CND Practice Test 6 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A security analyst is reviewing indicators of compromise (IoCs) shared by an ISAC. The indicators include file hashes and IP addresses. Which open-source framework is specifically designed to structure, store, and share threat intelligence in a machine-readable format?

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

Accepted Answer

MISP. MISP (Malware Information Sharing Platform) is an open-source threat intelligence platform designed to structure, store, and share IoCs in machine-readable formats like STIX and MISP JSON. It supports taxonomies, galaxies, and feeds that let ISACs and SOCs exchange indicators at scale. This makes it the correct answer for structuring and sharing threat intelligence.

Answer

Nmap

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Autopsy

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Wireshark

Question 2

A cloud security team is reviewing GCP VPC configurations. To ensure that virtual machine instances without external IP addresses can still reach Google APIs and services (such as Cloud Storage and BigQuery) securely, which feature must be configured?

Accepted Answer

Private Google Access enabled on the subnet. Private Google Access is a subnet-level setting that allows VM instances with only internal (RFC 1918) IP addresses to reach Google APIs and services (Cloud Storage, BigQuery, Pub/Sub, etc.) using their internal IPs, without requiring a Cloud NAT or external IP. Traffic is routed over Google's internal network to the private.googleapis.com or restricted.googleapis.com VIPs (199.36.153.8/30 or 199.36.153.4/30). This is the canonical GCP control for secure, private API access from internal-only instances.

Answer

GCP Cloud NAT gateway attached to the subnet

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External HTTP(S) Load Balancer

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Dedicated Interconnect with partner peering

Question 3

An enterprise is securing its enterprise wireless infrastructure against unauthorized devices and wireless sniffing. Which THREE administrative and technical controls should be implemented? (Choose THREE)

Accepted Answer

Implementing IEEE 802.11w (Protected Management Frames). Option C is correct because IEEE 802.11w Protected Management Frames cryptographically protects management frames such as deauthentication and disassociation, preventing wireless sniffing-based denial-of-service and spoofing attacks against the WLAN. Option D is correct because a WIPS sensor network continuously monitors the RF spectrum to detect and automatically contain rogue APs, evil twins, and unauthorized client devices, directly addressing the unauthorized-device requirement. Option E is correct because 802.1X with a secure RADIUS server and Enterprise PKI enforces certificate-based mutual authentication, ensuring only authorized devices and users can associate and preventing credential theft or rogue supplicant access. Option A is not appropriate because WEP is cryptographically broken and provides no meaningful isolation or protection, and Option B is not appropriate because hidden SSIDs are trivially discovered by sniffers and offer no real security, so neither belongs in a hardened enterprise design.

Answer

Relying on legacy WEP shared keys for guest network isolation

Answer

Configuring hidden SSIDs as the primary security defense

Question 4

An organization wants to protect its internal network against unauthorized DHCP servers (DHCP spoofing and rogue DHCP starvation attacks). Which switch security feature should be enabled on all untrusted access switch ports?

Accepted Answer

Enable DHCP Snooping globally and configure untrusted user access ports as untrusted.. DHCP Snooping is the switch security feature designed to prevent rogue DHCP servers and DHCP starvation attacks. By enabling it globally and configuring user access ports as untrusted, the switch only allows DHCP server responses (OFFER, ACK) from trusted ports (e.g., uplinks to legitimate DHCP servers), blocking unauthorized DHCP servers.

Answer

Activate IP Source Guard with static binding entries on all edge switch ports.

Answer

Configure Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) on all trunk ports connecting to core switches.

Answer

Enable Port Security with maximum MAC address limits and restrict violation actions.

Question 5

An enterprise cloud security team is reviewing common cloud security vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that lead to data breaches. Which TWO threats are primary vectors in cloud environments? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Insecure Management APIs lacking proper authentication, rate limiting, and input validation.. Option C is correct because cloud management APIs are the primary control plane for provisioning and configuring resources, so APIs lacking strong authentication, rate limiting, and input validation are directly exploitable for unauthorized access, resource hijacking, and data exfiltration. Option E is correct because overly permissive IAM policies that grant excessive administrative privileges violate least privilege and are a leading cause of cloud data breaches, allowing compromised credentials or roles to escalate access across accounts and services. The unmarked options do not belong: A and D describe physical attacks against hypervisor memory or data center hardware, which are largely mitigated by cloud provider physical controls and are not primary cloud threat vectors for customers, while B targets local endpoint BIOS firmware and is an endpoint-level rather than cloud-specific vector.

Answer

Direct physical bus-sniffing attacks against hypervisor memory modules on multi-tenant hosts.

