ISC CC CC - Certified in Cybersecurity Exam Practice Test

An accurate asset inventory is foundational to security. Without knowing what assets exist, organizations cannot secure, monitor, or protect them effectively.

A Security Operations Center (SOC) continuously monitors security events, analyzes threats, and coordinates incident response. SOCs integrate people, processes, and technology such as SIEM, SOAR, and threat intelligence platforms.

Zenmap is the graphical front end for Nmap. It performs host discovery, port scanning, service enumeration, and OS fingerprinting.

OAuth uses tokens to grant limited access without exposing credentials, making it a widely used token-based authentication method.

If CIA is not impacted, the occurrence remains asecurity event, not an incident or breach.

Zero Trust assumes no implicit trust and requires continuous verification of users, devices, and access requests, regardless of location.

Confidentiality ensures information is accessible only to authorized individuals.

Risk identification is a collaborative process that enables awareness, communication, and protection against threats.

Logical (technical) controls such as encryption, access controls, DLP, and firewalls directly prevent unauthorized data access and exfiltration.

Disaster Recovery Planning focuses on restoring IT infrastructure, systems, and communications after major disruptions.

A baseline is a documented set of approved security controls, configurations, and system settings used as a standard across an IT environment. Baselines ensure consistency, security, and compliance by defining how systems should be configured before deployment and during operation.

Security baselines are commonly derived from frameworks such as CIS Benchmarks, NIST SP 800-53, and vendor hardening guides. They help reduce misconfigurations, which are a leading cause of security breaches.

Patches address specific vulnerabilities, inventory tracks assets, and policies define high-level rules and expectations. Baselines translate policies into actionable technical settings, such as password policies, logging configurations, and service restrictions.

By enforcing baselines, organizations improve security posture, simplify audits, and enable faster incident response. Any deviation from the baseline can be detected and investigated, making baselines a cornerstone of secure and well-managed IT environments.

Human safety always takes precedence over systems, data, and business operations.

Qualitative risk analysis evaluates risk using descriptive categories such aslow,medium, andhighinstead of numerical values. This approach relies on expert judgment, experience, and contextual understanding rather than precise financial or statistical calculations. According to NIST SP 800-30, qualitative analysis is especially useful when numerical data is unavailable or when rapid risk prioritization is required.

Unlike quantitative risk analysis, which assigns monetary values and probabilities, qualitative analysis focuses on relative severity and likelihood. It is commonly used during early stages of risk management, policy development, and executive decision-making. While less precise, qualitative risk analysis is easier to communicate to stakeholders and helps organizations focus resources on the most critical risks.

SSDs do not reliably respond to overwriting or degaussing due to wear-leveling. Physical destruction such as disintegration is the most secure sanitization method, per NIST SP 800-88.

A wall is a physical deterrent that prevents and discourages unauthorized access. Signs are administrative deterrents, cameras are detective controls, and razor tape is a physical barrier but typically supplements perimeter defenses rather than serving as the primary deterrent.

A protocol analyzer, also known as a packet sniffer, captures and inspects network traffic flowing across a network segment. If traffic is unencrypted, protocol analyzers can intercept sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, session tokens, and application data.

Log servers store logs, network scanners identify hosts and services, and firewalls filter traffic based on rules. Only protocol analyzers are designed to capture and inspect packet contents.

This capability makes protocol analyzers valuable for troubleshooting and for attackers conducting eavesdropping attacks. Encryption protocols such as TLS are critical defenses against this risk.

IPv6 was introduced primarily due toIPv4 address exhaustion, enabling vastly expanded address space.

Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) randomizes the memory locations used by applications, making it significantly harder for attackers to predict where malicious payloads should be placed during buffer overflow attacks.

Buffer overflow exploits rely on predictable memory layouts. ASLR disrupts this predictability, increasing attacker effort and reducing exploit reliability.

The other options are either non-standard terms or unrelated to buffer overflow mitigation. ASLR is widely used in modern operating systems and is a key defensive control recommended by secure coding and system hardening guidelines.

ASLR does not eliminate vulnerabilities but raises the attack complexity, which is a core defensive strategy.

The primary purpose of aWeb Application Firewall (WAF)is tofilter, monitor, and block malicious HTTP/HTTPS trafficdirected at web applications. A WAF operates at theapplication layer (Layer 7)of the OSI model and is specifically designed to protect web applications from common attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), command injection, and other OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities.

