CISSP Cyber Training Podcast - CISSP Training Program
Join Shon Gerber on his weekly CISSP Cyber Training podcast, where his extensive 23-year background in cybersecurity shines through. With a rich history spanning corporate sectors, government roles, and academic positions, Shon imparts the essential insights and advice necessary to conquer the CISSP exam. His expertise is not just theoretical; as a CISSP credential holder since 2009, Shon translates his deep understanding into actionable training. Each episode is packed with invaluable security strategies and tips that you can implement right away, giving you an edge in the cybersecurity realm. Tune in and take the reins of your cybersecurity journey—let’s ride into excellence together! 🚀
CISSP Cyber Training Podcast - CISSP Training Program
CCT 243: Practice CISSP Questions - Information and Asset Handling Requirements (Domain 2.2)
What happens when a security professional falls victim to malicious AI? The consequences can be devastating, as demonstrated by our analysis of a recent high-profile breach where a Disney security engineer downloaded AI-generated artwork containing hidden malware. This sophisticated attack led to the theft of 1.1 terabytes of sensitive corporate data and resulted in criminal charges for the attacker and career devastation for the victim. We break down exactly how it happened and the critical lessons for security professionals.
After exploring this cautionary tale, we dive into comprehensive practice questions focused on CISSP Domain 2: Asset Security. These challenges take you beyond textbook scenarios into the complex realities of modern information security governance. From metadata exposure risks and virtualization security to data sovereignty compliance and privacy protection, each question tests your ability to identify the most effective security controls and strategies in diverse enterprise environments.
The questions tackle particularly relevant security challenges including proper handling of sensitive data in cloud environments, managing security risks in mobile applications, and implementing responsible data sharing practices for research purposes. We emphasize crucial principles like data minimization, appropriate anonymization techniques, and breach notification requirements across multiple jurisdictions. Each question and explanation reinforces foundational CISSP concepts while developing your critical thinking skills for real-world implementations.
Ready to accelerate your CISSP preparation? Our Bronze package provides the comprehensive self-study blueprint you need to systematically master all CISSP domains. Visit CISSPCyberTraining.com today to access our complete library of resources designed specifically to help you pass the exam on your first attempt and advance your cybersecurity career.
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Welcome to the CISSP Cyber Training Podcast, where we provide you the training and tools you need to pass the CISSP exam the first time. Hi, my name is Sean Gerber and I'm your host for this action-packed, informative podcast. Join me each week as I provide the information you need to pass the CISSP exam and grow your cybersecurity knowledge. Alright, let's get started. Let's go. Cybersecurity knowledge All right let's get started.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm Sean Gerber with CISSP Cyber Training and hope you all are having a beautifully blessed day today. Today is CISSP Question Thursday and we are going to be providing CISSP questions for the content that we had on Monday, right? So if you guys have ever been listening to the CISSP Training Podcast, you know Mondays is when all the content comes out, and then on Thursdays I have practice questions that come out over the content that was there. So the ultimate goal is to provide you content and questions to help you pass the CISSP exam and by utilizing the podcast, by utilizing my blueprint on CISSP cyber training, utilizing all these tools together, your self-study platform is CISSP cyber training. It's there to help you. That's the ultimate goal in this whole plan is to help you get what you need done so that you can pass a CISSP and then you can make gazillions of dollars and move on and save the world. That's the goal, right. But before we get started on that, we wanted to talk real quickly about an article that I saw, and this individual, this man, pleads guilty to using malicious AI software to hack Disney employee. So there is this gentleman by the name of Ryan Michael Mitchell Kramer, who was from Santa Clarita, california. He distributed malicious AI art to various people, such as GitHub and different places like that, and then people went and downloaded it and because they downloaded it, it had unauthorized software in it. It created a problem, right. So it was malicious inside this artwork and one of the individuals that got it was a gentleman by the name of Matthew Van Andel. So Mr Van Andel downloaded this software on his personal computer and in the process of doing so, there led to some credentials that he had, because he's a security engineer led to some credentials that he had on his personal computer that was related to Disney and then Disney's internal systems. So, as an engineer properly security engineer he was utilizing credentials that were being stored on his personal stuff, which we all talk about. Is that a no-no and we need to work with people and make sure that it doesn't happen. Now I say that it's a no-no, but we all know it's happening out there and if you are a security professional, you probably need to be aware that how do you provide tools for your people so they don't do these things? And Disney probably well did provide some level of tools for him, but and again, I'm surmising, but Disney's a big company. I'm sure they provided something. He decided not to use that, or for whatever reason, the credentials were on his personal computer. So what happened is then is it down this? Once Mr Kramer got a hold of Disney, he downloaded approximately 1.1 terabytes of sensitive data, including Slack messages, customer information, employee records.
