ISC² CCSP Practice Tests | Certified Cloud Security Exam

When overall demand increases a cloud provider must decide how to distribute scarce compute and network capacity among competing workloads. What is the term for the mechanism that assigns relative weights so some systems receive resources before others during contention?

• ❏ A. Reservations

• ❏ B. Project quotas

• ❏ C. Resource shares

• ❏ D. Limits

During the early phase of defining requirements for a new cloud platform at a mid sized software company, which stakeholder group is typically not directly engaged in collecting functional and operational requirements?

• ❏ A. Internal audit teams

• ❏ B. Executive leadership

• ❏ C. Product end users

• ❏ D. External regulatory agencies

A midsize consulting firm wants to align its legal hold and data review procedures with an internationally recognized standard for eDiscovery processes and best practices. Which standard provides those guidelines?

• ❏ A. NIST SP 800 53

• ❏ B. PCI DSS

• ❏ C. ISO IEC 27050

• ❏ D. GDPR

Which significant United States law enacted in 1996 set requirements for handling and protecting patient health information?

• ❏ A. General Data Protection Regulation

• ❏ B. Sarbanes Oxley Act

• ❏ C. Gramm Leach Bliley Act

• ❏ D. HIPAA

As a cloud security lead at a regional credit cooperative migrating client records into a public cloud which security control should be prioritized to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of customer data during the migration and in ongoing cloud operations?

• ❏ A. Implement strict VPC firewall rules around the cloud boundary

• ❏ B. Enforce strong encryption for data at rest and in transit

• ❏ C. Deploy a cloud intrusion detection system to monitor network and host activity

• ❏ D. Rely primarily on the cloud provider to secure physical data center access

A bedside lamp that you power on from a smartphone application is an example of what kind of technology?

• ❏ A. Machine learning

• ❏ B. Internet of Things

• ❏ C. Artificial intelligence

• ❏ D. Cryptography

At what stage of the software development lifecycle should testing requirements and acceptance criteria be identified and documented?

• ❏ A. Implementation and coding

• ❏ B. Requirements analysis and feasibility study

• ❏ C. Maintenance phase

• ❏ D. Test execution phase

Which data format is most commonly used to transmit identity assertions within a federated authentication system?

• ❏ A. JSON

• ❏ B. HTML

• ❏ C. XML

• ❏ D. SAML

Which outcome is least likely to be a common problem for organizations operating with distributed IT architectures?

• ❏ A. Policy and oversight

• ❏ B. Coordinating activities across teams

• ❏ C. Inter-team communications

• ❏ D. Operational costs

Which reporting type evaluates the operation of a service organization’s controls at a single point in time?

• ❏ A. SOC 2 Type 2

• ❏ B. Cloud Audit Logs

• ❏ C. SOC 1 Type 1

• ❏ D. ISO 27001 certification

All ISC2 questions are from my ISC2 CCSP Udemy course and certificationexams.pro

A regional nonprofit in Boston is revising its financial reporting processes and wants to know which professional organization is responsible for developing and maintaining Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in the United States?

• ❏ A. International Organization for Standardization

• ❏ B. International Accounting Standards Board

• ❏ C. Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council

• ❏ D. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

Which jurisdiction listed does not have a single nationwide or regional privacy statute that governs all personal information?

• ❏ A. Brazil

• ❏ B. Canada

• ❏ C. United States

• ❏ D. European Economic Area

When a cloud platform experiences sustained high demand it must choose which workloads receive resources if capacity cannot satisfy every request. What term describes that prioritization practice?

• ❏ A. Resource pooling

• ❏ B. Maximum quotas

• ❏ C. Weighted shares

• ❏ D. Guaranteed reservations

As the infrastructure lead at a payments company negotiating a service level agreement with a cloud vendor which SLA clause should you insist on to guarantee a minimum baseline of CPU and memory for your production workloads?

• ❏ A. Resource Throttling

• ❏ B. Resource Sharing

• ❏ C. Committed Use Contract

• ❏ D. Resource Reservation

A financial analytics firm is shifting critical workloads to cloud services while managing a more regulated and widely distributed supply chain which increases the need for stakeholder coordination. Which stakeholder group is least likely to hold a direct contract or formal agreement with a cloud provider?

• ❏ A. Third party suppliers

• ❏ B. Regulatory agencies

• ❏ C. Channel partners

• ❏ D. End customers

You are advising a fintech startup that plans to run vendor hosted applications while retaining sole control of its cryptographic keys for data protection. Which cloud service model best matches this requirement?

• ❏ A. Platform as a Service with additional security controls

• ❏ B. Software as a Service with customer managed keys

• ❏ C. Custom Infrastructure as a Service

• ❏ D. Standard Software as a Service

Which IT process is concerned with ensuring that computing resources are provisioned to sustain acceptable performance so that service level agreements are met while keeping costs under control?

• ❏ A. Availability management

• ❏ B. Resource capacity management

• ❏ C. Configuration management

• ❏ D. Release and deployment management

It is nearly impossible to find a data center location that is free from all natural hazards. Which of the following measures can help reduce exposure to natural disasters?

• ❏ A. Cloud Storage multi region replication

• ❏ B. Autoscaling compute capacity

• ❏ C. Data encryption at rest

• ❏ D. Reinforced structural walls

As a cloud security assessor at a regional payments startup you must evaluate how well security controls perform. Which of the following statements misunderstands the purpose or limits of security controls?

• ❏ A. Security controls are intended to safeguard organizational assets

• ❏ B. Controls can be configured to either prevent security incidents or to detect them after they occur

• ❏ C. Security controls can completely remove every potential risk

• ❏ D. The choice and deployment of controls often depends on cloud platform capabilities such as Google Cloud IAM and VPC

A fintech startup has cataloged attack patterns and risk profiles using DREAD and STRIDE. What kind of security activity employs both frameworks?

• ❏ A. Cloud Security Command Center

• ❏ B. Automated vulnerability scanning

• ❏ C. Penetration testing exercises

• ❏ D. Threat modeling and analysis

Maria needs to determine the baseline obligations that her company’s cloud vendor must satisfy to meet contractual commitments. Where can Maria locate this information?

