Analyzing Vulnerability Scans

Question 1

Tom is reviewing a vulnerability scan report and finds that one of the servers on his network suffers from an inter IP address disclosure vulnerability. What protocol is likely in use on this network that resulted in this vulnerability?

a. TLS
b. NAT
c. SSH
d. VPN

Answer 1

b. Although the network can support any of these protocols, internal IP disclosure vulnerabilities occur when a network uses Network Address Translation NAT to map public and private IP addresses but a server inadvertently discloses its private IP address to remote systems.

Question 2

Which one of the CVSS metrics would contain information about the type of user account an attacker must use to execute an attack?

a. AV
b. C
c. PR
d. AC

Answer 2

c. The Privileges Required PR vector describes whether the attacker needs no user privileges, normal user privileges, or administrative user privileges to conduct the attack. The other vectors described in this question are the Attack Vector AV, Attack Complexity AC, and Confidentiality C vectors. They would not contain information about user authentication.

Question 3

Which one of the following values for the CVSS attack complexity metric would indicate that the specified attack is simplest to exploit?

a. High
b. Medium
c. Low
d. Severe

Answer 3

c. An access complexity of “low” indicates that exploiting the vulnerability does not require any specialized conditions. A value of “high” indicates that specialized conditions are required. High and low are the only two possible values for this metric.

Question 4

Which one of the following values for the confidentiality, integrity, or availability CVSS metric wold indicate the potential for total compromise of a system?

a. N
b. A
c. H
d. L

Answer 4

c. If any of these measures is marked as H, for High, it indicates the potential for a complete compromise of the system.

Question 5

What is the most recent version of CVSS that is currently available?

a. 1.0
b. 2.0
c. 2.5
d. 3.0

Answer 5

d. Version 3.0 of CVSS is currently available and is the version described in this chapter.

Question 6

Which one of the following metrics is not included in the calculation of the CVSS exploitability score?

a. Attack vector
b. Vulnerability age
c. Attack complexity
d. Privileges required

Answer 6

b. The CVSS exploitability score is calculated using the Attack Vector, Attack Complexity, Privileges Required, and User Interaction metrics.

Question 7

Kevin recently identified a new security vulnerability and computed its CVSS base score as 6.5. Which risk category would this vulnerability fall into?

a. Low
b. Medium
c. High
d. Critical

Answer 7

b. Vulnerabilities that have a CVSS base score between 4.0 and 6.9 fall into the Medium rating category.

Question 8

Tara recently analyzed the results of a vulnerability scan report and found hat a vulnerability reported by the scanner did not exist because the system was actually patched as specified. What type of error occurred?

a. False positive
b. False negative
c. True positive
d. True negative

Answer 8

a. A false positive error occurs when the vulnerability scanner reports a vulnerability that does not actually exist

Question 9

Which one of the following is not a common source of information that may be correlated with vulnerability scan results?

a. Logs
b. Database tables
c. SIEM
d. Configuration management system

Answer 9

b. It is unlikely that a database table would contain information relevant to assessing a vulnerability scan report. Logs, SIEM reports, and configuration management systems are much more likely to contain relevant information.

Question 10

Which one of the following operating systems should be avoided on production networks?

a. Windows Server 2003
b. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
c. CentOS 8
d. Ubuntu 22.04

Answer 10

a. Microsoft discontinued support for Windows Server 2003, and it is likely that the operating system contains unpatchable vulnerabilities. The other operating systems listed here all have active support.

Question 11

In what type of attack does the attacker place more information in a memory location than is allocated for that use?

a. SQL injection
b. LDAP injection
c. Cross-site scripting
d. Buffer overflow

Answer 11

d. Buffer overflow attacks occur when an attacker manipulates a program into placing more data into an area of memory than is allocated for that program’s use. The goal is to overwrite other information in memory with instructions that may be executed by a different process running on the system.

Question 12

The Dirty COW attack is an example of what type of vulnerability?

a. Malicious code
b. Privilege escalation
c. Buffer overflow
d. LDAP injection

Answer 12

b. In October 2016, security researchers announced the discovery of a Linux kernel vulnerability dubbed Dirty COW. This vulnerability, present in the Linux kernel for nine years, was extremely easy to exploit and provided successful attackers with administrative control of affected systems.

Question 13

Which one of the following protocols should never be used on a public network?

a. SSH
b. HTTPS
c. SFTP
d. Telnet

Answer 13

d. Telnet is an insecure protocol that does not make use of encryption. The other protocols mentioned are all considered secure.

Question 14

Betty is selecting a transport encryption protocol for use in a new public website she is creating. Which protocol would be the best choice?

a. SSL 2.0
b. SSL 3.0
c. TLS 1.0
d. TLS 1.3

Answer 14

d. TLS 1.3 is a secure transport protocol that supports web traffic. The other protocols listed all have flaws that render them insecure and unsuitable for use.

Question 15

Which one of the following conditions would not result in a certificate warning during a vulnerability scan of a web server?

a. Use of an untrusted CA
b. Inclusion of a public encryption key
c. Expiration of the certificate
d. Mismatch in certificate name

Answer 15

b. Digital certificates are intended to provide public encryption keys and this would not cause an error. The other circumstances are all causes for concern and would trigger an alert during a vulnerability scan.

Question 16

What software component is responsible for enforcing the separation of guest systems in a virtualized infrastructure?

a. Guest operating system
b. Host operating system
c. Memory controller
d. Hypervisor

Answer 16

d. In a virtualized data center, the virtual host hard ware runs a special operating system known as a hypervisor that mediates access to the underlying hardware resources.

Question 17

In what type of attack does the attacker seek to gain access to resources assigned to a different virtual machine?

a. VM escape
b. Management interface brute force
c. LDAP injection
d. DNS amplification

Answer 17

a. VM escape vulnerabilities are the most serious issue that can exist in a virtualized environment, particularly when a virtual host runs systems of differing security levels. In an escape attack, the attacker has access to a single virtual host and then manages to leverage that access to intrude on the resources assigned to a different virtual machine.

Question 18

Which one of the following terms is not typically used to describe the connection of physical devices to a network?

a. IoT
b. IDS
c. ICS
d. SCADA

Answer 18

b. Intrusion detection systems IDS are a security control used to detect network or host attacks. The Inter of Things IoT, supervisory control and data acquisition SCADA systems, and industrial control systems ICS are all associated with connecting physical world objects to a network.

Question 19

Monica discovers that an attacker posted a message attacking users who visit a web forum that she manages. Which one of the following attack types is most likely to have occurred?

a. SQL injection
b. Malware injection
c. LDAP injection
d. Cross-sit scripting

Answer 19

d. In a cross-site scripting XSS attack, an attacker embeds scripting commands on a website that will later be executed by an unsuspecting visitor accessing the site. The idea is to trick a user visiting a trusted site into executing malicious code placed there by an untrusted third party.

Question 20

Alan is reviewing web server logs after an attack and finds many records that contain semicolons and apostrophes in queries from end users. What type of attack should he suspect?

a. SQL injection
b. LDAP injection
c. Cross-scripting
d. Buffer overflow

Answer 20

a. In a SQL injection attack, the attacker seeks to use a web application to gain access to an underlying database. Semicolons and apostrophes are characteristic of these attacks.