Speaker 2:So bad day for Mitchell Kramer. He's going to be breaking big rocks into little rocks. It's also a bad day for Mr Van Andel. Because of that, he was fired from Disney and they did a forensics deep dive of his personal computer and realized that he had some misconduct, probably based on their policies, and they fired him. And so now he is going that he's basically saying this wasn't me, I didn't do this. Um, so, and this can't be true. So since then, his family has launched a gofundme account because he doesn't have a job and has lost probably all of his employment and probably needs to get a new career, because once you do this, it's pretty hard to go find employment doing what you're doing. So Mr Van Andel is struggling, and so is Mr Kramer now as he's in prison, breaking big rocks into little rocks. So it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Speaker 2:Mr Kramer, he did plead guilty to federal charges of unlawfully accessing a computer and threatening to damage protected systems. Now they did threaten to destroy, to. Really, if they didn't get paid the ransom, he was going to release the documents, which he did, and therefore that's kind of how I think, part of how they found him. But at the end of the day, people I'm sorry if there's people that are that stupid to go out and do stuff like this this is just bad. And if you're downloading stuff off GitHub buyer beware this is just bad. And if you're downloading stuff off github, buyer beware. You don't know what you're getting. And especially now with the ai, whatever this ai artwork that was created, um was enough to tempt him into downloading it and who knows what's in it.
Speaker 2:So this is where we talk about this. If it's too good to be true, it probably is, and so you need to be very careful. So you could. This is a really good analogy of also how to help train your employees. You could take an article like this and security awareness and train and teach your employees on the dangers of gathering information. You know malicious software now, especially since it's AI laced out there on the web. So something to consider again, man, please, guilty to using malicious AI software to hack Disney employee. So go check it out. I think you probably enjoy it and use it as a training opportunity.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's go on and let's talk about some of the questions for today. Okay, again, these are questions based on domain two of the CISSP and let's move on and see what we've got. Question one your organization stores sensitive documents in a content management system, while the documents themselves are protected with strong access controls. A recent internal audit revealed that the metadata associated with these documents, ie the author, creation date, revision history, etc. Contains information that could be exploited by attackers to understand the organizational structure and, potentially, project timelines.
Speaker 2:What is the most, again, most effective way for a long-term strategy to mitigate this metadata exposure risk? A implement stricter access controls on metadata fields with the content management system. B regularly train users on the risks associated with metadata and instruct them to be cautious when creating documents. C implement automated tools and process to sanitize or redact the sensitive metadata upon document creation or export. Or. D migrate or migrate all sensitive documents to a more secure air gap storage solution. Okay, so which is the most effective long-term strategy to mitigate metadata exposure risk? And the answer is c implement automated tools and processes to sanitize, redact or sensitive metadata upon creation or export. So, again, adding more stricter controls that's fine, but that can also break things, and you adding the more controls doesn't really necessarily help. You Regularly train users. That's an important part, but again, that's not the most effective, because users will make mistakes and then migrate all sensitive documents to a more secure air gap solution. Yeah, that would be more secure, but it wouldn't be the most effective long-term strategy. Again, implementing any sort of automated tools to help sanitize or redact these would be the most important, the most important thing you should probably consider at this point. One thing to also think about with that, though, is, once you put these tools in place, do not consider, set and forget. You need to go back and verify that they're actually doing what you want them to be doing.