• ❏ A. ISO 27001

• ❏ B. Service level agreement

• ❏ C. Application programming interface

• ❏ D. Evaluation Assurance Level

A payments technology company called MeridianPay has consolidated logs from endpoints, network devices, and cloud services into a single log repository. What is the primary security benefit of maintaining logs in a centralized location?

• ❏ A. Cloud Logging

• ❏ B. It reduces the chance that an attacker can alter or erase log records

• ❏ C. It allows automated enforcement to block malicious traffic

• ❏ D. It enables security teams to receive alerts about anomalous behavior

What major factor should you assess when deploying Database Activity Monitoring for your firm’s cloud hosted databases?

• ❏ A. Cloud Data Loss Prevention

• ❏ B. DAM must be installed only on database clients

• ❏ C. DAM agents can be deployed on the database host or positioned to inspect network traffic

• ❏ D. DAM can replace encryption and tokenization

Within cloud environments used by firms like Meridian Solutions, REST and SOAP are frequently referenced as what category of software interface?

• ❏ A. Cloud Endpoints

• ❏ B. Compliance frameworks

• ❏ C. Application programming interfaces

• ❏ D. IAM policies

A cloud security team at a fintech startup is compiling a reference and asks which of these is not one of the three primary data states used in security frameworks?

• ❏ A. Data undergoing encryption

• ❏ B. Data in motion

• ❏ C. Data at rest

• ❏ D. Data in use

A regional fintech provider plans to enable cross domain single sign on for its customer portal and APIs. Which of the following technologies is not an identity federation protocol commonly used for federated authentication and authorization?

• ❏ A. OAuth

• ❏ B. PGP

• ❏ C. OpenID

• ❏ D. WS-Federation

Which solution enables a corporate internal network to be extended over an internet connection while maintaining secure access?

• ❏ A. Virtual LAN

• ❏ B. DNSSEC

• ❏ C. Remote Desktop Protocol

• ❏ D. Virtual private network

You develop web applications for a payments startup called Meridian Pay and you need to stop attackers from injecting malicious SQL into your services. Which security control is most effective at preventing SQL injection attacks?

• ❏ A. Transport Layer Security

• ❏ B. Identity Aware Proxy

• ❏ C. Endpoint antivirus scanning

• ❏ D. Web Application Firewall

If an enterprise implements a comprehensive data mapping process what visibility does that give into where data exists across its applications and storage?

• ❏ A. Differentiate data as structured or unstructured

• ❏ B. Detect when records are changed inside an application

• ❏ C. Locate every system and storage location where data resides

• ❏ D. Consolidate similar data types into logical groups

A security analyst at a regional payments firm must identify collect and protect electronic records so they can be presented as evidence in a criminal trial. What process is the analyst performing?

• ❏ A. Repudiation

• ❏ B. Cloud Audit Logs

• ❏ C. Chain of custody

• ❏ D. Electronic discovery

All ISC2 questions are from my ISC2 CCSP Udemy course and certificationexams.pro

A multinational retail chain uses services from several cloud vendors and must meet legal obligations in many countries. What creates the largest compliance and legal difficulty for such an organization?

• ❏ A. Cloud Identity

• ❏ B. Harmonizing availability guarantees and uptime commitments from multiple cloud providers

• ❏ C. Reconciling differing national data privacy and protection regimes

• ❏ D. Unifying logging retention and audit trails across cloud platforms

When companies subscribe to cloud platforms they receive various notices and obligations from their providers. Which of these responsibilities falls primarily to the cloud service customer?

• ❏ A. Cloud Identity and Access Management

• ❏ B. Submitting support tickets to the provider

• ❏ C. Participating in the shared responsibility model

• ❏ D. Negotiating service level agreements

Which type of attack is DNSSEC intended to protect domain name resolution against?

• ❏ A. Account compromise

• ❏ B. Eavesdropping on DNS traffic

• ❏ C. DNS spoofing

• ❏ D. Injection attacks

Priya must permanently erase confidential log files that her company Aurora Systems keeps in a public cloud account. Which technique can she use?

• ❏ A. Cryptographic erasure

• ❏ B. Physical shredding of storage media

• ❏ C. Degaussing magnetic media

• ❏ D. Overwriting

Which of the following is not included in the current Top Ten list published by the Web Application Safety Project?

• ❏ A. Insecure deserialization

• ❏ B. Cross site scripting

• ❏ C. Social engineering

• ❏ D. XML external entities

The correct answer is Resource shares.

Resource shares refers to proportional or weighted allocation where the scheduler assigns relative weights so some workloads receive a larger portion of scarce CPU, memory, or network when demand exceeds supply. Cloud systems implement Resource shares so administrators can prefer critical systems while still allowing lower priority workloads to use leftover capacity, and the mechanism works by dividing available resources according to configured weights or priorities.

Reservations are incorrect because reservations set aside or commit specific capacity for a tenant or workload ahead of time so availability is guaranteed rather than allocating capacity by relative weights. Reservations ensure reserved capacity but they do not perform proportional sharing during contention.

Project quotas are incorrect because quotas impose hard caps on total usage for a project or tenant to control overall consumption and prevent overuse. Quotas stop consumption at limits and they do not define how available capacity is distributed among competing workloads by weight.

Limits are incorrect because limits place absolute ceilings on resource use for a process, instance, or container and they prevent runaway usage. Limits are fixed ceilings and they do not provide weighted or priority based allocation during contention.

Look for phrases like relative weights or proportional share because they point to allocation by shares. If the question mentions guaranteed capacity or fixed caps then consider reservations or quotas instead.

The correct option is External regulatory agencies.

External regulatory agencies are typically not directly engaged in collecting functional and operational requirements during the early phase. They establish compliance obligations and standards that the organization must follow, but they do not participate in internal requirement gathering or stakeholder interviews. The company usually interprets applicable regulations and translates them into internal controls and requirements rather than having the agencies collect those requirements directly.

