SSCP Cryptography Practice Question
A PKI administrator needs to check the revocation status of a digital certificate without requiring the client to download the entire CRL. Which method is designed for online, real-time certificate status checking?
⚠ Common exam trap
SSCP often tests the difference between OCSP and CRL, and candidates might confuse OCSP stapling as a separate protocol rather than an optimization of OCSP.
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
✓
OCSP
OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) is designed for online, real-time certificate status checking. It allows a client to query an OCSP responder for the revocation status of a specific certificate without downloading the entire CRL.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
OCSP
Why this is correct
OCSP queries a responder for a single certificate's status in real time, returning a signed good, revoked, or unknown response. This avoids the client downloading and parsing the full CRL, directly meeting the stem's online, real-time revocation checking constraint.
- ✗
OCSP stapling
Why it's wrong here
OCSP stapling has the server attach a pre-fetched, signed OCSP response to the TLS handshake, so the client never queries the responder directly; the stem asks for real-time checking by the administrator. Stapling is correct when reducing client-side latency and responder load matters, not for live status retrieval.
- ✗
CRL
Why it's wrong here
A CRL is a periodically published signed list that clients download in full, which the stem explicitly excludes. It is tempting because CRLs are the traditional revocation mechanism and remain valid for offline verification, but they cannot deliver the online, real-time per-certificate status the scenario demands.
- ✗
Certificate transparency
Why it's wrong here
Certificate transparency logs publicly record issued certificates to detect mis-issuance; they carry no revocation status field and cannot answer whether a certificate is currently valid. It is tempting because it is an online PKI service, but it is correct for auditing issuance, not for real-time revocation checking.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every SSCP question from scratch — 971 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 and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISC2 exam blueprint
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.