Unlike traditional network firewalls, which focus on IP addresses, ports, and protocols, a WAF understands web-specific traffic patterns and inspects the content of HTTP requests and responses. This allows it to detect malicious payloads embedded in URLs, headers, cookies, and request bodies.

While some WAFs may offer limited protection against application-layer DDoS attacks, DDoS mitigation is not their primary function. Intrusion detection is typically handled by IDS/IPS solutions, and SSL certificate management is unrelated to WAF functionality.

Security frameworks such as NIST and OWASP recommend WAFs as a critical compensating control for protecting public-facing web applications, especially when secure coding fixes cannot be deployed immediately.

ICMP is used for network diagnostics, including ping operations that test host availability. RFC 792 defines ICMP behavior.

When incidents escalate beyond containment and business continuity measures are insufficient, theDisaster Recovery Plan (DRP)is activated to restore IT systems and infrastructure.

Disaster Recovery Planning focuses on restoringIT systems, infrastructure, and communicationsafter a disruption. Business Continuity Planning focuses onmaintaining critical business functionsduring and after incidents, often using alternative processes.

BCP is broader than DRP and includes people, processes, facilities, and third parties, while DRP is IT-centric. Both plans complement each other but serve different purposes.

Abreachoccurs when sensitive or protected information is accessed, disclosed, or used without authorization—regardless of intent. Even accidental disclosures, such as sending confidential data to the wrong recipient, qualify as breaches because confidentiality has been compromised.

DR planning includes technical controls, operational checklists, and security solutions to support recovery of IT systems after a disruption.

The CIA triad provides a foundational framework for understanding and designing security controls.

In e-commerce,non-repudiationensures accountability by preventing buyers or sellers from denying transactions they actually performed. This is essential for trust, legal enforcement, and dispute resolution in digital commerce.

By using digital signatures, certificates, and secure transaction logs, organizations can prove that a specific user authorized a transaction. This protects merchants from fraudulent chargebacks and customers from transaction tampering.

Without non-repudiation, online commerce would lack trust and legal enforceability, undermining digital economies.

An IPS monitors traffic, detects malicious activity, and actively blocks attacks. Encryption is handled by protocols such as TLS or IPSec, not IPS devices.

Simulations provide realistic testing by executing scenarios that closely mirror real disruptions, revealing gaps and readiness levels better than discussions or reviews.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) uses environmental design principles such as visibility, lighting, access control, and territorial reinforcement to deter criminal activity.

Token-based authentication relies on encrypted, machine-generated tokens to verify a user’s identity. After successful authentication, the system issues a token (often a JSON Web Token or OAuth token) that represents the user’s session or authorization claims. This token is then presented with each request instead of repeatedly transmitting credentials.

Unlike basic or form-based authentication, token-based methods reduce exposure of usernames and passwords, improve scalability, and support modern distributed architectures such as APIs, cloud services, and mobile applications. Tokens can also include expiration times and scopes, improving security control.

Hashing ensuresintegrityby allowing detection of unauthorized changes to data.

A hypervisor abstracts hardware to host multiple virtual machines securely and efficiently.

Consistencyensures data remains uniform and synchronized across systems, databases, and backups—critical for accuracy and trustworthiness.

Anadverse eventis a harmful occurrence that may or may not constitute a security incident or breach.

Business Continuity Plans (BCP) focus on sustaining operations using alternative processes and resources during disruptions.

ThePrinciple of Least Privilegeensures users, applications, and systems have only the minimum permissions necessary to perform their duties. This reduces the attack surface and limits potential damage if credentials are compromised.

Adequate securitymeans applying controls proportional to risk and potential impact, a core concept in NIST frameworks.

Risk appetitedefines the level of risk an organization is willing to tolerate and guides decision-making across the enterprise.

Business Continuity Plans ensure operations continue during long-term disruptions.

The principle of least privilege states that users, systems, and processes should be granted only the minimum permissions required to perform their assigned tasks—nothing more. This principle reduces the attack surface and limits potential damage from compromised accounts or insider threats.

If an attacker gains access to a low-privilege account, the impact is significantly reduced compared to a highly privileged account. Least privilege also helps prevent accidental misuse of system resources.

Two-person control requires two individuals to approve an action. Job rotation reduces fraud by changing responsibilities. Separation of privileges ensures critical tasks require multiple permissions. While all are valid security concepts, least privilege directly addresses permission minimization.

This principle is foundational in access control models, identity and access management (IAM), and zero trust architectures. NIST and CIS explicitly recommend least privilege as a core security control for protecting systems and sensitive data.