Internal audit teams are internal stakeholders who review controls and evidence and they are often involved early to ensure auditability and compliance readiness. They help shape operational requirements around logging, monitoring, and control evidence.

Executive leadership sets strategic priorities and approves budgets and they are typically engaged early to align the platform with business objectives and risk appetite. Their input is necessary to define scope and nonfunctional requirements.

Product end users provide the core functional requirements because they will use the systems and their needs drive features, performance, and usability expectations. They are direct participants in requirement gathering.

When a question asks which stakeholder is not directly engaged think about who provides mandates versus who participates in interviews and design work. External bodies set rules but internal groups carry out requirement gathering.

The correct option is ISO IEC 27050.

ISO IEC 27050 is the international standard series that provides guidance for electronic discovery processes and best practices. The standard covers legal hold, identification, preservation, collection, processing, review, and disclosure and it is intended to help align legal, IT, and security teams across jurisdictions.

NIST SP 800 53 focuses on security and privacy controls for federal information systems and organizations. It is a controls framework rather than a dedicated eDiscovery guideline so it does not provide the specific legal hold and review process guidance found in ISO IEC 27050.

PCI DSS is a security standard created by the payment card industry to protect cardholder data. It addresses controls for payment environments and not the procedures and workflows used for eDiscovery and legal review.

GDPR is an EU data protection regulation that governs how personal data is processed and protected. It influences how organizations must handle and retain personal data but it is a privacy regulation rather than a procedural standard for eDiscovery and legal hold, and it does not supply the detailed eDiscovery process guidance that ISO IEC 27050 provides.

When a question asks for internationally recognized eDiscovery guidance look for an ISO/IEC standard and distinguish between a standard and a regulation.

The correct answer is HIPAA.

The HIPAA law enacted in 1996 established national standards for protecting the privacy and security of individually identifiable health information. It introduced the Privacy Rule and the Security Rule and required covered entities and their business associates to implement administrative, physical, and technical safeguards and to follow breach notification procedures.

The HIPAA requirements specifically apply to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and health care providers that transmit health information electronically and they are the primary United States law for protecting patient health information.

General Data Protection Regulation is not correct because it is a European Union regulation that was adopted in 2016 and became enforceable in 2018 and it does not represent the United States law passed in 1996.

Sarbanes Oxley Act is not correct because that 2002 law addresses corporate financial reporting and auditor independence and it does not set rules for protecting patient health information.

Gramm Leach Bliley Act is not correct because that 1999 law governs the handling of consumers financial information by financial institutions and it does not establish the privacy and security rules for medical records.

When a question asks about laws for protecting patient medical records remember that HIPAA is the U.S. law enacted in 1996 and that is the key association to look for.

Enforce strong encryption for data at rest and in transit is the correct choice for ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of customer records during migration and in ongoing cloud operations.

This control protects data content directly by ensuring that intercepted or accessed data cannot be read or modified without the proper cryptographic keys. Encrypting data in transit prevents eavesdropping and tampering during migration and other transfers. Encrypting data at rest protects stored records if storage media or backups are exposed. Strong key management, the use of modern protocols such as TLS 1.2 or 1.3, and authenticated encryption modes are important complements to encryption to maintain both confidentiality and integrity.

Implement strict VPC firewall rules around the cloud boundary is a useful network control but it does not guarantee confidentiality or integrity of data if an attacker gains access through allowed channels or if data is intercepted outside those boundaries. Firewalls are complementary controls rather than a replacement for cryptographic protection.

Deploy a cloud intrusion detection system to monitor network and host activity helps detect suspicious behavior and support incident response but it does not prevent exposure of plaintext data during migration or stop unauthorized modification of stored data. Detection is important but it does not provide the direct data protection that encryption provides.

Rely primarily on the cloud provider to secure physical data center access misunderstands the shared responsibility model. Cloud providers handle physical security for their facilities but customers remain responsible for protecting their data and managing access, encryption keys, and configuration. Relying primarily on the provider leaves gaps in confidentiality and integrity protections.

When an exam question asks about confidentiality and integrity prioritize controls that protect the data itself such as encryption and strong key management rather than controls that only monitor or segment the environment.

The correct answer is Internet of Things.

A bedside lamp you power on from a smartphone fits the Internet of Things because it is a physical device that is network connected and can be controlled remotely by an application. IoT describes devices that combine hardware, connectivity, and software to enable monitoring, control, or automation, which is exactly what a smart lamp demonstrates.

Machine learning is incorrect because it refers to algorithms that learn patterns from data. A simple remotely controlled lamp does not need learning models to operate.

Artificial intelligence is incorrect because it denotes systems that exhibit intelligent or autonomous behavior. A lamp that only turns on or off when commanded by an app does not necessarily perform intelligent decision making.

Cryptography is incorrect because it is the practice of securing information and communications. While cryptography may be used to protect commands or data for a smart lamp it does not describe the category of the device itself.

Look for phrases that indicate a physical device is network connected or under remote control. Those clues usually point to Internet of Things on the exam.

Requirements analysis and feasibility study is correct. This is the phase where stakeholders capture functional and nonfunctional requirements and where acceptance criteria and testable requirements should be identified and recorded so tests can be planned and traced back to requirements.

During the Requirements analysis and feasibility study teams define what the system must do and how success will be measured. Clear acceptance criteria and test conditions are created at this time so design and implementation can be verified against them and so test planning, test design, and traceability can proceed early and effectively.

Implementation and coding is not correct because coding is the activity where developers build the solution and implement unit and integration tests, but it is too late to discover core acceptance criteria. Acceptance criteria should already be available when coding begins.

Maintenance phase is not correct because maintenance occurs after release and fixes or enhancements are applied. Defining initial testing requirements and acceptance criteria in maintenance would leave the original development without clear verification targets.

Test execution phase is not correct because execution is when tests are run against a build. If acceptance criteria and testing requirements are not defined before execution then tests cannot be properly designed or traced back to requirements, and execution becomes ad hoc rather than systematic.

When you see options that mention the word requirements or the phase that captures stakeholder needs choose those. Acceptance criteria are defined during requirements work and not during coding or after release.

