizing Cisco ISE to profile and categorize IoT endpoints.. Profiling and segmentation are the core components of IoT Zero Trust.

Answer

Using static IP addresses for every IoT device to ensure consistency.

Answer

Ensuring all IoT devices are placed in the same VLAN for easier management.

Answer

Disabling 802.1X for all non-PC devices.

Question 8

In a Cisco SD-WAN environment, you need to ensure that branch office traffic destined for SaaS applications is optimized and secured. Which design approach is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Implementing Cisco Umbrella SIG integration on the SD-WAN edge devices for DIA.. Direct Internet Access (DIA) with Cisco Umbrella integration ensures traffic is secured at the edge without hair-pinning to a DC.

Answer

Using static routing to bypass all security policies for trusted SaaS domains.

Answer

Deploying a dedicated physical firewall at every branch office.

Answer

Hair-pinning all SaaS traffic back to the corporate headend for inspection.

Question 9

A security architect is designing a Cisco Secure Firewall deployment for a multi-cloud environment. Which design strategy ensures consistent security policy enforcement across AWS and Azure instances?

Accepted Answer

Utilize a centralized FMC to manage virtual Secure Firewalls across all cloud environments.. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) acts as the central management plane to push uniform policies across heterogeneous cloud environments.

Answer

Deploy separate FMC instances in each cloud provider for localized management.

Answer

Use individual Firewall Device Managers (FDM) for every instance.

Answer

Implement cloud-native security groups exclusively to bypass firewall bottlenecks.

Question 10

When designing a secure remote access solution for a hybrid workforce, which Cisco AnyConnect feature should be prioritized to reduce the attack surface by verifying the posture of the device before granting access?

Accepted Answer

AnyConnect Posture Module.. HostScan or the AnyConnect Posture module allows for pre-connection assessment.

Answer

IKEv2 protocol support.

Answer

Split-tunneling.

Answer

Dynamic Access Policies (DAP).

Question 11

Which TWO factors must be considered when designing a Secure Remote Access VPN architecture for a hybrid workforce using Cisco AnyConnect?

Accepted Answer

Integration with Duo Security for multi-factor authentication.. The number of concurrent sessions and the integration with MFA are critical for scaling and security.

Answer

Physical port density on the headend device.

Answer

The use of DTLS for latency-sensitive traffic.

Answer

Configuring internal DNS servers for split-tunneling.

Question 12

A security architect is designing a Cisco Secure Firewall deployment for a multi-cloud environment. Which design approach provides the most consistent security policy enforcement across AWS and Azure?

Accepted Answer

Utilize Cisco Defense Orchestrator for centralized policy management.. Cisco Defense Orchestrator (CDO) provides a unified management plane to maintain consistent policies across different cloud infrastructures.

Answer

Deploy individual local managers for each cloud provider.

Answer

Rely on native cloud-native security groups only.

Answer

Implement separate FTD instances with unique local access control lists.

Question 13

For a high-availability firewall architecture, which design element is critical when utilizing a routed-mode configuration in a data center?

Accepted Answer

Utilizing a dedicated stateful failover link between firewalls.. Stateful failover ensures that session information is synchronized, preventing connection drops during a device swap.

Answer

Configuring HSRP between firewall interfaces.

Answer

Implementing OSPF equal-cost multi-path (ECMP) for load balancing.

Answer

Using a virtual MAC address per interface.

Question 14

When selecting a security approach for email threats, which Cisco technology provides automated sandboxing to protect against zero-day phishing?

Accepted Answer

Cisco Secure Malware Analytics.. Cisco Secure Email (formerly ESA) integrates with Secure Malware Analytics (formerly Threat Grid) for sandboxing.

Answer

Cisco Duo MFA.

Answer

Cisco Umbrella DNS layer security.

Answer

Cisco Secure Endpoint protection.

Question 15

Which design principle is essential when configuring Cisco Secure Firewall for SaaS application visibility?

Accepted Answer

Enable Application Filtering policies using the cloud-delivered feed.. Cloud-native application visibility is enabled by the Cisco Secure Firewall's integration with the Cisco Talos Intelligence service for application classification.

Answer

Disable SSL decryption for all SaaS traffic to improve performance.

Answer

Install local agents on every endpoint.

Answer

Configure static IP-based rules for every SaaS provider.

Question 16

A company requires a control plane security design for their campus network. Which feature prevents unauthorized devices from claiming to be the default gateway?

Accepted Answer

Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI).. DHCP Snooping and Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) are primary defenses against man-in-the-middle attacks that target the control plane.

Answer

Port Security.

Answer

IP Source Guard.

Answer

Control Plane Policing (CoPP).

Question 17

When designing a VPN solution for a hybrid workforce, which protocol provides the most robust support for DTLS to minimize latency for real-time traffic?

Accepted Answer

Cisco Secure Client with DTLS enabled.. AnyConnect (Cisco Secure Client) utilizes DTLS to prioritize latency-sensitive traffic over the standard TLS tunnel.

Answer

SSL VPN Clientless portal.

Answer

L2TP/IPsec.

Answer

IPsec IKEv1.

Question 18

You are designing an IoT security strategy for a manufacturing site. Which approach best isolates unmanaged IoT devices from the enterprise network?

Accepted Answer

Implement Cisco ISE with SGT-based micro-segmentation.. Using Cisco ISE to enforce dynamic segmentation via TrustSec (SGTs) allows for granular isolation of IoT devices.

Answer

Deploy a transparent firewall in bridge mode at the distribution layer.

Answer

Enable PortFast on all IoT switch ports.

Answer

Assign static VLANs to all IoT ports on access switches.

Question 19

In a multi-cloud design, which component is used to connect remote offices directly to the cloud provider while maintaining Cisco-level security?

Accepted Answer

Cisco SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp.. Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela) provides secure, optimized connectivity to cloud environments via Cloud OnRamp.

Answer

Local NAT translation.

Answer

Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS).

Answer

Standard site-to-site IPsec tunnel.

Question 20

Which Cisco solution provides DNS-layer security to prevent users from connecting to malicious domains?

Accepted Answer

Cisco Umbrella.. Cisco Umbrella uses DNS filtering to block requests to known malicious domains at the resolution layer.

Answer

Cisco Stealthwatch.

Answer

Cisco ASA Firewall.

Answer

Cisco Secure Endpoint.