Deterrent controls are designed to discourage individuals from attempting unauthorized or malicious actions. CCTV systems act as deterrent controls because their visible presence can discourage theft, vandalism, or unauthorized access by increasing the perceived risk of being caught.

Business Continuity Plans (BCP), Disaster Recovery Plans (DRP), and Incident Response Plans (IRP) are corrective and recovery-focused controls, not deterrents. They address what happensafteran incident occurs.

Deterrent controls are often combined with preventive and detective controls to form a layered security strategy. Examples include warning signs, lighting, guards, and surveillance cameras. These controls play an important psychological role in reducing security incidents.

When a mail server sends email to another mail server, it acts as anSMTP client. In the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), roles are defined by behavior, not by the system’s primary function.

The sending system initiates the connection and issues SMTP commands, which makes it the client for that transaction. The receiving mail server listens for incoming connections and acts as the SMTP server.

Mail servers routinely switch roles depending on the direction of communication. A single system may act as an SMTP server when receiving mail and as an SMTP client when sending mail.

Understanding SMTP roles is important for configuring mail security controls such as firewalls, TLS enforcement, spam filtering, and authentication. Security professionals must recognize that “client” and “server” are session-based roles, not permanent system identities.

Digital signatures provideauthentication,integrity, andnon-repudiation, but they donot provide confidentiality. A digital signature verifies who sent the message and ensures it was not altered, but the content remains readable unless encryption is also applied.

Confidentiality requires encryption, typically using symmetric or asymmetric cryptography. Digital signatures are often combined with encryption (such as in TLS or secure email), but by themselves they do not hide message contents.

ABusiness Continuity Plan (BCP)ensures critical operations continue during and after significant disruptions, regardless of the cause.

PAM solutions focus onjust-in-time (JIT) access, granting elevated privileges only when needed and revoking them afterward. This reduces standing privileges and minimizes attack surfaces.

VLAN hopping exploits weaknesses in Layer 2 switching mechanisms such as trunking and tagging.

ISC2’s Code of Ethics requires candidates to report violations through proper channels to preserve exam integrity.

An IP address is a logical identifier used to locate and route traffic to devices on a network.

255.255.255.0is a commonly usedsubnet mask, indicating that the first 24 bits represent the network portion of an IPv4 address. Subnet masks define how IP addresses are divided into network and host portions, enabling efficient routing and segmentation.

An Incident Response Plan (IRP) defines how to detect, analyze, contain, eradicate, and recover from security incidents.

Recovery controls restore systems and data after an incident. Examples include backups, failover systems, and disaster recovery procedures.

Segregation of duties reduces fraud and insider threats by requiring multiple individuals to complete critical tasks.

Authentication is the process of verifying that a user is who they claim to be. Identification occurs first (username), authentication verifies the claim (password, token, biometrics), and authorization determines access rights.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides customers with an environment tobuild, deploy, and manage applicationswithout managing underlying infrastructure. PaaS includes operating systems, middleware, runtime environments, and development tools.

SaaS delivers fully managed applications, while IaaS provides raw infrastructure. PaaS best balances flexibility and operational efficiency for software development.

Operating system logs are the most relevant source of information for detecting and investigating privilege escalation attacks. These logs record authentication events, privilege changes, process executions, and system-level actions.

Because the attacker already had authorized access, firewall and IDS logs may show little or no suspicious activity. Database logs focus on database-level operations, not OS privilege changes.

OS logs provide the best visibility into actions such as sudo usage, kernel exploits, and unauthorized permission changes. They are essential for forensic analysis and incident response involving insider threats.

SSH key-based authentication is ideal for automated system-to-system communication. It allows secure, passwordless authentication using cryptographic key pairs.

Biometrics and smart cards require human interaction, and hard-coded passwords are insecure and difficult to rotate. SSH keys provide strong authentication, automation support, and secure key management.

This approach is widely recommended for scripts, automation, and DevOps pipelines.

Internal consistency ensures that all copies of data remain identical in content and meaning.

All listed protocols provide encrypted email communication using SSL/TLS for sending or retrieving email securely.

Governancedefines oversight, accountability, and decision-making structures within an organization.

Risk management aims to reduce risks to acceptable levels, not eliminate them entirely. This involves identifying risks, assessing impact and likelihood, and selecting appropriate controls.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) enforces least privilege by assigning permissions based on job roles rather than individuals. Users receive only the permissions necessary for their role, reducing excess access.