The correct answer is SAML.

SAML is an XML based federation standard that defines a specific assertion format and the protocols to exchange identity and authentication information between an identity provider and a service provider. The SAML assertion itself is encoded in XML and carries elements for the subject authentication event and attribute statements that convey user identity.

SAML is widely used for enterprise single sign on and federated authentication where a trusted identity provider issues assertions to relying parties. While newer systems may use other token formats for APIs, SAML remains the common choice for browser based federated SSO in many deployments.

The JSON option is incorrect because JSON is a generic data interchange format and it is not the named federation protocol that transmits identity assertions in classic enterprise SSO. Modern alternatives such as OpenID Connect use JSON and JWTs for tokens, but that is a different standard.

The HTML option is incorrect because HTML is a markup language for rendering web content and it is not the encoding used to represent identity assertions. Browsers may carry assertions inside form posts or redirects, but the assertion format itself is not HTML.

The XML option is misleading because XML is the underlying encoding used by SAML but it is not the specific federation protocol. Saying only XML omits the standardized assertion structure and protocol behaviors that SAML defines.

When a question mentions federated authentication or enterprise SSO look for SAML as the XML based assertion standard and look for JWT or JSON when the question points to modern REST APIs or OpenID Connect.

The correct answer is Operational costs. This option is least likely to be a common problem because distributed IT architectures more often create governance, coordination and communication challenges rather than being primarily driven by uncontrollable operational cost issues.

Distributed architectures frequently use managed services, automation and elastic scaling which can make operational spending more predictable or more efficient. For that reason Operational costs are less commonly the dominant problem compared with difficulties around people and process.

Policy and oversight is incorrect because decentralization increases the need for clear governance, standards and compliance. Without consistent policy and oversight different teams can drift into divergent practices that introduce risk.

Coordinating activities across teams is incorrect because distributed systems raise dependencies and sequencing issues that require careful coordination of deployments and changes across multiple teams. Coordination overhead is a common operational pain point.

Inter-team communications is incorrect because more distributed ownership and more services create additional handoffs and context gaps. Effective communication is therefore frequently a significant challenge for organizations with distributed IT.

When answering these questions look for options tied to people and process challenges. Pay special attention to the phrase least likely and eliminate choices that are tightly linked to decentralization such as governance, coordination and communication.

The correct answer is SOC 1 Type 1.

SOC 1 Type 1 reports describe the service organization’s controls and assess their design and implementation as of a specific date. They evaluate whether controls were suitably designed and in place at a single point in time rather than testing their operating effectiveness over a period.

SOC 2 Type 2 is incorrect because a Type 2 report tests and reports on the operating effectiveness of controls over a defined period and not at a single point in time. A SOC 2 report also focuses on Trust Services Criteria which is a different scope from SOC 1.

Cloud Audit Logs is incorrect because it is a cloud logging service that records administrative and data access activity and it is not a service organization control report that assesses controls at a point in time.

ISO 27001 certification is incorrect because it is a certification of an information security management system against a standard and it represents conformance over an audit cycle rather than a one day point in time SOC control assessment.

Focus on the wording point in time versus period in the question. Remember that Type 1 equals point in time and Type 2 equals a period.

All ISC2 questions are from my ISC2 CCSP Udemy course and certificationexams.pro

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants is correct. The AICPA is the national professional organization for certified public accountants and it has historically developed and helped maintain accounting principles used in the United States.

The AICPA created early standard setting bodies and professional guidance that formed the foundation of US GAAP and it continues to influence accounting practice and professional standards for auditors and CPAs.

International Organization for Standardization is incorrect. ISO issues international technical and management standards and it does not set accounting principles for US financial reporting.

International Accounting Standards Board is incorrect. The IASB issues International Financial Reporting Standards for many jurisdictions worldwide but it does not produce US GAAP.

Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council is incorrect. The PCI Security Standards Council sets data security standards for payment cards and it has no role in developing or maintaining accounting principles.

When asked which body is responsible for US GAAP pay attention to the phrase professional organization and the jurisdiction named in the question. The AICPA is the national CPA body while the FASB is the independent standards setter that issues current authoritative GAAP.

The correct option is United States.

The United States does not have a single nationwide privacy statute that governs all personal information. Instead it relies on a patchwork of federal sectoral laws and state laws. Federal statutes such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act for health information, the Gramm Leach Bliley Act for financial information and the Children s Online Privacy Protection Act for children s data operate by sector. States have also enacted broad privacy laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act and the California Privacy Rights Act that apply within their borders. Together these make the regulatory landscape fragmented rather than governed by one omnibus federal privacy law.

Brazil is incorrect because it enacted the Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados, commonly called the LGPD, which is a comprehensive national data protection law enforced by the national authority. The LGPD covers personal data across sectors and regions in the country.

Canada is incorrect because the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act applies to personal information in the private sector across much of the country and provinces may have their own substantially similar laws but federal coverage remains in force. That creates a clear nationwide framework at the federal level.

European Economic Area is incorrect because the General Data Protection Regulation is a single, region wide regulation that applies across EU and EEA member states and provides a comprehensive privacy regime for personal data.

When a question asks about a single nationwide privacy statute look for whether the jurisdiction has an omnibus law. The United States is usually a patchwork of sectoral federal statutes and state laws rather than one nationwide law.

The correct option is Weighted shares.

Weighted shares refers to assigning relative weights to workloads so that when resources are scarce the platform divides available capacity proportionally according to those weights. This approach lets higher weighted workloads receive more of the available resources during sustained high demand while still allowing lower weighted workloads to make forward progress.

Resource pooling is about aggregating compute storage or network capacity into a shared pool for flexible allocation. It does not describe how the platform decides priority among competing requests when capacity is limited.

Maximum quotas set upper limits on how much resource a tenant or workload may consume. Quotas prevent overuse but they do not implement proportional prioritization during contention in the same way that weighted allocation does.

Guaranteed reservations reserve specific resources for a workload so that its needs are met. Reservations ensure availability for the reserved workload rather than dividing scarce resources among multiple contenders based on configured weights.

