200-201 Security Monitoring Practice Question
An analyst needs to establish a normal traffic pattern baseline for the network. Which activity is most appropriate for this purpose?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the misconception that baselines can be derived from attack traffic or external averages, but the key is that a baseline must be network-specific and captured during normal operations to serve as a valid reference for anomaly detection.
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
✓
Capture traffic over a period of normal operation, such as a week
Establishing a baseline requires capturing traffic during a period of normal operation, typically over a week, to account for daily and weekly usage patterns. This baseline represents the typical volume, protocol mix, and flow characteristics, enabling the analyst to later detect deviations that may indicate security incidents. Using a representative sample from normal conditions is the foundational step in anomaly-based monitoring.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Capture traffic during a known attack to identify anomalies
Why it's wrong here
Attack traffic captures malicious patterns, not the legitimate behavioural range a baseline must describe. Known-attack captures belong in signature tuning or post-incident forensics; a baseline requires sampling ordinary operation across representative periods, excluding the anomalies you later hope to detect.
- ✗
Use only firewall logs as they are the most reliable
Why it's wrong here
Firewall logs record only permitted and denied connection metadata, omitting protocol behaviour, payload and internal east-west flows. Log-only analysis fits rule auditing or blocked-connection troubleshooting; a baseline needs full packet or flow telemetry from the monitored segment.
- ✗
Average traffic from multiple different organizations
Why it's wrong here
Averaging traffic across unrelated organisations mixes dissimilar topologies, services and user populations, producing a composite that matches none of them. Multi-tenant aggregation suits shared-infrastructure capacity planning, not establishing what normal looks like for one specific monitored network.
- ✓
Capture traffic over a period of normal operation, such as a week
Why this is correct
Capturing traffic across a representative period such as a week captures diurnal and weekly usage variation, producing a baseline that reflects genuine normal operation. Short captures miss periodic activity, so this duration satisfies the requirement for a reliable traffic-pattern baseline.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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