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SSCP Practice Question: A government agency requires all employees to use…
A government agency requires all employees to use smart cards for network access. The security team notices a pattern of failed authentication attempts from a specific building after hours. The attempts occur every night at 2:00 AM for about 10 minutes. The building has a badge reader at the entrance. The team suspects an attacker is trying to brute-force smart card PINs. However, the building's door logs show no entry at that time. Which of the following should the security team do FIRST to identify the risk?
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
✓
Correlate the authentication logs with physical access logs to see if any employee was present
Correlating authentication logs with physical access logs is the best first step because it can confirm whether the failed authentication attempts originated from someone physically inside the building. The door logs show no entry after hours, so if the authentication logs correlate with physical access logs, it might indicate an employee was present (e.g., piggybacking or badge sharing). If there is no correlation, it suggests the attempts are from outside, likely an attacker. This analysis informs further action. Options B, C, and D are premature without this evidence.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Correlate the authentication logs with physical access logs to see if any employee was present
Why this is correct
Identifies whether the attempts are from legitimate users or external attacks.
- ✗
Immediately isolate the building's network segment
Why it's wrong here
May disrupt operations; escalation should be based on evidence.
- ✗
Change all smart card PINs for that building's employees
Why it's wrong here
Disruptive and may not stop the attacker if they are not using valid PINs.
- ✗
Notify law enforcement about a potential cyberattack
Why it's wrong here
Premature without internal investigation.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SSCP practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 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 SSCP exam.