When a question describes proportional allocation during contention look for terms like shares or weights rather than words about limits or pooling.

The correct option is Resource Reservation. This SLA clause requires the cloud provider to set aside a defined amount of CPU and memory so that those resources remain available to your production workloads when needed.

Reservations are implemented as dedicated or zonal capacity at the provider level and they prevent overcommitment and noisy neighbor interference. In the SLA you should require explicit metrics such as vCPU count, RAM size, zones or regions covered, time windows for the reservation, and measurable remedies such as service credits or failover commitments so the guarantee is actionable.

Resource Throttling is incorrect because throttling reduces or limits resource consumption under load and does not provide a guaranteed baseline of CPU or memory for your workloads.

Resource Sharing is incorrect because sharing refers to multi tenant pooling of resources and it does not provide exclusive reserved capacity unless a separate reservation mechanism is also specified.

Committed Use Contract is incorrect because it is primarily a billing or discount commitment for sustained usage and it does not by itself reserve physical or virtual capacity for your workloads.

When you review SLAs look for words like reserved or dedicated that indicate a capacity guarantee rather than terms like committed use which usually refer to billing commitments.

Regulatory agencies is the correct answer. Regulatory agencies set compliance requirements and perform oversight, but they do not usually sign service contracts with cloud providers.

Cloud providers enter into formal agreements with parties that purchase, resell, or integrate their services so that operational responsibilities and liabilities are clear. Contracts and data processing agreements are typically between the provider and the commercial customer or their vendors, and regulators interact through audits, reporting, and enforcement rather than contractual terms.

Third party suppliers are incorrect because they often supply components, managed services, or integrations and therefore commonly have direct contracts or subcontracts with cloud providers to define responsibilities and liabilities.

Channel partners are incorrect because they frequently act as resellers or managed service providers and they usually have formal partner and reseller agreements with cloud vendors to enable sales and support.

End customers are incorrect because they are the primary contracting party for cloud services and they hold the service agreements, terms of service, and data processing clauses with the provider.

Ask whether the stakeholder buys or resells services or whether they enforce rules. Regulators generally enforce compliance and do not enter into the same kind of service contracts that customers and partners do.

Software as a Service with customer managed keys is the correct option.

The vendor hosted application model still applies while the customer retains sole control of the cryptographic keys when using Software as a Service with customer managed keys. In this arrangement the software provider runs and maintains the application and the customer supplies and controls the encryption keys in their own key management system or a supported customer managed key service.

Because the keys are customer managed the customer can rotate, revoke, and audit key usage independent of the SaaS provider. This gives the fintech startup the cryptographic control it needs for data protection while avoiding responsibility for hosting and operating the application stack.

Platform as a Service with additional security controls is incorrect because PaaS requires the customer to manage more of the platform and application runtime than a vendor hosted SaaS solution. PaaS is not the typical model where the vendor fully operates the application for the customer.

Custom Infrastructure as a Service is incorrect because a custom IaaS model means the customer manages infrastructure components such as virtual machines and operating systems. That model does not match the requirement to run vendor hosted applications while retaining only the keys.

Standard Software as a Service is incorrect because standard SaaS usually uses provider managed keys and does not give the customer sole control of cryptographic keys. The distinction in the correct answer is the customer managed key option which changes who controls the encryption keys.

When a question mentions vendor hosted applications but also requires the customer to control encryption keys look for terms like customer managed keys or BYOK to identify the SaaS option that allows customer key control.

The correct answer is Resource capacity management.

Resource capacity management is the process that forecasts demand and ensures that computing resources are provisioned and optimized to meet performance targets so that service level agreements are fulfilled while costs are controlled. This process focuses on monitoring utilization, planning capacity changes, and right sizing resources to avoid both performance shortfalls and unnecessary expenditure.

Availability management focuses on ensuring services are available at agreed levels and improving resilience and uptime. It is not primarily about provisioning resources or cost optimization which is the core of capacity management.

Configuration management maintains records of configuration items and their relationships in a configuration management database. It helps track assets and versions but does not handle forecasting demand or provisioning capacity to meet performance requirements.

Release and deployment management is responsible for building, testing, and deploying new releases into the live environment. It deals with the controlled rollout of changes and not with ongoing capacity planning or cost control.

When a question mentions provisioning, performance, SLAs, or cost control look for the process that handles forecasting and resizing of resources and not the processes that focus on uptime, asset records, or deployments. Emphasize the word capacity when scanning options.

Reinforced structural walls is the correct measure that can help reduce exposure to natural disasters.

Reinforced structural walls increase the building’s resistance to wind forces, seismic shaking, and impacts from debris, and they can help prevent or limit ingress of water during floods when combined with appropriate seals and elevation. Strengthening the physical envelope directly reduces the probability of catastrophic damage to critical systems and infrastructure.

Structural hardening is a preventative approach that lowers the facility’s vulnerability to hazards and improves the chances that operations can continue or be restored quickly after an event. Engineering to local building and seismic codes and using purpose designed materials are common ways to implement this measure.

Cloud Storage multi region replication is not a physical mitigation. It preserves data by keeping copies in different geographic locations so recovery is possible after a disaster, but it does not reduce the likelihood that a given data center will be impacted by a natural hazard.

Autoscaling compute capacity helps applications handle changes in load and can improve availability by adding resources when needed. It does not fortify the facility or change exposure to storms, floods, or earthquakes.

Data encryption at rest protects confidentiality and helps meet compliance requirements, but it does not affect the physical survivability of hardware or site infrastructure and therefore does not reduce exposure to natural disasters.

When a question asks about reducing exposure think of physical or site hardening actions rather than of backups, replication, or data protection features.

Security controls can completely remove every potential risk is the correct choice because that statement overstates what controls can achieve and so misunderstands their purpose and limits.

Security controls reduce and manage risk but they cannot eradicate all risk. Threats evolve and unknown vulnerabilities and human errors can produce residual risk. Organizations accept or transfer that residual risk through risk acceptance, insurance, or compensating controls while they continuously monitor and improve defenses.