Speaker 2:Question two your organization utilizes a virtualized server environment where multiple departments share the same physical hardware. One department processes highly sensitive financial data, while the others handle less sensitive information. You can kind of see this is where it's going. What is the most critical control to implement to prevent data contamination or unauthorized access between environments? A Dedicate physical hardware exclusively to the department processing highly sensitive financial data. B Implement strong local separation using VLANs and access controls. C Rely on hypervisor built-in security features to isolate virtual machines. Or. D implement robust encryption and application level for all sensitive financial transactions. So each of these are very good right. They're all something that you may want to consider. However, dedicated physical hardware will provide the strongest guarantee of isolation and it does prevent any data contamination. So, again, separate systems are an important part, but the most critical control. So if you're trying to deal with hardware issues and you want to make sure that it's segregated, even though you have VLANs and ACLs can be put in place, the best guarantee would be to have dedicated physical hardware.
Speaker 2:Question three your organization operates globally and is subject to data sovereignty laws in multiple jurisdictions. You receive a legal hold request from the US headquarters requiring preservation of all electronic communications of specific employees. This includes those stored in your Germany subsidiary. Germans' data privacy laws have strict limitations on transferring personal data out of the country and require the most specific legal justification for such transfers. What is the most legally sound approach to handle this kind of situation? A Immediately transfer all employee communications to the US. B Inform the US legal team about the German data privacy restrictions and refuse to transfer the data. C Anonymize the employees' communications in Germany before transferring them to the United States. Or D engage with legal counsel in both the US and Germany to determine a legal permissible scope of data preservation and transfer, potentially involving on-site review or anonymization techniques.
Speaker 2:Lots of words, but it's a really good one. It's a good question. People might bite off on number three, right, or I should say C anonymize the employee communications. What we talk about on CISSP, cyber Training we've mentioned this over and over again is engage with legal counsel. Okay, it's imperative that you engage with legal counsel to ensure that you have this right. Everybody's aligned, everybody's agreement. It's just, I can't express it enough Legal counsel is your friend until they're not, but you don't want to be in that situation where they're not.
Speaker 2:Question four your organization has contracted with a cloud service provider to store and process customer data. The contract specifies that all data will be processed within your country's borders to comply with local privacy regulations. You recently received a notification that your cloud provider is changing its infrastructure and will now be processing your data in a different country. Hmm, what is the most critical immediate action? You can take A Review the contract's terms regarding data processing locations and legal jurisdictions and then engage with a provider to understand the implications and potential remedies. Also, bring in legal counsel. C Accept the change if the cloud provider assures you that the security controls are still robust. Yeah, trust, but verify. C immediately terminate the contract with the cloud provider and mitigate your data and migrate your data to an alternate provider. Or D notify your customers about the change in data privacy or data processing location. Obtain explicit consent. So some of those will work right, but the most critical immediate action would be look at your contract terms right, understand legal jurisdiction, engage with the provider, bring in legal counsel all those wonderful things you need to do. That would be your most immediate action.
Speaker 2:Question five your organization has a policy requiring physical destruction of hard drives containing sensitive data. You utilize a third-party vendor for this specific service. While the vendor provides a certificate of destruction, you want a higher level of assurance. What additional measures would provide the most robust verification of the data destruction? So again, the third party is nuking these different hard drives. What would you do? What's the most robust verification? Verification a conduct a thorough background check and review the certification of the destruction vendor B implement a process where your IT staff witnesses the destruction at the vendor's site. C require the vendor to provide video recording of the entire destruction process from each batch of hard drives. Or D implement your own in-house hard drive destruction capabilities. So the most robust would be having your IT staff go show up and watch these. That would be. B. That is very draconian, it's very challenging and, yeah, I would not want to do that. But it is your most robust to ensure that something actually is occurring, that your people are, that they're actually destroying what they say A video. You could say, well, I have a video. Well, they could use somebody else's hard drive so they could be throwing something in there. There's ways around that, but again, most robust is sending people to it.