Answer

BIOS firmware flashing attacks against local endpoint motherboard EEPROMs.

Answer

Physical access tampering of rack-mounted server hardware within third-party data center cages.

Question 6

An Azure cloud administrator needs to secure communication channels between on-premises datacenters and Azure Virtual Networks. Which TWO connectivity methods provide encrypted, secure transit over public or private connections? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Azure ExpressRoute with MACsec or configured IPsec tunnels. Option B is correct because Azure ExpressRoute can provide private, dedicated connectivity from on-premises datacenters to Azure Virtual Networks, and it can be secured with MACsec at the ExpressRoute Direct link layer or with IPsec tunnels over the ExpressRoute private peering for end-to-end encryption. Option E is correct because an Azure Site-to-Site VPN Gateway establishes an IPsec/IKE-encrypted tunnel over the public internet between on-premises VPN devices and the Azure VPN gateway, ensuring secure transit for cross-premises traffic. Option A is not appropriate because standard unencrypted public IP bindings expose VM traffic without providing an encrypted transit channel. Option C is not appropriate because a standard Azure Load Balancer without TLS offloading does not encrypt traffic between on-premises datacenters and Azure Virtual Networks. Option D is not appropriate because Azure Virtual Network Peering connects virtual networks but does not by itself provide encrypted transit from on-premises datacenters to Azure.

Answer

Standard unencrypted public IP bindings on Azure VMs

Answer

Standard Azure Load Balancer without TLS offloading

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Unencrypted Azure Virtual Network Peering

Question 7

An enterprise security architect is integrating the Cyber Kill Chain model into their SIEM alerting logic. An alert fires when an attacker attempts to establish command and control (C2) over DNS tunneling. According to Lockheed Martin's Cyber Kill Chain, which phase does this represent?

Accepted Answer

Command and Control. In the Cyber Kill Chain, the Command and Control (C2) phase involves the attacker establishing a communication channel with the compromised system to control it remotely. DNS tunneling is a common method for C2, so this alert represents the Command and Control phase.

Answer

Exploitation

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Actions on Objectives

Answer

Delivery

Question 8

An enterprise network uses VLANs to separate departments. Users in the Marketing VLAN need to access a printer located in the Sales VLAN. Which network device is strictly required to route traffic between these two distinct VLANs?

Accepted Answer

Layer 3 router or multilayer switch. VLANs are logically separate Layer 2 broadcast domains, so traffic between the Marketing VLAN and the Sales VLAN cannot be switched at Layer 2 — it must be routed. A Layer 3 router or multilayer switch performs inter-VLAN routing by terminating each VLAN's SVI (or subinterface) and forwarding packets between the two IP subnets. This is the only device class in the options that operates at Layer 3 and can make forwarding decisions based on IP addressing.

Answer

Layer 2 unmanaged switch

Answer

Hub

Answer

Wireless range extender

Question 9

A security administrator is hardening Linux servers against local privilege escalation and unauthorized access. Which TWO of the following configurations should be implemented? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Setting a restrictive default umask (such as 027) in shell profiles. Option B is correct because setting a restrictive default umask such as 027 in shell profiles (e.g., /etc/profile or /etc/bashrc) ensures newly created files are not world-readable or group-writable, reducing exposure of sensitive data and limiting opportunities for local attackers to tamper with files. Option C is correct because configuring PermitRootLogin no in /etc/ssh/sshd_config prevents direct SSH logins as root, forcing administrators to authenticate as unprivileged users and then escalate via sudo or su, which strengthens accountability and blocks a common brute-force path to full system compromise. The unmarked options do not belong: disabling SELinux or AppArmor (A) removes mandatory access control enforcement and weakens containment of compromised processes, enabling password authentication with zero minimum length in PAM (D) permits weak or empty passwords that are trivially guessed or brute-forced, and mounting all filesystems read-write with suid privileges (E) increases the attack surface by allowing setuid binaries to execute and by permitting modification of system files.

Answer

Disabling SELinux or AppArmor enforcement

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Enabling password authentication with zero minimum length in PAM

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Mounting all filesystems with read-write and suid privileges

Question 10

An administrator needs to secure SNMP traffic on enterprise network switches so that management queries and responses are both encrypted and authenticated. Which version of SNMP must be configured?

Accepted Answer

SNMPv3. SNMPv3 is the only version that provides both encryption (via DES, 3DES, AES) and authentication (via MD5, SHA). It introduces the User-based Security Model (USM) to secure management queries and responses. SNMPv1 and v2c offer only community string authentication, which is sent in cleartext.

Answer

SNMPv2c

Answer

SNMPv1

Answer

SNMPv2u