Security controls are intended to safeguard organizational assets is not a misunderstanding. That statement correctly describes the goal of controls which is to protect confidentiality, integrity, and availability of assets.

Controls can be configured to either prevent security incidents or to detect them after they occur is also correct. Preventive controls like firewalls and detective controls like logging and intrusion detection both play valid roles in a layered security strategy.

The choice and deployment of controls often depends on cloud platform capabilities such as Google Cloud IAM and VPC is not wrong either. Cloud platform features and the shared responsibility model influence which controls you can deploy and how you implement them.

When you see absolute wording such as completely remove every potential risk on the exam it is usually incorrect. Think in terms of risk reduction and residual risk when you answer security control questions.

The correct answer is Threat modeling and analysis.

Threat modeling and analysis explicitly uses structured threat categorization and risk scoring to identify and prioritize threats. STRIDE provides a way to enumerate attack types against a design and DREAD supplies a method to assess and compare the risk and impact of those threats which makes both frameworks appropriate for threat modeling work.

Threat modeling and analysis is a proactive design and analysis activity that combines architecture review with attacker perspectives and risk prioritization. Using both STRIDE and DREAD helps teams decide which mitigations to implement first based on the most significant threats.

Cloud Security Command Center is a cloud provider security product that aggregates alerts and findings and provides visibility. It is a tool and not the analytical activity that applies STRIDE and DREAD to catalog attack patterns and score risks.

Automated vulnerability scanning discovers known flaws by scanning systems and comparing signatures or heuristics. It does not typically involve the systematic threat categorization and risk scoring that STRIDE and DREAD support which are manual or semi manual analysis techniques.

Penetration testing exercises simulate attacker behavior to find exploitable issues and validate controls. While penetration tests can be informed by threat models they are execution based assessments rather than the modeling and risk scoring activity described by the use of STRIDE and DREAD.

When you see both STRIDE and DREAD think threat modeling because one categorizes threats and the other scores their risk. Choose the answer that describes analysis and prioritization rather than a specific tool or automated scan.

The correct option is Service level agreement. An SLA is the contractual document that sets the baseline obligations a cloud vendor must meet to satisfy the customer and the contract.

Service level agreements typically define availability targets, performance metrics, support response times, security and data handling responsibilities, monitoring and reporting requirements, and remedies such as service credits for failures. Reviewing the SLA lets Maria see the measurable obligations, how they are tested, what exclusions apply, and what remedies or penalties exist if the vendor fails to meet the commitments.

ISO 27001 is an information security management standard and certification. It defines a framework of controls and an audit process, but it does not itself specify a vendor’s contractual service level obligations or remedies in a customer contract.

Application programming interface is a technical interface that describes how software components interact with a service. It documents endpoints and behavior for integrations, but it does not contain contractual commitments about uptime, support, or penalties.

Evaluation Assurance Level is part of the Common Criteria and describes the assurance level of a product evaluation. It indicates how rigorously a product was tested and vetted, but it does not lay out the operational or contractual service levels a vendor must meet.

When a question asks where contractual obligations and measurable commitments are defined look for service level agreement or similar contractual terms. Standards and technical interfaces describe controls or interfaces but do not state the vendor’s binding service metrics.

All ISC2 questions are from my ISC2 CCSP Udemy course and certificationexams.pro

The correct option is It reduces the chance that an attacker can alter or erase log records.

Centralizing logs into a single, protected repository reduces the risk that an attacker can remove or modify evidence because the attacker would need to compromise both the individual endpoints and the centralized store. Central storage also enables stronger access controls, immutability options, and separate retention policies which preserve the integrity of records for investigations.

Maintaining a centralized log repository makes it easier to ensure logs are transmitted securely and written to tamper resistant storage. That preservation of integrity and availability of records is the primary security benefit because it supports reliable forensics and accountability after an incident.

Cloud Logging is incorrect because it names a type of service rather than stating the security benefit provided by centralization. The option does not explain why central logs improve security.

It allows automated enforcement to block malicious traffic is incorrect because blocking is performed by enforcement controls such as firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, or access gateways. Centralized logs can inform or trigger those controls but the log repository itself does not perform the blocking.

It enables security teams to receive alerts about anomalous behavior is incorrect because alerting is an operational outcome of analysis and monitoring. While central logs support detection and alerting, the question asked for the primary security benefit which is protecting log integrity and preventing tampering so that evidence remains reliable.

When a question asks for the primary security benefit of centralized logging focus on answers about log integrity and tamper resistance rather than operational features like alerting or blocking.

DAM agents can be deployed on the database host or positioned to inspect network traffic is correct because the primary deployment constraint for Database Activity Monitoring in cloud environments is how you will obtain visibility into database activity.

When you evaluate this factor you must consider whether you can install DAM agents on the database host or whether you need to capture traffic externally with a network positioned sensor or cloud traffic mirroring. Each approach has different requirements for access, privileges, and integration with managed database services so choose the method that matches your cloud provider and service model.

DAM agents on the host provide rich, session level visibility and can see decrypted activity when they run alongside the database. Network positioned sensors inspect traffic as it traverses the network so they require the ability to mirror or route traffic and they may be affected by TLS encryption. In many cloud managed database services you cannot install host agents and you must rely on network inspection or native audit streams.

Cloud Data Loss Prevention is not the right choice because DLP is a complementary control that focuses on content discovery and exfiltration prevention. It is useful for data governance but it does not address the deployment visibility choices that determine how DAM can collect activity data.

DAM must be installed only on database clients is incorrect because DAM deployment is not limited to clients. Agents can reside on the database host or sensors can be placed on the network so restricting deployment to clients would miss common and often required architectures.

DAM can replace encryption and tokenization is incorrect because DAM monitors and detects activity it does not provide confidentiality or data minimization. Encryption and tokenization protect data at rest and in transit and they remain necessary controls even when DAM is in place.

Focus on assessing visibility and placement first so you can determine whether host agents or network traffic inspection are feasible in your cloud database service.

The correct option is Application programming interfaces.

