SY0-701 General Security Concepts Practice Question
A manager wants files on a stolen laptop to remain unreadable even if the drive is removed and connected to another computer. Which control should be implemented?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse file compression with encryption, thinking that compressing files makes them unreadable, but compression is a reversible encoding process with no security properties.
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
✓
Full-disk encryption
Full-disk encryption (FDE) encrypts the entire storage volume, including the operating system, applications, and all user data. When the drive is removed and connected to another computer, the encrypted data remains inaccessible without the correct decryption key or passphrase, ensuring files stay unreadable. This directly addresses the manager's requirement for data confidentiality even after physical theft.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
File compression
Why it's wrong here
Compression (e.g., ZIP, LZ77) encodes redundant data into a more compact form, but the transformation is a publicly documented algorithm with no secret key. Anyone with standard extraction tools can reverse it and read the original bytes, so it offers zero confidentiality. If the laptop is stolen, a compressed file is just as readable as a plain one.
- ✓
Full-disk encryption
Why this is correct
Full-disk encryption protects data stored on the laptop by making the contents unreadable without the proper key or passphrase. If the drive is removed and attached to another computer, the data still remains protected because it is encrypted at rest. This is a common and effective control for portable devices that may be lost or stolen.
- ✗
Packet filtering
Why it's wrong here
Packet filtering is a firewall feature that inspects source/destination IP addresses, ports, and protocol flags in transit network traffic to enforce a policy. When a laptop is stolen, the attacker typically bypasses the network stack entirely by removing the hard drive and examining it on another machine, so there is no traffic to filter and no cryptographic protection on the stored data. It safeguards the network perimeter, not files at rest.
- ✗
Digital signing
Why it's wrong here
Digital signing applies a private key to a hash of the file to create a signature that anyone can verify with the corresponding public key, proving that the file has not been modified and identifying its signer. The signature is metadata appended to, or stored alongside, the original plaintext; it never encrypts or masks the file's content. Thus a signed document on a stolen laptop is fully readable.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Symmetric vs Asymmetric Encryption
Key term
Confidentiality
Confidentiality means keeping sensitive information secret and accessible only to authorized people or systems.
Key term
Encryption
Encryption is the process of converting readable data into a secret code to prevent unauthorized access.
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every SY0-701 question from scratch — 1,013 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SY0-701 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 SY0-701 exam.