SSCP Network and Communications Security — 10 Questions

Question 1

Which protocol and port combination is commonly used for secure remote administration of a server?

Accepted Answer

SSH on TCP 22. SSH operates on TCP port 22 and provides encrypted remote administration, while Telnet (port 23) is unencrypted. HTTPS (443) is for web traffic, and RDP (3389) is for remote desktop but not primarily for command-line administration.

Answer

HTTPS on TCP 443

Answer

Telnet on TCP 23

Answer

RDP on TCP 3389

Question 2

A security analyst notices an unusual number of ARP replies on the network where one MAC address is claiming to be multiple IP addresses. Which type of attack is most likely occurring?

Accepted Answer

ARP spoofing. ARP spoofing involves sending forged ARP replies to associate the attacker's MAC with the victim's IP, enabling man-in-the-middle attacks at Layer 2.

Answer

SYN flood

Answer

DNS poisoning

Answer

DHCP starvation

Question 3

A company wants to deploy a firewall that can track the state of active connections and make decisions based on the context of traffic flows. Which firewall type should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Stateful firewall. Stateful firewalls maintain a state table and track the state of connections, allowing them to make more intelligent filtering decisions compared to stateless packet filters.

Answer

Stateless packet filter

Answer

Application proxy firewall

Answer

Next-generation firewall

Question 4

During a wireless penetration test, an attacker captures the four-way handshake of a WPA2-PSK network and attempts to crack the passphrase offline. Which attack is the attacker likely using?

Accepted Answer

Evil twin attack. In the given scenario, the attacker captures the four-way handshake of a WPA2-PSK network. The most likely method to capture such a handshake is an evil twin attack, where the attacker sets up a rogue access point impersonating a legitimate network. Once a client connects to the rogue AP, the attacker captures the handshake and can then attempt to crack the passphrase offline using dictionary or brute-force attacks.

Answer

WPS PIN attack

Answer

KRACK attack

Answer

PMKID attack

Question 5

Which protocol is used for secure web browsing and operates on TCP port 443?

Accepted Answer

HTTPS. HTTPS (HTTP over TLS) uses TCP port 443 and provides encrypted communication for websites.

Answer

HTTP

Answer

SSH

Answer

FTP

Question 6

An organization wants to ensure that only authorized devices can connect to the corporate wired network. Which technology should they implement to enforce this?

Accepted Answer

Network Access Control (NAC) with 802.1X. Network Access Control (NAC) with 802.1X authenticates devices before granting network access, enforcing compliance and authorization.

Answer

VLAN segmentation

Answer

MAC address filtering

Answer

Firewall rules

Question 7

A network administrator wants to block all inbound traffic except for web and email services. Which firewall rule configuration would achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Default-deny with allow rules for HTTP, HTTPS, and SMTP. A default-deny rule blocks all traffic by default, and then explicit allow rules for specific services (HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP) permit desired inbound traffic.

Answer

Stateful inspection without default policy

Answer

Stateless packet filtering with a rule per service

Answer

Default-allow with deny rules for unwanted services

Question 8

Which of the following is a characteristic of TLS 1.3 that improves security over previous versions?

Accepted Answer

Mandatory forward secrecy. TLS 1.3 mandates forward secrecy by requiring ephemeral Diffie-Hellman key exchange, ensuring that session keys cannot be derived if the server's private key is compromised later.

Answer

Reduced cipher suite options including CBC mode

Answer

Use of RC4 cipher

Answer

Support for static RSA key exchange

Question 9

Which attack sends a flood of forged ICMP echo requests to a network's broadcast address to overwhelm a target?

Accepted Answer

Smurf attack. A Smurf attack sends ICMP echo requests with the victim's spoofed source IP to the broadcast address, causing all hosts to reply to the victim, amplifying traffic.

Answer

Ping of death

Answer

SYN flood

Answer

DNS amplification

Question 10

A company is deploying a VPN for remote employees. They require strong encryption and authentication, and the solution must be compatible with native OS clients without additional software. Which VPN protocol is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

IPsec with IKEv2. IKEv2 with IPsec is widely supported natively on major operating systems, provides strong security, and is suitable for remote access VPNs.

Answer

PPTP

Answer

SSL VPN with proprietary client

Answer

L2TP/IPsec with pre-shared keys