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SSCP Practice Question: A system administrator receives an alert from the…
A system administrator receives an alert from the SIEM indicating a possible brute-force attack on a server. The logs show 100 failed logins in 2 minutes from a single source. Which of the following is the best immediate action to verify and respond?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse immediate containment (blocking the source IP) with long-term remediation (resetting passwords or disabling accounts), leading them to choose a reactive user-focused action instead of a network-level control to stop the attack in progress.
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
✓
Check firewall logs for the source IP and block it in the firewall
The immediate priority is to stop the ongoing attack by blocking the source IP at the firewall. Checking firewall logs confirms the source IP and ensures the block is applied to the correct address, preventing further authentication attempts. This aligns with the principle of containment before remediation in incident response.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Immediately disable the user account that was targeted most
Why it's wrong here
Disabling the targeted account locks out a legitimate user and, if the brute-force attempt failed, removes no attacker access. The immediate step is verifying whether any login succeeded and blocking the source address. Account disablement is tempting because it stops further attempts against that user, but it ignores the actual source.
- ✓
Check firewall logs for the source IP and block it in the firewall
Why this is correct
Checking firewall logs confirms whether the 100 failed logins actually reached the server from that source, and blocking the IP immediately stops the brute-force attempt. This verifies the SIEM alert against an independent log source while containing the attack, satisfying the stem's requirement to verify and respond.
- ✗
Reset all user passwords and enable multi-factor authentication
Why it's wrong here
Resetting every password and enrolling multi-factor authentication is a broad remediation step that disrupts all users and does not confirm the attack's source or success. Immediate verification requires correlating the source IP and checking whether any login succeeded. Password resets are tempting as hardening, but they belong after confirming compromise.
- ✗
Ignore the alert because it is likely a false positive
Why it's wrong here
Dismissing the alert leaves the suspected intrusion unverified, so no containment occurs while 100 failed logins in two minutes may indicate credential attack. Tempting because SIEM tuning does produce false positives, and ignoring is defensible only after triage confirms benign activity such as a misconfigured service account.
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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.