RBAC is widely used in enterprises, cloud platforms, and operating systems due to its scalability and manageability.

ASHRAE recommends64°F–81°Ffor modern data centers to balance hardware longevity and energy efficiency.

Risk assessment is the structured process of identifying risks, estimating their likelihood and impact, and prioritizing them for treatment. It forms the analytical foundation of risk management and enables informed decision-making. Risk assessment typically includes threat identification, vulnerability analysis, likelihood determination, and impact analysis.

Risk treatment and mitigation occur after risks have been assessed, while risk management is the broader lifecycle that includes assessment, response, monitoring, and communication. Standards such as NIST SP 800-30 emphasize risk assessment as a critical early step in managing cybersecurity risk.

AnOn-Path (Man-in-the-Middle)attack allows attackers to intercept, modify, or replay communications between two parties without their knowledge.

A guard dog deters unauthorized access by increasing perceived risk. Deterrent controls discourage attacks before they occur.

Data loss affecting availability or integrity is classified as asecurity incident, even if no attacker is involved.

Unauthorized access that compromises confidentiality constitutes abreach. Intrusions become breaches when access is successful.

The ultimate goal of disaster recovery is torestore business operations and IT services to a stable, reliable statethat supports organizational objectives. Backup and alternate sites are means—not the end goal.

Worms are self-propagating malware that spread automatically across networks by exploiting vulnerabilities. Unlike viruses, worms do not require user interaction.

Anentitlementrefers to the inherent set of privileges or access rights granted to a user when an account is created. Entitlements define what resources a user can access and what actions they are allowed to perform.

A baseline refers to standard configurations, not user permissions. Aggregation and transitivity relate to access control models but do not describe default assigned privileges.

Managing entitlements is a key function of IAM systems and is critical for enforcing least privilege, access reviews, and compliance. Poor entitlement management often leads to excessive permissions and increased security risk.

High availability (HA) refers to system designs that ensure continuous operation by minimizing downtime in the event of component failures. Adding a backup firewall that automatically takes over when the primary firewall fails is a classic example of high availability.

HA solutions often use failover mechanisms, heartbeat monitoring, and redundancy to ensure seamless service continuity. The goal is to maintain availability, which is a core pillar of the CIA triad.

Component redundancy describes duplicated parts, but high availability focuses on the operational outcome—continued service. Load balancing distributes traffic, not failover. Clustering involves multiple systems working together, but HA specifically emphasizes fault tolerance and uptime.

High availability is critical for security infrastructure such as firewalls, authentication servers, and monitoring tools. NIST and ISO frameworks stress HA as essential for business continuity, disaster recovery, and resilient security operations.

Clear roles ensure fast, coordinated response, reduce confusion, and prevent duplicated or missed actions during incidents.

Preparation includes asset identification, system classification, and readiness planning.

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) creates an encrypted tunnel between a user’s device and a remote network or server. This tunnel protects data confidentiality and integrity by encrypting all traffic passing through it, even when using untrusted networks such as public Wi-Fi.

HTTPS encrypts only web traffic, antivirus detects malware, and IDS monitors for suspicious activity. Only a VPN provides full-tunnel encryption for all network communications. VPNs are commonly implemented using protocols such as IPSec or SSL/TLS and are widely recommended for secure remote access.

Senior management is ultimately responsible for approving, signing, and publishing organizational policies. While departments such as security, HR, and legal may draft, review, or advise on policies, executive leadership provides formal authorization and accountability.

This responsibility aligns with governance principles outlined in frameworks like ISO/IEC 27001 and NIST, which emphasize management commitment to information security. Policies require executive endorsement to ensure they are enforceable, aligned with business objectives, and supported with appropriate resources.

Senior management’s involvement demonstrates organizational commitment, establishes authority, and ensures compliance across all departments. Without leadership approval, policies lack legitimacy and may not be consistently followed.

Security operations rely on clear, management-approved policies to guide procedures, incident response, and compliance activities. Executive sponsorship also enables enforcement and disciplinary actions when policies are violated.

Phishing uses deceptive messages—often emails or websites—to trick users into revealing sensitive information. Spoofing is often used as a technique within phishing attacks.

BCP requires input from all business units to identify dependencies and ensure continuity of critical functions.

A security assessment evaluates the effectiveness of security controls and verifies whether they meet security requirements. It differs from risk assessments, which focus on identifying threats and vulnerabilities.

A security incident is any event that actually or potentially compromises confidentiality, integrity, or availability.

