What is privilege escalation?

The process of encrypting files to protect them from unauthorized access

The process of gaining higher-level permissions than originally granted

The process of removing unnecessary user accounts from a system

The process of monitoring system logs for suspicious activity

A macOS user wants to prevent unauthorized applications from making changes to their personal documents folder. Which built-in macOS security feature should be configured?

System Integrity Protection (SIP)

A security analyst is investigating a Linux server that was compromised. The attacker gained initial access as a low-privileged user and then escalated to root. The analyst finds a world-writable script in /tmp that is executed by a cron job running as root. Which mitigation would be most effective to prevent this specific escalation path?

Move the script to a directory owned by the low-privileged user

Disable the cron service entirely

Remove write permissions for others on the script and ensure the directory is not world-writable

Change the script's owner to root and set the setuid bit

A penetration tester found that a Linux service runs as root and has a known vulnerability that allows arbitrary file write. The tester exploited it to overwrite /etc/passwd and created a new root user. Which mitigation would have MOST effectively prevented this privilege escalation?

Running the service under a dedicated non-root service account

Enabling SELinux with a targeted policy

Using sudo with a restrictive configuration

Applying the latest security patches

A Windows administrator needs to remotely check the status of Windows Defender real-time protection on several workstations and also verify that the local firewall is enabled. Which PowerShell cmdlets should the admin use?

Test-NetConnection and Resolve-DnsName

Get-WindowsFeature and Get-WindowsUpdateLog

Get-MpComputerStatus and Get-NetFirewallProfile

CiscoCertified Support Technician (CCST) Cybersecurity

Domain 3Objective 1

Describe Operating System Security Concepts 100-160 Practice Questions (Page 6)

Part of the Endpoint Security Concepts domain, which makes up ~25% of our current practice bank. Cisco does not publish an official question count, but from its 50-minute exam (~20–35 total, ~5–9 in this domain), expect 1–2 from this objective — we provide 43 practice questions to prepare you well beyond it. (estimate)

43questions here

9free pages

6concepts

Questions 26–30

26foundation · easy
What is privilege escalation?
Select an answer first
27application · medium
A macOS user wants to prevent unauthorized applications from making changes to their personal documents folder. Which built-in macOS security feature should be configured?
Select an answer first
28expert · hard
A security analyst is investigating a Linux server that was compromised. The attacker gained initial access as a low-privileged user and then escalated to root. The analyst finds a world-writable script in /tmp that is executed by a cron job running as root. Which mitigation would be most effective to prevent this specific escalation path?
Select an answer first
29expert · hard
A penetration tester found that a Linux service runs as root and has a known vulnerability that allows arbitrary file write. The tester exploited it to overwrite /etc/passwd and created a new root user. Which mitigation would have MOST effectively prevented this privilege escalation?
Select an answer first
30application · medium
A Windows administrator needs to remotely check the status of Windows Defender real-time protection on several workstations and also verify that the local firewall is enabled. Which PowerShell cmdlets should the admin use?
Select an answer first

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