A user receives an email that appears to be from the company's CEO, urgently requesting a wire transfer to a vendor. The email address is slightly misspelled (e.g., ceo@company.co instead of ceo@company.com). The user is about to comply. Which type of social engineering attack is this, and what is the most immediate indicator that should raise suspicion?

Spear phishing; the sender's domain is slightly misspelled

Vishing; the request is unusual for the CEO

Smishing; the email contains an urgent request

Phishing; the CEO's name is used in the email

Which preventive measure is most effective at reducing the impact of a ransomware attack that encrypts local files?

Regularly updating antivirus signatures

Maintaining offline, tested backups

An employee with legitimate access to the company's customer database downloads a large batch of records to a personal USB drive and later sells the data to a competitor. Which type of insider threat is this, and what is the most effective control to detect or prevent it?

Negligent insider; provide security awareness training

Malicious insider; implement data loss prevention (DLP) and restrict USB access

Malicious insider; monitor network traffic only

Compromised insider; revoke the employee's access

A company's file server is infected with ransomware, and the attackers demand payment to decrypt files. The company has a backup strategy that includes nightly backups to an external cloud provider with versioning enabled. Which of the following is the best response to the ransomware attack?

Pay the ransom to get the decryption key quickly

Disconnect the server and attempt to remove the ransomware manually

Notify the attackers and negotiate a lower payment

Restore the files from the cloud backups and do not pay the ransom

CiscoCertified Support Technician (CCST) Cybersecurity

Domain 1Objective 2

Explain Common Threats and Vulnerabilities 100-160 Practice Questions (Page 7)

Part of the Essential Security Principles domain, which makes up ~18% of our current practice bank. Cisco does not publish an official question count, but from its 50-minute exam (~20–35 total, ~4–6 in this domain), expect 1–2 from this objective — we provide 50 practice questions to prepare you well beyond it. (estimate)

50questions here

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10concepts

Questions 31–35

31application · medium
A user receives an email that appears to be from the company's CEO, urgently requesting a wire transfer to a vendor. The email address is slightly misspelled (e.g., ceo@company.co instead of ceo@company.com). The user is about to comply. Which type of social engineering attack is this, and what is the most immediate indicator that should raise suspicion?
Select an answer first
32foundation · easy
Which preventive measure is most effective at reducing the impact of a ransomware attack that encrypts local files?
Select an answer first
33application · medium
An employee with legitimate access to the company's customer database downloads a large batch of records to a personal USB drive and later sells the data to a competitor. Which type of insider threat is this, and what is the most effective control to detect or prevent it?
Select an answer first
34foundation · easy
An employee accidentally clicks a phishing link and enters their credentials, which are then used by an attacker to access corporate data. What type of insider threat does this represent?
Select an answer first
35application · medium
A company's file server is infected with ransomware, and the attackers demand payment to decrypt files. The company has a backup strategy that includes nightly backups to an external cloud provider with versioning enabled. Which of the following is the best response to the ransomware attack?
Select an answer first

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Explain Common Threats and Vulnerabilities 100-160 Practice Questions (Page 7)

Questions 31–35

Which preventive measure is most effective at reducing the impact of a ransomware attack that encrypts local files?

An employee with legitimate access to the company's customer database downloads a large batch of records to a personal USB drive and later sells the data to a competitor. Which type of insider threat is this, and what is the most effective control to detect or prevent it?

An employee accidentally clicks a phishing link and enters their credentials, which are then used by an attacker to access corporate data. What type of insider threat does this represent?

A company's file server is infected with ransomware, and the attackers demand payment to decrypt files. The company has a backup strategy that includes nightly backups to an external cloud provider with versioning enabled. Which of the following is the best response to the ransomware attack?

Keep studying — Essential Security Principles