CompTIA CAS-004 Practice Test - Questions Answers, Page 36

Input validation is a technique that checks the user input for any errors, malicious data, or unexpected values before processing it by the application. Input validation can prevent many

common web application attacks, such as:

SQL injection, which exploits a vulnerability in the application’s database query to execute malicious SQL commands.

Cross-site scripting (XSS), which injects malicious JavaScript code into the application’s web page to execute on the client-side browser.

Directory traversal, which accesses files or directories outside of the intended scope by manipulating the file path.

In this case, the security engineer should recommend input validation as the best mitigation technique, because it would:

Prevent the exfiltration of a company report by validating the file parameter in the URL and ensuring that it matches a predefined list of allowed files or formats.

Enhance the security of the web application by filtering out any malicious or invalid input from users or attackers.

Be more effective and efficient than other techniques, such as firewall, WAF (Web Application Firewall), or DLP (Data Loss Prevention), which may not be able to detect or block all types of web

application attacks.

A regular expression (regex) is a sequence of characters that defines a search pattern for matching text. A regex can be used to detect the presence of a malicious piece of software communicating

with its command-and-control server by matching the indicators of compromise (IOC) in the network traffic.

In this case, the systems administrator should use the regex Host: [a-z]*.malicious.com to determine if any of the company hosts are compromised, while reducing false positives, because this regex

would:

Match the Host header in the HTTP request, which specifies the domain name of the command-andcontrol server.

Allow any subdomain under the malicious.com domain, by using the character class [a-z]*, which matches zero or more lowercase letters.

Escape the dot character in the domain name, by using the backslash , which prevents it from being interpreted as a wildcard that matches any character.

Not match any other parts of the IOC that could change, such as the URL path, the User-Agent header, or the HTTP method.

Certificate pinning is a technique that embeds one or more trusted certificates or public keys inside an application, and verifies that any certificate presented by a server matches one of those certificates or public keys. Certificate pinning can prevent on-path attacks, such as man-in-themiddle (MITM) attacks, which intercept and modify the communication between a client and a server.

Configuring certificate pinning inside the application would allow the mobile application developer to create a global, highly scalable, secure chat application that is not susceptible to on-path attacks while the user is traveling in potentially hostile regions, because it would:

Ensure that only trusted servers can communicate with the application, by rejecting any server certificate that does not match one of the pinned certificates or public keys.

Protect the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of the chat messages, by preventing any attacker from intercepting, modifying, or impersonating them.

Enhance the security of the application by reducing its reliance on external factors, such as certificate authorities (CAs), certificate revocation lists (CRLs), or online certificate status protocol (OCSP).

A digital signature is a cryptographic technique that allows the sender of a file to sign it with their private key and the receiver to verify it with the sender’s public key. This ensures the integrity and authenticity of the file, as well as the non-repudiation of the sender. A message hash or a message digest is a one-way function that produces a fixed-length output from an input, but it does not provide any information about the sender. A message authentication code (MAC) is a symmetric-key technique that allows both the sender and the receiver to generate and verify a code using a shared secret key, but it does not provide non-repudiation. Reference: [CompTIA Advanced Security

Practitioner (CASP+) Certification Exam Objectives], Domain 2: Enterprise Security Architecture, Objective 2.1: Apply cryptographic techniques

Static application security testing (SAST) is a method of analyzing the source code of an application for vulnerabilities and weaknesses before it is deployed. SAST can help identify security issues earlier in the development process, reducing the time and cost of remediation. Dynamic application security testing (DAST) is a method of testing the functionality and behavior of an application at runtime for vulnerabilities and weaknesses. DAST can cover public-facing application components, but it cannot detect issues in the source code or in serverless applications. Runtime application self-protection (RASP) is a technology that monitors and protects an application from attacks in real time by

embedding security features into the application code or runtime environment. RASP can help prevent exploitation of vulnerabilities, but it cannot identify or fix them. A web application firewall (WAF) is a device or software that filters and blocks malicious web traffic from reaching an application. A WAF can help protect an application from common attacks, but it cannot detect or fix vulnerabilities in the application code or in serverless applications. Reference: [CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP+) Certification Exam Objectives], Domain 3: Enterprise Security Operations, Objective 3.4: Conduct security assessments using appropriate tools

A content delivery network (CDN) is a distributed system of servers that delivers web content to users based on their geographic location, the origin of the content, and the performance of the network. A CDN can help improve the availability and performance of web applications by caching content closer to the users, reducing latency and bandwidth consumption. A CDN can also help mitigate distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks by absorbing or filtering malicious traffic before it reaches the origin servers, reducing the impact on the application availability. Supporting heterogeneous architecture means using different types of hardware, software, or platforms in an IT

environment. This can help improve resilience by reducing single points of failure and increasing compatibility, but it does not directly prevent DDoS attacks. Ensuring cloud autoscaling is in place means using cloud services that automatically adjust the amount of resources allocated to an application based on the demand or load. This can help improve scalability and performance by providing more resources when needed, but it does not directly prevent DDoS attacks. Scaling horizontally means adding more servers or nodes to an IT environment to increase its capacity or throughput. This can help improve scalability and performance by distributing the load across

multiple servers, but it does not directly prevent DDoS attacks. Reference: [CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP+) Certification Exam Objectives], Domain 2: Enterprise Security Architecture, Objective 2.4: Select controls based on systems security evaluation models

An API gateway is a device or software that acts as an intermediary between clients and servers that provide web services through application programming interfaces (APIs). An API gateway can provide various functions such as:

Terminating SSL connections at a central location, reducing the overhead on the backend servers and simplifying certificate management Managing both authentication and authorization for incoming and outgoing web service calls,

enforcing security policies and access control Advertising the web service API, providing documentation and discovery features for developers and consumers

Implementing DLP and anti-malware features, preventing data leakage and malicious code injection A web application firewall (WAF) is a device or software that filters and blocks malicious web traffic from reaching an application. A WAF can provide some protection for web services, but it does not provide all the functions of an API gateway. An XML gateway is a device or software that validates, transforms, and routes XML messages between clients and servers that provide web services. An XML gateway can provide some functions of an API gateway, but it is limited to XML-based web services and does not support other formats such as JSON. An enterprise service bus (ESB) gateway is

a device or software that integrates and orchestrates multiple web services into a single service or application. An ESB gateway can provide some functions of an API gateway, but it is more focused on business logic and workflow rather than security and performance. Reference: [CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP+) Certification Exam Objectives], Domain 2: Enterprise Security Architecture, Objective 2.3: Implement solutions for the secure use of cloud services