Security+ 701 – Acronyms, Ports & Protocols

A company wants a single appliance that combines firewall, intrusion prevention, web filtering, antivirus, and VPN capabilities into one centrally managed solution. Which technology BEST meets this requirement?

Unified Threat Management (UTM)

A wireless network must support multiple authentication methods, including passwords, smart cards, digital certificates, and biometrics, without changing the underlying authentication framework. Which technology should be implemented?

Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)

A financial institution wants a tamper-resistant physical device dedicated to generating, storing, and protecting cryptographic keys used for digital certificates. Which solution should it deploy?

Hardware Security Module (HSM)

After a ransomware attack, management requires that all critical systems be restored within four hours. Which disaster recovery metric defines this requirement?

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

A company performs nightly backups and determines it can tolerate losing no more than one hour of data if a disaster occurs. Which disaster recovery metric defines this requirement?

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

A security analyst wants to detect malware activity occurring on an employee's laptop rather than monitoring traffic across the entire network. Which security solution should be deployed?

Host-based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS)

A security administrator wants to detect reconnaissance scans and malicious traffic crossing the organization's network perimeter rather than monitoring individual endpoints. Which security solution should be deployed?

Network-based Intrusion Detection System (NIDS)

An organization wants to enforce security policies, monitor cloud application usage, and prevent sensitive information from being uploaded to SaaS applications. Which technology BEST meets these requirements?

Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)

A company wants to inspect outbound web traffic, block malicious websites, enforce browsing policies, and prevent users from downloading malware from the internet. Which security solution should be implemented?

Secure Web Gateway (SWG)

A company hosts a public-facing online banking application and wants to block SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other web application attacks before requests reach the server. Which security solution should be implemented?

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

A company issues laptops to executives and wants every file, operating system component, and application protected if a laptop is stolen while powered off. Which encryption solution BEST meets this requirement?

Full Disk Encryption (FDE)

A company wants to ensure previously captured encrypted VPN traffic cannot be decrypted in the future, even if an attacker later steals the server's private key. Which cryptographic feature provides this protection?

Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS)

A company wants to prevent employees from emailing Social Security numbers, customer records, or confidential financial documents outside the organization. Which security technology should be implemented?

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

A laptop securely stores BitLocker encryption keys in a dedicated hardware chip that also validates the integrity of the boot process before startup. Which hardware component provides these capabilities?

Trusted Platform Module (TPM)

A mobile application requests current weather information from another company's servers using predefined requests and responses. Which technology enables this communication?

Application Programming Interface (API)

A DevOps team wants every new server automatically configured from scripts so every deployment is identical without requiring manual setup. Which practice is being used?

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

A network administrator wants routing and switching decisions managed from a centralized software controller instead of configuring every switch individually. Which networking technology should be implemented?

Software-Defined Networking (SDN)

An organization requires employees to enter a new six-digit authentication code generated every 30 seconds by an authenticator app when logging in. Which authentication method is being used?

Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP)

A small business hires an outside company to manage its help desk, servers, backups, and network infrastructure. Which type of organization has been hired?

Managed Service Provider (MSP)

Before signing a cloud vendor, an organization requests evidence that the vendor's security controls have operated effectively over an extended period rather than being evaluated only once. Which audit report BEST satisfies this requirement?

SOC 2 Type II

A user attempts to browse an unapproved website and is redirected because the organization's web security policy blocks access to the site. Which default web service port is most likely being filtered?

Port 80 (HTTP)

Employees securely browse the company's banking website using encrypted web traffic. Which TCP port is most likely being used?

Port 443 (HTTPS)

A Linux administrator remotely logs into a server using an encrypted command-line session. Which TCP port should be allowed through the firewall?

Port 22 (SSH)

A file server allows employees to upload and download files using the File Transfer Protocol. Which TCP port must remain open for this service?

Port 21 (FTP)

An organization hosts its own email server and needs to receive and relay email between mail servers. Which TCP port should remain open?

Port 25 (SMTP)

A company provides remote Windows administration to system administrators over the network. Which TCP port should be open?

Port 3389 (RDP)

A Windows organization shares folders and printers across its internal network. Which TCP port is commonly associated with this service?

Port 445 (SMB)

A network administrator wants devices to automatically report interface status, CPU utilization, and hardware health to a centralized monitoring platform. Which UDP port is commonly associated with this protocol?

Port 161 (SNMP)

A DNS server responds to client requests by translating domain names into IP addresses. Which port should be allowed through the firewall for standard DNS queries?

Port 53 (DNS)

A company wants employees to securely retrieve email from a mail server using the encrypted version of IMAP. Which TCP port should be opened?

Port 993 (IMAPS)

Employees securely download email from a mail server using the encrypted version of POP3. Which TCP port is being used?

Port 995 (POP3S)

An organization wants users to submit email securely from their email clients to the outgoing mail server using SMTP over TLS. Which TCP port should be configured?

Port 587 (SMTP Submission)

An enterprise deploys a VPN solution that uses SSL/TLS to provide secure remote access through firewalls without requiring IPSec. Which TCP port is most commonly used?

Port 443 (SSL/TLS VPN)