Speaker 2:Question six your organization anonymizes large data sets containing customer behavior for research purposes. While you have removed direct identifiers, you are concerned about the potential for re-identification through linking the anonymized data with other publicly available datasets. What is the most critical step in mitigating this re-identification risk? Again, you do ID, you identify or you remove the identifiers, but they're worried about re-identifying using publicly available information. Answer A is increase the number of records in an anonymized data set. B apply differential privacy techniques to add statistical noise to the data while preserving the overall trends. C only share the anonymized data with trusted research partners. Or D regularly review and update your anonymization techniques based on the latest research on re-identification risks. And the answer is B apply differential privacy techniques. Now, these are designed to limit the ability to re-identify individuals in a data set and they add statistical noise to help kind of basically hide that. The results I don't know. I've heard of this. I've never dealt with it myself. It could be useful. So if you really are worried about it and you were substantially worried about re-identification, you may want to research this and see if that's an option for you.
Speaker 2:Question seven your organization has developed a mobile application that accesses and displays sensitive customer account information. To improve the performance, the application caches some of its data locally on the user's device. Okay, that's interesting. What is the most critical security control to implement regarding this cached data? So it's caching it, so that should be something that would be a bit of a flag for you. A rely on the device's built-in operating system security features to protect the cached data. B implement strong encryption for all data cache locally on the mobile devices. C require users to get strong passwords or biometric authentication on their mobile devices. Or D minimize the amount of sensitive data cached locally and limit the duration for which it is stored. Those are all really good, right. A lot of them can be very valuable. The most critical security control will be to limit the amount of data at all you want to just, if it's got to be stored, limit it and the amount of time that it's on that system to increase the performance. And then you really need to ask yourself is it really truly increasing the performance?
Speaker 2:Question eight your organization collects various data points about its customers. While each individual data point might be considered sensitive, you plan to aggregate this data for advanced analytics. You big $10 words there. What is the most important consideration regarding information handling and privacy before proceeding with this data aggregation? So again, you have data prints that are there that are considered sensitive. You plan to aggregate this data, put it all together for some sort of analytics. What is the most important consideration regarding this information handling and privacy? A ensure that all individual data points are encrypted at rest and in transit. B review the data elements being aggregated to identify any potential for revealing sensitive information or patterns. And then that could lead to some sort of de-anonymization information or patterns, and then that could lead to some sort of de-anonymization. C obtain broad consent of customers for the collection and use of their data for any purpose, including aggregation. And then D limit access to aggregated data to only a small team of data scientists. So the most important consideration would be B review the data elements being aggregated to identify any potential or revealing sensitive inferences or patterns. Again, you want to just looking at the data is important and understanding about it and asking yourself what happens if this data gets out. Those are really key questions you need to ask yourself on any time you're dealing with some sort of data aspects.
Speaker 2:Question nine your organization heavily relies on open source software components in a critical application. What is the most important aspect of this asset management specific to these OSS components from an information handling and security perspective? So you've got a lot of open source stuff right. What's the most important security aspect of the asset management? All right, a tracking the version numbers and patch status of all OSS components, which is your open source software. B ensuring that the open source software licenses are compatible with your organization's usage and distribution requirements. C regularly scanning these open source components for known capabilities and prompting and applying necessary patches. Or D maintaining an inventory of all open source components used in their, including their origins, licenses and known vulnerabilities. Okay, so the most important aspect would be you need to know what you got in your environment, which means you need to understand the components, the various open source aspects of it. All those other areas are important, right. So having your own patch status, all of those pieces can add value, but the most important thing is understanding what's actually in your environment versus not knowing it.
