CCNA Risk Management Questions

The ISSEP must report the vulnerability to the system owner and the authorization official, then document it in the POA&M to track its remediation while managing the risk in the interim.

Securing the supply chain requires verifying code, managing dependencies, and ensuring that the build environment itself is hardened against tampering.

Homomorphic encryption allows computation on encrypted data, but it is extremely resource-intensive, resulting in significant latency and performance overhead compared to processing unencrypted data.

In serverless, the provider manages the underlying operating system and runtime patches, shifting the responsibility of patch management from the user to the provider, though the user still remains responsible for their code and configuration.

Firmware vulnerabilities involving the TPM and secure boot chain represent a fundamental compromise of the root of trust. Remediation must prioritize the update of the firmware to restore the integrity of the secure boot sequence.

Network segmentation, particularly by isolating critical control devices from general-purpose administrative workstations, is a foundational risk mitigation strategy in ICS security.

The RMF requires that security controls be implemented and documented. Identifying a missing baseline during the assessment phase necessitates updating the System Security Plan (SSP) and verifying the implementation of baseline controls before proceeding to the 'Authorize' step.

Basic authentication sends credentials in cleartext; HTTP does not provide encryption. The risk is credential interception, and it must be mitigated by upgrading to HTTPS (TLS).

MitM protection requires ensuring that the communication channel is encrypted (TLS), that the identity of the communicating parties is verified (mutual authentication), and that the certificate chain is trusted.

Micro-segmentation uses policies to restrict communication between workloads, typically at the application or service level. Deny-all by default policies between containers would prevent reconnaissance.

Quantitative risk analysis requires numerical data, specifically the value of the asset (Single Loss Expectancy) and the likelihood of the event (Annualized Rate of Occurrence).

ConMon requires both the technical capability to detect changes/vulnerabilities and the organizational capability to respond to those findings in a timely manner.

Differential privacy adds statistical noise to the training data or the model's output, preventing the reconstruction of individual training samples while maintaining the model's overall utility.

Threat modeling requires understanding the system architecture (data flow diagrams) and identifying potential threats using established methodologies like STRIDE to systematically address risks.

ICS security focuses on availability and integrity, requiring physical segmentation, secure remote access, and protecting the PLC/DCS controllers themselves from direct interference.

Following a significant change, a re-assessment (or targeted assessment) is required to ensure that the security controls remain effective and that new vulnerabilities have not been introduced.

The ALE is calculated by multiplying the SLE by the ARO (100,000 * 0.5 = 50,000).

When protocol-specific inspection is impossible, network segmentation and the implementation of unidirectional security gateways (data diodes) provide the highest assurance of protecting critical control systems from external threat vectors.

Residual risk must be formally addressed by either the risk owner accepting it (based on analysis) or transferring it (e.g., insurance), as controls rarely eliminate all risk.

Supply chain integrity is compromised when the provenance of hardware or software cannot be verified, as this allows for the insertion of hardware Trojans or backdoors that bypass traditional security controls.

HSM administration requires strict separation of duties, secure key ceremony procedures, and robust auditing to prevent insider threats from accessing the root keys.

FIPS 140-3 certification is specific to the cryptographic modules used within the system. The ISSEP must ensure that all cryptographic operations are handled by modules validated to this standard.

Data residency requirements often dictate that data must remain within specific geographic boundaries to comply with legal/regulatory obligations (e.g., GDPR, local laws), making it a significant compliance risk.

The System Requirements Specification (SRS) or the System Security Plan (SSP) (if in progress) captures the functional and non-functional requirements, including those for security, providing the foundation for the assessment.

The System Security Plan (SSP) is the core document that details the security control selection, tailoring, and implementation status for a system under the RMF.

Concept drift occurs when the statistical properties of the target variable change over time, rendering the model inaccurate. It must be managed through continuous monitoring and periodic model retraining.

Side-channel attacks often rely on power consumption or timing differences during cryptographic operations. Implementing constant-time algorithms and power-smoothing circuits within the HSM environment helps mask these signals.

Secrets management relies on strong access control, secure delivery, and the ability to rotate credentials to limit the window of opportunity for attackers.

The primary objective is to identify and document the risks to a specific system, helping stakeholders make informed decisions about risk acceptance and mitigation.

Fault injection (like voltage or clock glitching) targets the physical hardware during verification. Hardening the hardware against these physical disturbances (e.g., adding sensors to detect voltage spikes) is the appropriate defense.

The SSP defines the target security posture, while the POA&M tracks the remediation of items that fall short of that target (gaps). They work together to represent the security status of the system.

A centralized database creates a 'single point of failure' (or 'single point of compromise'), where an attacker gaining access to the database potentially compromises all stored PII at once.

Tailoring must be justified and documented. Pitfalls include excessive tailoring (reducing security too much) or lack of justification, which both undermine the compliance posture.

A 'fail-open' configuration means that when a security control (MFA) is unavailable, the system grants access anyway, effectively bypassing the security requirement and creating a critical vulnerability.

In engineering, when a component is inherently vulnerable, compensating controls like API gateways that perform authentication and authorization can effectively mitigate the risk without modifying the legacy component.

The 'noisy neighbor' or cross-tenant data leakage risk is inherent to multi-tenant architectures where shared hardware/hypervisor resources could potentially be exploited to access data from another tenant.

In the absence of dedicated hardware, an obfuscated key store with a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) or encrypted key wrapping utilizing a unique hardware-derived ID is the most secure software-centric approach.

Common container security issues include running as root, insecure communication between containers, and exposing management interfaces unnecessarily.

Hardcoded keys are easily extractable via reverse engineering the app binary, leading to unauthorized use of the third-party services and potential compromise of the developer's account.