200-201 Network Intrusion Analysis Practice Question
During alert triage, an analyst determines that an alert fired but no actual attack or malicious activity occurred on the network. How should this alert be classified?
⚠ Common exam trap
200-201 often tests the definitions of true/false positives/negatives. Candidates may confuse false positive with true negative, but the key is that an alert fired (so not negative) and no attack occurred (so false).
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
✓
False positive
A false positive occurs when an alert fires but no actual malicious activity is present. The analyst determined that no attack occurred, so the alert is a false positive. This is a common occurrence in security operations and requires tuning of detection rules to reduce noise.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
True negative
Why it's wrong here
A true negative means no alert fired and no attack occurred, so it cannot describe an alert that did fire. It is tempting because no malicious activity was confirmed, but the fired alert itself contradicts the negative classification.
- ✗
False negative
Why it's wrong here
A false negative means malicious activity occurred but no alert fired, so it cannot describe an alert that did fire. It is tempting because both terms involve missed detections, yet the stem's alert already triggered, making the negative classification inapplicable.
- ✗
True positive
Why it's wrong here
A true positive means the detection correctly identified genuine malicious activity; here no attack occurred, so the alert is a false positive. It tempts because the rule did fire as designed, but classification concerns whether the underlying activity was actually malicious, not whether the logic executed.
- ✓
False positive
Why this is correct
A false positive is an alert that fires without any genuine malicious activity, exactly matching the scenario where triage confirms no attack occurred. The classification axis here is whether the detected event reflects real threat activity: benign or expected behaviour triggering detection logic is a false positive, distinct from a true positive.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Cisco exam blueprint
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.