CCOA Practice Test 5 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A security operations center (SOC) is implementing network segmentation to protect critical assets. Which TWO of the following are essential components of a secure segmented network design? (Choose two.)

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

Accepted Answer

Using VLANs to logically separate network traffic. Secure network segmentation requires both logical separation and enforcement of access controls. VLANs provide the logical separation, while firewalls between segments enforce policies to restrict traffic. Together, they limit lateral movement and protect critical assets. Flat topologies, endpoint-only protection, and promiscuous mode do not achieve segmentation and may introduce risks.

Answer

Enabling promiscuous mode on all switches to monitor traffic

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Implementing a flat network topology to simplify management

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Relying solely on endpoint antivirus for protection

Question 2

A security analyst reviewing endpoint telemetry observes that a scheduled task named 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdateTaskMachineCore' was modified to point to a PowerShell script in a user's AppData folder. The task runs daily with SYSTEM privileges. Which adversarial tactic does this activity most directly represent?

Accepted Answer

Persistence. Modifying a scheduled task to run a malicious payload with high privileges is a well-known persistence technique. It ensures the adversary's code executes automatically on a schedule, surviving restarts and user logoffs. The other tactics may be incidental, but the defining characteristic is maintaining long-term access, which is the goal of Persistence.

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Execution

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Defense Evasion

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Privilege Escalation

Question 3

You are hardening a web server. Which TWO of the following steps are critical for 'Endpoint Hardening' of the web service itself?

Accepted Answer

Disabling unused modules (e.g., WebDAV, directory listing) in the web server configuration.. Option D is correct because endpoint hardening of a web service requires reducing the attack surface by disabling unnecessary features such as WebDAV, autoindex/directory listing, and other unused modules in the web server configuration (e.g., Apache's LoadModule directives or IIS role services), which eliminates known vectors for information disclosure and exploitation. Option E is correct because default welcome pages, sample scripts, and demo applications (e.g., IIS iisstart.htm or Apache's default index) are well-known fingerprints and often contain vulnerabilities, so removing them is a standard hardening step. Option A is incorrect because changing a wallpaper is cosmetic and has no security impact on the web service. Option B is incorrect because auto-restarting every 10 minutes does not harden the service and could actually cause availability problems. Option C is incorrect because adding RAM is a performance/capacity upgrade, not a security hardening measure.

Answer

Changing the administrator's wallpaper to the company logo.

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Configuring the server to auto-restart every 10 minutes.

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Replacing the server's RAM with larger capacity sticks.

Question 4

You are analyzing a PCAP file and see numerous 'ICMP Echo Request' packets with unusually large payloads. What is this likely indicative of?

Accepted Answer

ICMP tunneling. ICMP tunneling uses the data payload of ICMP packets to encapsulate other protocol traffic, which is a common exfiltration or command-and-control technique.

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DNS spoofing

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Network congestion

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A standard network ping

Question 5

A CCOA analyst is helping to classify assets for a new cybersecurity program. The organization wants to identify which assets are most critical so that protection and monitoring efforts can be prioritized. Which criterion is the MOST appropriate basis for classifying an asset as high criticality?

Accepted Answer

The asset processes or stores regulated customer data and supports a revenue-generating service.. Asset criticality classification should be driven by the business impact of compromise or failure. Assets that process regulated data and directly enable revenue are high criticality because their loss triggers legal, financial, and reputational consequences. This aligns protection and monitoring resources with the organization's most important dependencies and compliance obligations.

Answer

The asset has the highest purchase price in the inventory.

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The asset is managed by the IT team with the largest headcount.

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The asset is the newest model in its category.

Question 6

A security analyst is investigating a suspected beaconing behavior in network traffic logs. The traffic consistently shows small, periodic connections to an external IP. Which statistical analysis method is most effective for identifying this pattern within high-volume PCAP or NetFlow data?

Accepted Answer

Perform a frequency analysis of connection time intervals. Beaconing is characterized by regular, periodic callbacks (e.g., every 60 seconds), so analyzing the distribution of inter-connection time intervals reveals the low-variance periodicity that distinguishes C2 traffic from normal user-driven traffic. Frequency analysis (e.g., via histograms, Fourier transforms, or standard deviation of intervals) surfaces this pattern even in high-volume PCAP/NetFlow data. Bandwidth, port entropy, and byte counts do not capture the temporal regularity that defines beaconing.

Answer

Identify top talkers by total bandwidth consumption

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Filter connections by source port entropy

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Calculate the mean of bytes transferred per session

Question 7

You observe that a specific Windows service is running as 'SYSTEM' but is vulnerable to DLL hijacking. What is the most effective way to harden this service without disabling it?

Accepted Answer

Configure the service folder permissions to restrict write access to the 'Administrators' group only.. Hardening services that run as SYSTEM requires securing the directory permissions so only authorized users can write to the application folder, preventing the loading of malicious DLLs.

Answer

Change the service account to a local 'Guest' account.

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Enable 'Service Isolation' in the Registry using the 'ServiceSidType' key.

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Rename the service executable to a random string.

Question 8

Which THREE of the following are common 'Exfiltration' techniques?

Accepted Answer

Exfiltration over alternative protocol. Exfiltration over alternative protocol (A) is correct because attackers commonly move stolen data out of a network using protocols other than the primary C2 channel, such as DNS, FTP, SMTP, or ICMP, to evade detection and blend with legitimate traffic. Exfiltration over C2 channel (C) is correct because the same command-and-control channel already established for remote access is frequently reused to transfer collected data out of the environment, often encoded or tunneled within the C2 traffic. Exfiltration to cloud storage (E) is correct because adversaries increasingly upload data to legitimate cloud services (e.g., Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive) using APIs or web protocols, which can bypass traditional perimeter controls and appear as normal user activity. Keylogging (B) is not an exfiltration technique but a collection technique, as it captures keystrokes for later theft rather than moving data off the system. File system enumeration (D) is also not exfiltration; it is a discovery technique used to identify files and directories of interest before collection or staging occurs.

Answer

Keylogging

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File system enumeration

Question 9

A financial services firm wants to reduce the likelihood that a former employee can use still-valid credentials to access internal systems after termination. Which administrative control should the security team implement FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Establish a formal offboarding procedure that disables accounts immediately upon termination.. The most direct way to prevent a former employee from using valid credentials is to ensure those credentials are disabled as part of a formal offboarding process. Administrative controls such as documented procedures govern how and when accounts are revoked. Technical measures like PAM, MFA, and segmentation are useful but do not replace timely account deactivation.

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Implement network segmentation to isolate internal systems from remote access.

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Deploy a privileged access management (PAM) solution to vault administrator credentials.

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Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all internal system logins.

Question 10

Which type of log provides the most granular detail regarding local account creation on a Windows Server?

Accepted Answer

Security logs. Windows Security logs (recorded in the Security event log, viewable in Event Viewer under Windows Logs > Security) capture authentication, authorization, and account management events, including local account creation (Event ID 4720), password changes (4723/4724), and group membership changes (4728/4732). These events include the actor, target account, and timestamp, providing the granular audit trail needed for account-creation forensics.

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System logs

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Application logs

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DNS logs