REST and SOAP are approaches for designing and implementing interfaces that let applications communicate with one another, so they are types of APIs. REST is an architectural style that typically uses HTTP and stateless interactions, while SOAP is a protocol that uses XML envelopes and defined message patterns, and both expose functionality as application programming interfaces.

Cloud Endpoints is not the correct category. It is a vendor product that helps expose and manage APIs but it is not the general class of interface that REST and SOAP represent.

Compliance frameworks is incorrect because those frameworks define regulatory and governance controls rather than interfaces for programmatic communication.

IAM policies is incorrect because identity and access management policies control permissions and access rather than describing the interface style or protocol used for application communication.

When you see REST or SOAP on exam questions think about whether the choice names a type of interface or a management feature. Emphasize the word interface to choose APIs rather than products or policies.

Data undergoing encryption is correct because it is not one of the three primary data states used in security frameworks.

Security frameworks and common guidance categorize data by state as Data in motion, Data at rest, and Data in use. These labels describe where and how data exists rather than what process is being applied to it, so Data undergoing encryption describes an operation that can occur in any state rather than a separate primary state.

Data in motion is wrong because it is a standard primary state and it refers to data being transmitted across networks or between systems, so it is not the answer to this question.

Data at rest is wrong because it is a standard primary state and it refers to data stored on disks, databases, backups, or other persistent storage, so it is not the answer.

Data in use is wrong because it is a standard primary state and it refers to data being processed in memory or on a CPU while applications operate on it, so it is not the answer.

When an option describes an action look for words like undergoing or processing. Focus on whether the phrase names a state or an operation and choose the one that is not a state.

The correct option is PGP.

PGP is a suite of cryptographic standards for encrypting and signing data and email using public key cryptography. It is not an identity federation protocol and it does not provide mechanisms for issuing identity assertions or tokens for single sign on across domains. Federation protocols are designed to exchange authentication and authorization information between identity providers and service providers, while PGP is focused on message confidentiality and integrity.

OAuth is incorrect because it is a widely used authorization framework that issues access tokens for delegated access and it is commonly used in federated authentication scenarios when paired with identity layers.

OpenID is incorrect because the OpenID family of protocols provides identity federation and authentication. Modern OpenID Connect builds on OAuth to provide identity tokens and SSO. Note that older OpenID 2.0 has been largely superseded by OpenID Connect.

WS-Federation is incorrect because it is a web services federation protocol that enables single sign on and identity federation in enterprise environments and it is supported by many identity providers and platforms.

When deciding between federation protocols and cryptographic tools look for whether the technology issues identity tokens or assertions. Focus on authentication and authorization for federation and on encryption and signatures for tools like PGP.

The correct answer is Virtual private network.

A Virtual private network extends a corporate internal network across the public internet by creating an encrypted tunnel between endpoints so remote users and sites can access internal resources securely. It provides confidentiality and integrity through encryption and supports strong authentication so devices and users appear as if they are on the corporate LAN.

The option Virtual LAN is incorrect because VLANs segment traffic within a local switched network and they do not create an encrypted path over the internet or by themselves allow remote devices to join the internal network.

The option DNSSEC is incorrect because DNSSEC protects the integrity of DNS records and it does not provide a secure tunnel or carry user traffic for remote access to internal resources.

The option Remote Desktop Protocol is incorrect because RDP gives remote graphical access to a single host and it does not extend the corporate network boundary or protect all network traffic for a remote client.

When a question asks about extending the corporate network over the internet and keeping access secure look for a solution that creates an encrypted tunnel. Choose VPN when the requirement is to protect all traffic or make remote devices appear on the LAN.

The correct option is Web Application Firewall.

A Web Application Firewall inspects HTTP requests and responses and can detect and block common SQL injection payloads using signatures and behavioral rules. It is deployed in front of web applications so it can stop malicious queries before they reach the database. A WAF provides a rapid, configurable layer of defense for web traffic and is therefore the most effective choice among the listed controls for preventing SQL injection attacks, although secure coding practices like parameterized queries should still be used as the primary safeguard.

Transport Layer Security is incorrect because TLS only protects data in transit and does not inspect or sanitize HTTP content, so it cannot prevent injection of malicious SQL into requests.

Identity Aware Proxy is incorrect because an identity proxy enforces authentication and access control and it does not filter or block malicious input patterns in application requests.

Endpoint antivirus scanning is incorrect because antivirus tools focus on detecting malware on hosts and files and they do not analyze HTTP request payloads for SQL injection.

When you see answer choices about network, access, or host security think about what inspects HTTP content. A WAF inspects and filters web traffic and is the immediate mitigation for SQL injection while parameterized queries remain the developer best practice.

The correct answer is Locate every system and storage location where data resides.

A comprehensive data mapping process builds an inventory and index of applications databases file shares cloud storage and other repositories so security and privacy teams can see where data is stored across the enterprise. This visibility focuses on the locations and scope of data holdings which enables targeted governance and remediation activities.

Data mapping often collects metadata that supports classification and later consolidation but its primary purpose is to reveal the locations of data rather than to perform transformation or continuous monitoring. Knowing where data lives is the foundation for lineage classification access controls and retention actions.

Differentiate data as structured or unstructured is incorrect because while mapping may record format metadata classifying data structure is a separate classification step and not the core outcome of a location map.

Detect when records are changed inside an application is incorrect because change detection requires event logging change data capture or runtime monitoring and is not provided by a static inventory of storage locations.

Consolidate similar data types into logical groups is incorrect because consolidation is an active remediation or integration task that moves or reorganizes data and mapping only identifies where similar data exists so that consolidation can be planned.

When a question mentions data mapping focus on the word where. Mapping creates an inventory of locations and repositories and it does not itself enforce changes or provide continuous change detection.

The correct answer is Electronic discovery.

This term describes the formal legal process of identifying, collecting, preserving and producing electronically stored information so it can be presented as evidence in a criminal trial. The process covers preservation to prevent alteration, documented collection and imaging to maintain integrity, review for relevance and privilege, and production for use in court.

