A company wants to secure web traffic to its public website. The website is hosted on a single server and users access it via https://www.example.com. The administrator needs to ensure that the connection is encrypted and that users can verify the server's identity. Which configuration is required?

Use SSH tunneling to encrypt the web traffic.

Configure the server to use IPsec to encrypt all traffic to the website.

Install a TLS certificate signed by a trusted CA on the web server and configure the server to use TLS.

Use a self-signed certificate on the server and instruct users to ignore browser warnings.

A remote employee connects to the corporate network using SSH to manage a Linux server. The employee wants to ensure that the server they are connecting to is genuinely the corporate server and not an impostor. Which SSH mechanism provides this assurance?

The user's private key, which is used to authenticate the user to the server.

The SSH protocol's use of TLS certificates to authenticate the server.

The server's host key, which the client verifies against a known fingerprint or a CA-signed certificate.

The IP address of the server, which is assumed to be correct because it is on the corporate VPN.

A security analyst is investigating a suspected data breach. The analyst has a list of known malicious files and wants to determine if any of these files exist on a compromised system. The analyst has access to the system's file hashes. Which approach is most effective?

Decrypt the system files using the malicious files' public keys and compare the contents.

Look for files with the same creation timestamp as the malicious files.

Compare the file sizes of the system files to the sizes of the malicious files.

Compare the SHA-256 hash of each file on the system to the known hashes of the malicious files.

A multinational company needs to securely distribute a new symmetric key to branch offices. The key must be protected during transit, and the company wants to avoid the operational burden of out-of-band key delivery. However, the company also wants to ensure that the key can be rotated frequently without requiring manual intervention at each branch. Which solution best meets these requirements?

Use a key distribution center (KDC) that encrypts the new key with each branch's public key and sends it over the network.

Use a hardware security module (HSM) at each branch and manually load the key into each HSM.

Use a static pre-shared key that is changed only once a year.

Send the new key via email encrypted with a shared passphrase.

GIAC Security Essentials

Domain 3Objective 2

Cryptography Application GSEC Practice Questions (Page 5)

Part of the Cryptography and Communications domain, which makes up ~12% of our current practice bank. GIAC (SANS) does not publish an official question count, but from its 240-minute exam (~95–160 total, ~11–19 in this domain), expect 4–6 from this objective — we provide 42 practice questions to prepare you well beyond it. (estimate)

42questions here

9free pages

8concepts

Questions 21–25

21application · easy
A company wants to secure web traffic to its public website. The website is hosted on a single server and users access it via https://www.example.com. The administrator needs to ensure that the connection is encrypted and that users can verify the server's identity. Which configuration is required?
Select an answer first
22foundation · easy
Which property of a cryptographic hash function ensures that it is computationally infeasible to find any input that produces a given output?
Select an answer first
23application · medium
A remote employee connects to the corporate network using SSH to manage a Linux server. The employee wants to ensure that the server they are connecting to is genuinely the corporate server and not an impostor. Which SSH mechanism provides this assurance?
Select an answer first
24application · easy
A security analyst is investigating a suspected data breach. The analyst has a list of known malicious files and wants to determine if any of these files exist on a compromised system. The analyst has access to the system's file hashes. Which approach is most effective?
Select an answer first
25expert · hard
A multinational company needs to securely distribute a new symmetric key to branch offices. The key must be protected during transit, and the company wants to avoid the operational burden of out-of-band key delivery. However, the company also wants to ensure that the key can be rotated frequently without requiring manual intervention at each branch. Which solution best meets these requirements?
Select an answer first

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Cryptography Application GSEC Practice Questions (Page 5)

Questions 21–25

A company wants to secure web traffic to its public website. The website is hosted on a single server and users access it via https://www.example.com. The administrator needs to ensure that the connection is encrypted and that users can verify the server's identity. Which configuration is required?

Which property of a cryptographic hash function ensures that it is computationally infeasible to find any input that produces a given output?

A remote employee connects to the corporate network using SSH to manage a Linux server. The employee wants to ensure that the server they are connecting to is genuinely the corporate server and not an impostor. Which SSH mechanism provides this assurance?

A security analyst is investigating a suspected data breach. The analyst has a list of known malicious files and wants to determine if any of these files exist on a compromised system. The analyst has access to the system's file hashes. Which approach is most effective?

Keep studying — Cryptography and Communications