A session key is a temporary cryptographic key used to encrypt communication between two systems for a single session. Session keys are typically symmetric keys generated during secure key exchange processes such as TLS handshakes.

They provide confidentiality and efficiency because symmetric encryption is much faster than asymmetric encryption. Once the session ends, the key is discarded, limiting exposure even if the key is later compromised.

Public keys are used for key exchange and authentication, not bulk data encryption. “Temporary key” and “section key” are not standard cryptographic terms.

Session keys are fundamental to secure network communications and are recommended by all modern cryptographic standards due to their performance and security benefits.

ASecurity Operations Center (SOC)is a centralized function responsible for continuous monitoring, detection, analysis, and response to cybersecurity events. SOC teams use tools such as SIEM, SOAR, IDS/IPS, and threat intelligence feeds to identify threats before they escalate into incidents.

TheBusiness Continuity Planincludes immediate response actions, communication plans, and leadership guidance.

Spoofing involves falsifying identity information (IP, MAC, email headers) to appear as a trusted source and bypass controls.

Replay attacks disrupt communication by resending captured packets, potentially causing session confusion or denial of service. IPSec mitigates this using sequence numbers.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) develops and maintains Internet standards through RFCs.

IPv6 allows removal of leading zeros and compression of consecutive zero blocks using “::”, making option A correct.

DNS is an application-layer protocol that resolves domain names to IP addresses using structured queries and responses.

GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) integrates business objectives with risk management and regulatory compliance.

Bell–LaPadula is a Mandatory Access Control (MAC) model focused on confidentiality. It uses security labels and clearances to enforce access rules such as “no read up, no write down.”

Honeytokens are decoy data elements designed to lure attackers and detect unauthorized access. Examples include fake credentials, files, or database entries that have no legitimate use.

When a honeytoken is accessed, it triggers an alert, indicating a compromise. Honeytokens are valuable for detecting insider threats and lateral movement.

They do not encrypt data, improve performance, or manage access. Honeytokens are part of deception-based security strategies that enhance detection capabilities.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks overwhelm targets with traffic from multiple sources, disrupting availability.

These areType 1 (bare-metal) hypervisors, running directly on hardware without a host operating system, offering higher performance and security.

The four primary risk response strategies areaccept, avoid, mitigate (reduce), and transfer. Monitoring is an ongoing activity, not a formal risk treatment option.

Immediate response checklists ensure rapid communication and awareness when a BCP is enacted.

DRP focuses on restoring IT infrastructure, applications, and communications to operational status.

Penetration testing simulates real-world attacks to identify vulnerabilities before adversaries exploit them.

The primary objective of DRP is restoring IT systems to a reliable operational state.

HIPAA applies to healthcare providers, insurers, and their business associates to protect patient health information (PHI).

A Smurf attack amplifies ICMP traffic to overwhelm targets.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks exploitinput validation vulnerabilitiesin web applications. These vulnerabilities occur when an application fails to properly validate, sanitize, or encode user-supplied input before including it in web pages. As a result, attackers can inject malicious scripts that are executed in the browsers of other users.

XSS attacks commonly occur through form fields, URL parameters, cookies, or HTTP headers. Once executed, malicious scripts can steal session cookies, capture keystrokes, redirect users to malicious sites, or perform actions on behalf of the victim.

ARP spoofing and DNS poisoning target network-level trust relationships, not application input validation. Pharming redirects users to fake websites by manipulating DNS or host files, again unrelated to input validation.

Preventing XSS relies heavily on strong input validation, output encoding, content security policies (CSP), and secure coding practices. OWASP and NIST explicitly identify XSS as a validation-related vulnerability and emphasize defensive coding as the primary mitigation.

Criticality reflects how essential an asset or system is to business success or mission accomplishment. It is commonly determined during a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and influences recovery priorities.

An IPSec replay attack occurs when an attacker captures legitimate encrypted packets and attempts to retransmit (replay) them to gain unauthorized access or disrupt communication. The attacker does not need to decrypt the packets; instead, they rely on resending previously valid packets within an existing session.

Without proper protections, replayed packets could be accepted as valid, allowing attackers to impersonate legitimate users or repeat sensitive actions. IPSec defends against replay attacks usingsequence numbers and sliding windows, which ensure packets are processed only once and in the correct order.

Packet modification, eavesdropping, and traffic flooding are different attack types and are not specifically replay attacks. Replay attacks are particularly dangerous in authentication and session-based protocols, which is why anti-replay protection is a mandatory IPSec feature defined by the IETF.