Repudiation is incorrect because repudiation refers to a party denying an action or transaction and is not a process for gathering or protecting electronic evidence. It relates to the concept of non repudiation rather than to evidence collection.

Cloud Audit Logs is incorrect because audit logs are a type of record that can be used as evidence but they are a tool or data source rather than the legal process of identifying and producing evidence. Logs may be collected during electronic discovery but the logs alone do not constitute the end to end e discovery process.

Chain of custody is incorrect as the best answer because chain of custody refers specifically to the documentation that tracks who handled evidence and when to preserve its integrity. The chain of custody is an important part of evidence handling and it is often required during electronic discovery, but it does not by itself describe the full process of identifying collecting preserving and producing electronic records.

Look for keywords like identify, collect, and preserve in the question as they often point to Electronic discovery rather than to individual tools or related concepts.

Reconciling differing national data privacy and protection regimes is the correct option.

This is the largest compliance and legal difficulty because different countries impose conflicting rules on personal data handling and cross border transfers and those conflicts can create legal impossibilities or require substantially different business processes in each jurisdiction.

Regimes vary on consent requirements data residency mandatory breach notification retention of specific data classes and restrictions on transferring data overseas and those differences drive contractual complexity enforcement risk and high financial penalties which makes harmonization extremely difficult for a multinational retailer using multiple cloud vendors.

Cloud Identity is important but it is primarily a technical and operational challenge because federated identity standards and central identity providers can be used to manage authentication and authorization across clouds.

Harmonizing availability guarantees and uptime commitments from multiple cloud providers is mainly an operational and contractual issue and it is typically addressed through architecture design multi region deployment and clear service level agreements rather than complex legal conflicts across national jurisdictions.

Unifying logging retention and audit trails across cloud platforms can be challenging because retention rules differ but it is usually a solvable policy and tooling problem using centralized logging and configurable retention policies and it does not create the same level of legal conflict as differing national privacy laws.

When a question mentions multinational operations and legal obligations first think about data residency and privacy law conflicts because they usually create the deepest and least technical compliance problems.

All ISC2 questions are from my ISC2 CCSP Udemy course and certificationexams.pro

The correct option is Negotiating service level agreements.

Negotiating service level agreements is primarily a customer responsibility because SLAs are contractual commitments that define availability performance remedies and support expectations. Providers typically publish standard SLAs but customers must review negotiate and accept terms that align with their business requirements and risk tolerance and they must document any special terms in their contract.

Cloud Identity and Access Management is offered by the provider as a managed capability and the customer configures and uses that service. This makes IAM a shared operational responsibility rather than a primarily contractual task for the customer.

Submitting support tickets to the provider is an operational action that customers perform when they need help. It does not change or establish the contractual guarantees and legal remedies that are set by SLA negotiations.

Participating in the shared responsibility model describes how duties are divided between provider and customer. It is a joint framework and not a single responsibility that falls only to the customer.

Ask whether the task is contractual or operational because contract negotiation such as SLA terms is typically the customer responsibility while many operational controls are shared or provided by the vendor.

The correct option is DNS spoofing.

DNS spoofing is the practice of forging DNS responses so that a client or resolver receives false name to address mappings. DNSSEC mitigates this threat by cryptographically signing DNS records and establishing a chain of trust so resolvers can verify that responses are authentic and have not been tampered with.

Account compromise is incorrect because DNSSEC does not protect user credentials or prevent attackers from stealing accounts. That risk is addressed by authentication, access control, and credential protection measures rather than DNS record signing.

Eavesdropping on DNS traffic is incorrect because DNSSEC provides authenticity and integrity and not confidentiality. To prevent passive interception of DNS queries and responses you would use encrypted transports such as DNS over TLS or DNS over HTTPS.

Injection attacks is incorrect because DNSSEC is not intended to stop application level injection like SQL injection or cross site scripting. DNSSEC focuses specifically on ensuring DNS answers are genuine and unmodified.

When you see DNSSEC think authenticity and integrity not confidentiality. Choose encrypted DNS transports when the question is about preventing eavesdropping.

The correct option is Overwriting.

Overwriting is the appropriate technique when you need to permanently erase files in a cloud account and you or the cloud provider can perform block level writes to sanitize the storage. Overwriting replaces the storage locations that contained the log data with new patterns so that the original content is no longer recoverable when done according to accepted sanitization practices and provider procedures.

Cryptographic erasure is not chosen here because it depends on data having been encrypted with a unique key that you control and then securely destroying that key. If the logs were not already encrypted under a separable key that you manage you cannot retroactively use key destruction to reliably sanitize the files.

Physical shredding of storage media is not applicable for public cloud workloads because you do not have physical access to the underlying hardware and you cannot perform physical destruction on provider devices.

Degaussing magnetic media is not appropriate in this scenario because many cloud storage devices are solid state and because you cannot access or degauss hardware in a public cloud environment. Degaussing also requires direct control of the physical media and is not practical for remote cloud storage.

When a question refers to public cloud check whether you control the physical device or the encryption keys and favor a deletion method that you can actually perform with provider tools or key management.

The correct answer is Social engineering.

Social engineering is correct because the Top Ten lists published for web applications focus on technical vulnerabilities in software and configuration rather than human focused attack techniques. Social engineering targets people and processes and is not a specific web application vulnerability so it does not appear on the Top Ten list.

Examples of items that do appear on the Top Ten include Cross site scripting, Insecure deserialization, and XML external entities, and that is why those options are not the right choice for this question.

Insecure deserialization is a recognized application risk and has been included on Top Ten lists because unsafe deserialization of untrusted data can lead to remote code execution and severe compromise.

Cross site scripting is a classic web application vulnerability that allows attackers to inject client side scripts and it is consistently represented in web application Top Ten lists.

XML external entities refers to XXE vulnerabilities where XML external entity processing can cause data exfiltration or denial of service and it is included when XML parsing risks are considered.

When a question asks which item is not on the Top Ten list look for options that describe people focused attacks. The OWASP Top Ten emphasizes technical web application vulnerabilities and not human or social engineering techniques.