AI0-001 AI Security, Ethics and Governance Practice Question
Which TWO of the following are effective techniques to detect data poisoning attacks in a training dataset?
⚠ Common exam trap
CompTIA often tests the distinction between techniques that detect poisoning (like cross-validation and outlier detection) versus techniques that only mitigate or preprocess data, leading candidates to mistakenly select normalization or dimensionality reduction as detection methods.
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
✓
Performing cross-validation to check for inconsistent model performance.
Cross-validation can reveal data poisoning by exposing inconsistent model performance across folds. If a poisoned subset causes the model to perform well on certain folds but poorly on others, it indicates that the training data may have been tampered with, as the model's behavior becomes unstable due to maliciously injected samples.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Performing cross-validation to check for inconsistent model performance.
Why this is correct
Poisoned data often causes model performance to vary significantly across folds.
- ✗
Normalizing features to zero mean and unit variance.
Why it's wrong here
Normalization does not identify malicious data; it only transforms values.
- ✗
Using ensemble methods like random forest for training.
Why it's wrong here
Ensembles improve robustness but are not a detection technique.
- ✗
Applying PCA to reduce dimensionality.
Why it's wrong here
PCA can obscure patterns of poisoning rather than reveal them.
- ✓
Statistical outlier detection on feature distributions.
Why this is correct
Poisoned samples often have unusual feature values that can be detected as outliers.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AI0-001 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA 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 AI0-001 exam.