Standards such as ISO, NIST, and CIS are commonly developed by third-party organizations and provide best practices and compliance guidance. They are not laws unless mandated.

A cryptographic hash uniquely represents the contents of a file or message. Even a small change produces a completely different hash value, making it an effective digital fingerprint.

Availabilityensures that authorized users can access information and systems when needed, a core element of the CIA triad.

Threat actors include insiders, external attackers, and automated technologies such as bots. Modern threat landscapes recognize non-human actors as valid threats due to automation and AI-driven attacks.

Anexecutive summarygives leadership a concise overview of objectives, scope, and recovery strategies without technical detail.

Port forwarding is commonly referred to by all these terms depending on context and implementation.

The first step isisolation—disconnecting infected systems to prevent further spread. Restoring systems before containment risks reinfection. NIST SP 800-61 stresses containment before recovery.

When restoring operations after a disaster,most critical systemsmust be restored first. Systems enable business functions, and without them, functions cannot operate.

Disaster recovery focuses on restoring IT infrastructure in priority order based on business impact analysis (BIA). While functions are important, they depend on systems to operate. Management and least critical functions are lower priorities.

NIST and ISO/IEC business continuity standards emphasize restoring mission-critical systems first to minimize downtime and financial loss.

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) operate at theTransport layer (Layer 4)of the OSI model. This layer is responsible for end-to-end communication, segmentation, flow control, and error handling.

TCP provides reliable, connection-oriented communication with acknowledgments and retransmissions. UDP provides connectionless communication optimized for speed and low latency.

The Session layer manages session establishment, and the Presentation layer handles formatting and encryption. Neither is responsible for transport-level data delivery.

Understanding protocol placement is essential for firewall rules, intrusion detection, and network troubleshooting. Most security controls rely heavily on Transport-layer awareness.

Threat vectors are the paths or techniques attackers use, such as phishing, malware, or exploitation.

Cloud computing is defined by five essential characteristics per NIST: on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service. Therefore, all listed options are valid characteristics.

Cryptography provides confidentiality by encrypting data so only authorized parties can read it. Hashing ensures integrity, and encoding is reversible and not secure.

Azero-day vulnerabilityis typically not identifiable through a standard vulnerability assessment. Vulnerability scanners and routine assessments rely onknown vulnerability signatures, published advisories, and documented weaknesses. By definition, a zero-day vulnerability is unknown to vendors, defenders, and security tools at the time it exists or is exploited.

File permission issues, buffer overflows, and cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities are commonly detected through automated scans, configuration reviews, and application testing because they are well understood and documented classes of weaknesses. Scanners are specifically designed to identify these known issues.

Zero-day vulnerabilities, however, require alternative detection approaches such as behavioral monitoring, anomaly detection, threat intelligence, or post-exploitation forensics. This limitation is why vulnerability assessments alone are insufficient and must be complemented withdefense-in-depth, monitoring, and incident response capabilities.

Security frameworks consistently emphasize that organizations should not rely solely on vulnerability scanning, as it cannot detect unknown or newly emerging threats like zero-day vulnerabilities.

Internet of Things (IoT)devices include embedded systems such as sensors, smart appliances, cameras, and industrial controllers that connect to networks and exchange data. These devices often have limited security controls and are common attack targets, making them a significant cybersecurity concern.

An Incident Response Plan (IRP) outlines roles, responsibilities, and procedures for handling security incidents and minimizing damage.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides security teams with the greatest access to forensic data because customers retain control over operating systems, logs, storage, and network configurations.

In SaaS and FaaS models, the provider controls most of the infrastructure, limiting visibility. PaaS provides partial access but still restricts OS-level forensics.

IaaS allows collection of disk images, memory dumps, system logs, and network traffic, which are essential for incident response and forensic investigations.

Security teams prefer IaaS for high-control environments where deep visibility is required.

ARP poisoning manipulates ARP tables to intercept or redirect LAN traffic, often enabling man-in-the-middle attacks.

When a device does not meet security baseline requirements, it poses a risk to the environment. Best practice is todisable or quarantine the deviceto prevent potential compromise or lateral movement. Network Access Control (NAC) solutions commonly automate this process.

Isolation ensures the device cannot interact with production systems until it is patched, configured correctly, and verified as compliant. This approach aligns with NIST and Zero Trust principles, emphasizing continuous compliance and containment.