SY0-701 Security Program Management and Oversight Practice Test 9 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A department finished using paper forms that contain customer information, and the retention period has expired. What is the best next step?

Accepted Answer

Dispose of them using approved secure destruction methods. Option B is correct because once the retention period has expired, the organization must securely destroy the paper forms to prevent unauthorized access to customer information. Approved secure destruction methods for paper records include cross-cut shredding, incineration, or pulping, which render the data irrecoverable and comply with data protection regulations like GDPR or HIPAA.

Answer

Store them indefinitely in a cabinet for future reference

Answer

Send them to another team without checking the retention schedule

Answer

Scan them to personal email so the department can keep a copy

Question 2

A vendor says a patch for a critical flaw in a public-facing application will not be available for 30 days, but the service must stay online. What is the best short-term risk treatment?

Accepted Answer

Implement compensating controls, such as tighter filtering and temporary restrictions, until the patch is released.. Option D is correct because when a critical patch is unavailable, the best short-term risk treatment is to implement compensating controls that reduce the likelihood or impact of exploitation. For a public-facing application, this could include deploying a web application firewall (WAF) with tighter rule sets, rate limiting, IP allowlisting, or temporarily disabling non-essential functionality. These controls provide a defense-in-depth layer until the vendor releases the patch, keeping the service online while reducing risk.

Answer

Accept the risk without making any changes because the patch is not available yet.

Answer

Avoid the risk by permanently shutting down the application.

Answer

Transfer the risk to an insurance policy and wait for the patch.

Question 3

A records manager finds paper onboarding forms and scanned copies that contain government ID numbers. The retention period has expired, no legal hold exists, and the forms are no longer needed. Which three actions should occur before disposal? Select three.

Accepted Answer

Verify the retention schedule and confirm that no legal hold or exception applies.. Option A is correct because before any disposal, the records manager must verify the retention schedule and confirm that no legal hold or exception applies. This ensures compliance with organizational policy and legal requirements, preventing premature destruction of records that may still be needed for litigation or audit purposes.

Answer

Move the forms to an unsecured archive so they can be retrieved later if needed.

Answer

Keep personal copies because auditors might ask informally later.

Question 4

A help desk technician receives a call from someone claiming to be a contractor whose MFA device was lost during travel. The caller knows the company org chart and asks for a new device enrollment. Which three responses are appropriate? Select three.

Accepted Answer

Refuse to bypass identity verification requirements.. Option A is correct because bypassing identity verification for MFA device enrollment would undermine the security that MFA provides. The caller's knowledge of the org chart does not constitute proof of identity; social engineering attacks often leverage such information. Refusing to bypass verification ensures that only authorized users can enroll new MFA tokens, maintaining the integrity of the authentication process.

Answer

Read the current MFA reset code over the phone to speed up recovery.

Answer

Enroll the new device immediately because the caller knows company names and roles.

Question 5

An employee receives an email that says, 'This is the CEO. Buy gift cards now and reply with the codes before the meeting starts.' What should the employee do?

Accepted Answer

Verify the request through an approved channel and report the message. Option B is correct because the email exhibits classic social engineering indicators—spoofed authority, urgency, and a request for non-standard financial transactions (gift cards). The employee must verify the request through an approved communication channel (e.g., a phone call to the CEO's known number) and report the message to the security team for incident response. This aligns with security policy for phishing and business email compromise (BEC) prevention, as per NIST SP 800-61 and organizational security awareness training.

Answer

Reply with the codes because the request appears urgent

Answer

Forward the email to coworkers so they can watch for similar messages

Answer

Delete the email and ignore it without telling anyone

Question 6

HR stores scanned government IDs collected during onboarding. The retention policy says the files may be kept for 90 days after employment verification, then destroyed. What should security require?

Accepted Answer

Store the files in an encrypted repository and securely dispose of them when retention expires. Option C is correct because it aligns with the principle of data minimization and the retention policy: storing scanned government IDs in an encrypted repository ensures confidentiality and integrity, while secure disposal after the 90-day retention period meets compliance requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) and reduces risk of data breaches. Security must enforce both protection during storage and timely destruction to prevent unauthorized access or legal liability.

Answer

Keep the files indefinitely in case a future audit asks for them

Answer

Move the files to a shared folder so more HR staff can access them

Answer

Print the scanned IDs and place them in a locked cabinet instead of keeping digital copies

Question 7

Match each excerpt from a small enterprise security program to the correct governance artifact.

Question 8

A manufacturer identifies a rare but very costly ransomware risk. Executives decide not to eliminate the activity, but to purchase cyber insurance and formally acknowledge the remaining exposure. Which risk treatment is being used?

Accepted Answer

Transfer. The correct answer is B (Transfer) because purchasing cyber insurance shifts the financial risk of the ransomware incident to the insurer. The executives formally acknowledge the remaining exposure, which confirms they are not simply accepting the risk but are actively transferring the monetary impact through a contractual agreement.

Answer

Avoidance

Answer

Mitigation

Answer

Acceptance

Question 9

A Linux operations team is building a new production gold image for database servers. Security requires every build to disable password-based SSH, enable audit logging, use the company NTP servers, and remove the desktop package set. The admins need a document that defines these exact required settings and allows exceptions only through formal approval. Which artifact should be used?

