easyMultiple Choice
200-201 Practice Question: A security analyst needs to ensure data integrity
A security analyst needs to ensure data integrity. Which control best achieves this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between confidentiality (encryption) and integrity (hashing), so the trap here is that candidates confuse encryption's ability to hide data with the ability to detect tampering, leading them to select encryption instead of hashing.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Hashing
Hashing is the correct control for ensuring data integrity because it produces a fixed-length digest (e.g., SHA-256) from the original data. Any change to the data, even a single bit, results in a completely different hash value, allowing the analyst to detect tampering or corruption. Unlike encryption, hashing is a one-way function that does not conceal the data but verifies its unchanged state.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Logging
Why it's wrong here
Logging records events after they occur, providing an audit trail for detection and investigation; it cannot prevent or detect modification of data in transit or at rest. Integrity requires cryptographic verification of content. Logging is the right control when the requirement is accountability or forensic reconstruction of who accessed what and when.
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Encryption
Why it's wrong here
Encryption provides confidentiality by making data unreadable without the key; it does not by itself prove the ciphertext was unaltered, since modified ciphertext still decrypts to something. Hashing or digital signatures detect modification. Encryption is the right control when the requirement is protecting data from unauthorised disclosure, not verifying integrity.
- ✗
Access control
Why it's wrong here
Access control restricts who may read or write data, but an authorised user or compromised account can still alter content undetected. It enforces authorisation, not integrity of the data itself. Access control would be the correct answer if the requirement were confidentiality or preventing unauthorised disclosure rather than verifying that data has not been changed.
- ✓
Hashing
Why this is correct
Hashing produces a fixed-length digest from data; any alteration changes the digest, so recomputing and comparing it detects modification. This directly satisfies the integrity requirement by verifying data has not been altered, unlike encryption, which primarily provides confidentiality.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 200-201 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 200-201 exam.