Two branch offices of a company need to exchange encrypted files over the internet. They already share a pre-arranged secret key that was distributed securely. The company wants the fastest encryption/decryption performance for large files. Which cryptographic approach should they use?

Use AES-256 in GCM mode with the shared secret key.

Use a digital signature to encrypt the file content.

Use a hash function to scramble the file content before sending.

Use RSA-2048 to encrypt each file with the recipient's public key.

A system administrator stores password hashes in a database instead of plaintext passwords. What property of hashing makes this a secure practice?

Hashing always produces a unique hash for every possible input

Hashing is a one-way function that is computationally infeasible to reverse

Hashing allows the original password to be recovered if needed

Hashing encrypts the password with a secret key

A software company releases a security patch. To ensure the patch is authentic and has not been tampered with, the company signs it with a code-signing certificate. A user verifies the signature and it is valid. What can the user conclude?

The patch was signed by the company and has not been modified since signing.

The patch is free of all security vulnerabilities.

The patch was encrypted during transmission.

The patch will work correctly on all systems.

A software vendor publishes a firmware update for a router. To allow users to verify the update's integrity, the vendor provides a SHA-256 hash. A user downloads the update and computes the hash, but it does not match the published value. What should the user conclude?

The firmware file has been corrupted or tampered with during download.

The user's computer is infected with malware that altered the hash.

The vendor's hash is incorrect, so the file is still safe to install.

The firmware is encrypted, so the hash will not match until decrypted.

CompTIASecurityX (CASP+)

Domain 3Objective 5

Cryptographic Techniques CAS-005 Practice Questions (Page 4)

Part of the Security engineering domain, which accounts for 31% of the CAS-005 exam. CompTIA does not publish an official question count, but from its 165-minute exam (~65–110 total, ~20–34 in this domain), expect 4–7 from this objective — we provide 26 practice questions to prepare you well beyond it. (estimate)

26questions here

6free pages

7concepts

31%of the exam

Questions 16–20

16application · easy
Two branch offices of a company need to exchange encrypted files over the internet. They already share a pre-arranged secret key that was distributed securely. The company wants the fastest encryption/decryption performance for large files. Which cryptographic approach should they use?
Select an answer first
17foundation · easy
A system administrator stores password hashes in a database instead of plaintext passwords. What property of hashing makes this a secure practice?
Select an answer first
18expert · medium
A software company releases a security patch. To ensure the patch is authentic and has not been tampered with, the company signs it with a code-signing certificate. A user verifies the signature and it is valid. What can the user conclude?
Select an answer first
19application · easy
A software vendor publishes a firmware update for a router. To allow users to verify the update's integrity, the vendor provides a SHA-256 hash. A user downloads the update and computes the hash, but it does not match the published value. What should the user conclude?
Select an answer first
20foundation · easy
A security analyst downloads a software update and wants to verify that the file has not been corrupted or tampered with during download. The vendor provides a checksum. Which cryptographic technique is used to generate this checksum?
Select an answer first

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