Accepted Answer

Baseline. A baseline defines the minimum security configuration that must be applied to all systems, such as disabling password-based SSH, enabling audit logging, using specific NTP servers, and removing unnecessary packages. It is the correct artifact because it specifies required settings and allows exceptions only through formal approval, which aligns with the scenario's need for a mandatory configuration standard. Policies are high-level statements of intent, guidelines are recommendations, and procedures are step-by-step instructions, none of which enforce mandatory settings with exception control.

Answer

Policy

Answer

Guideline

Answer

Procedure

Question 10

A business unit is worried about the financial impact of a rare but severe data center outage. After reviewing the risk register, leadership decides to purchase cyber insurance and document the remaining exposure rather than redesign the entire platform. Which risk treatment is this?

Accepted Answer

Risk transfer. The correct answer is A (Risk transfer) because purchasing cyber insurance transfers the financial risk of a data center outage to an insurance provider. The business unit is not avoiding the risk by redesigning the platform, nor are they mitigating it through technical controls; they are simply documenting the residual exposure after transferring the monetary impact. This aligns with the risk treatment strategy of shifting the burden of loss to a third party.

Answer

Risk avoidance

Answer

Risk mitigation

Answer

Risk acceptance

Question 11

Leadership is deciding between two security controls for a customer portal outage risk. Finance wants to compare the options in dollars, using expected loss, not just a high/medium/low rating. Which approach should the analyst use?

Accepted Answer

Quantitative risk analysis, because it expresses likelihood and impact in monetary terms.. Quantitative risk analysis (A) is correct because it assigns monetary values to both the likelihood and impact of a risk, enabling a direct dollar-based comparison of expected loss. The Finance team's requirement for a dollar comparison rules out qualitative ratings, making quantitative analysis the only approach that meets their needs.

Answer

Qualitative risk analysis, because it uses categories like critical, medium, and low.

Answer

Business impact analysis, because it identifies which business processes are important.

Answer

Risk avoidance, because eliminating the activity removes the threat completely.

Question 12

A support team wants to export customer tickets into a test analytics environment so developers can search real examples while minimizing privacy exposure. The exported data includes names, email addresses, and account IDs that are not needed for the test. What is the best first step?

Accepted Answer

Remove or tokenize unneeded personal identifiers before export. Option B is correct because data minimization is a core privacy principle: before exporting data to a test environment, any personally identifiable information (PII) not required for the analytics task should be removed or tokenized. This reduces the attack surface and ensures compliance with privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) without sacrificing the utility of the real customer ticket examples.

Answer

Export the full dataset and restrict access with a shared password

Answer

Keep the data unchanged because the test environment is internal

Answer

Store the export indefinitely because development data is exempt from retention rules

Question 13

A business owner asks the security team to compare the cost of two controls for a legacy application in dollar terms. The team estimates the annual chance of a breach, the potential loss per event, and the expected yearly loss after each control is applied. Which risk analysis approach is being used?

Accepted Answer

Quantitative risk analysis. The question describes a risk analysis that uses dollar values for the annual chance of a breach, potential loss per event, and expected yearly loss after controls are applied. This is the hallmark of quantitative risk analysis, which assigns monetary or numerical values to risk components (e.g., ALE = SLE × ARO) to compare control costs in objective financial terms. The scenario explicitly asks for a cost comparison in dollar terms, which only a quantitative approach can provide.

Answer

Qualitative risk analysis

Answer

Business impact analysis

Answer

Risk acceptance

Question 14

A help desk manager wants sample customer tickets copied into a test environment so developers can reproduce support issues. The tickets include names, phone numbers, and account details. Which action best reduces privacy exposure while still supporting testing?

Accepted Answer

Mask or tokenize the personal data and restrict access to approved testers only.. Option B is correct because masking or tokenizing personal data (e.g., replacing names with pseudonyms, scrambling phone numbers) ensures that developers can work with realistic data structures without exposing personally identifiable information (PII). Restricting access to approved testers further enforces the principle of least privilege, which is a core security control for test environments. This approach balances the need for functional testing with compliance requirements like GDPR or HIPAA.

Answer

Export the full tickets because the developers need realistic records.

Answer

Copy the tickets to a shared cloud drive and protect it with a simple password.

Answer

Remove the account numbers only and leave the rest of the ticket untouched.

Question 15

Based on the exhibit, which governance artifact is the security team reviewing?

Accepted Answer

Baseline, because it defines the approved minimum configuration for a system type.. The exhibit shows a list of approved operating systems, software versions, and patches for a specific system type (e.g., Windows 10 22H2 with specific security updates). This is a baseline, which defines the minimum acceptable configuration for a system type. Option C is correct because a baseline establishes a known good state that systems must meet, not just intent (policy), mandatory technical requirements (standard), or step-by-step instructions (procedure).

Answer

Policy, because it describes the organization's overall intent and direction.

Answer

Standard, because it sets mandatory technical requirements for systems.

Answer

Procedure, because it gives step-by-step instructions for completing a task.