Speaker 2:Question 10 your organization operates in a country with strict data sovereignty laws. You utilize a cloud-based backup service, which is the most critical requirement for your backup strategy when complying with these laws. So you have a cloud-based backup and you have sovereignty laws to deal with. A ensure the backup data is encrypted both in transit and in rest. B verify the cloud backup provider has strong security certifications. C confirm that the backup data is stored and remains within the borders of your country. And then, d implement multi-factor authentication for accessing the backup service. And the answer is C confirm that the backup data is stored and remains within the borders of your country. So all these other areas are important. Encryption, certifications are all good, but you still need to understand where, if you're dealing with data sovereignty laws, where is the data stored? And you need to confirm that with the provider.
Speaker 2:Question 11 your organization has a policy prohibiting employees from sharing sensitive company information on social media Good point. However, you observe employees discussing general project details and, when combined, could potentially reveal sensitive insights into your organization. What is the most effective long-term approach to mitigate this risk? You call you fire everybody. No, that's not the most effective. A provide a comprehensive training for employees on the risks of inadvertent information disclosure in social media. And then they introduced them to Sean, who was Vanessa. No, I was Jennifer. I was a Jennifer. That's what I was. B implement monitoring tools and track employees on social media activity and flag potential violations A lot of work. C block employees' access to all social media platforms and company networks Probably not going to happen. Or D implement strict non-disclosure agreements that explicitly cover social media activities. That's not a bad idea, but the most effective would be provide a comprehensive training with employees on inadvertent information disclosure and then I would tag that with having an NDA covering these social media activities.
Speaker 2:Question 12, your organization collects a wide range of customer data. You plan to use this data for various analytical purposes. What is the most important principle of information handling to apply before commencing these analytics? So, a wide range of customer data. You're going to do some analytics. What's the most important principle for information handling? A Encrypt all the data at rest in transit Good idea. B Implement data minimization by only retaining, processing the data that is strictly necessary for the specific analytic goals. C obtain broad consent for all potential future uses of collected data. Or D pseudonymize yeah, I know it's, I can never say that word all personal identifiable or PII data in the data set. So you anonymize it right, basically? And the answer is B implement data minimization by only retaining and processing the data that is strictly necessary for specific analytic goals.
Speaker 2:Question 13, your organization experiences a data breach involving customer PII and PII. I had a compliance person tell me that's not really a term anymore and it's probably true, but we're using it. Pii your internal incident response plan mandates that you notify customers within 60 days. However, a new regulation specifically jurisdiction where some of your most effective customers reside requires a notification within 72 hours. That sounds pretty standard. What is the most compliant approach to handle this notification? A follow your internal policy and notify all customers within 60 days. B follow stricter regulation requirements and notify the affected customers in that specific jurisdiction within 72 hours and others within 60 days. C delay notification until you have a complete understanding of the breach impact and avoid providing inaccurate information. Or D notify all affected customers globally within 72 hours to adhere to the most stringent requirement. Okay, so what I would do again is D is the right answer. Right? You want to go to the most stringent. However, if you didn't have a good read from your legal team and something happened, right when this thing came down at a minimum, I would do the 72 hours and then you potentially could tell everybody else within 60 days. But it's just easier to just do 72 hours and make it for everyone. So just something to consider at that point.
Speaker 2:Question 14. Your development team has used a cloud-based environment to build and test applications that will eventually handle sensitive production data. This development environment currently has weaker security controls than your production environment. What is the most critical information handling requirements to implement for this development environment? Okay, so, most critical information handling requirements for a development environment A prohibit the use of any real production data in the development environment. Use only synthetic or anonymized test data okay. Isolate b would be isolate the development environment on a separate network, a segment with restricted access. C mandate the use of strong passwords for development accounts. Or. D implement regular vulnerability scanning of the development environment. So the most critical information handling would be to prohibit the use of any real production data in the development environment, use only synthetic or made up data. We'll say, though, sometimes that not work and you have to bring in real data, so you need to have a good plan on how you're going to manage the real data.
Speaker 2:Last question your organization wants to share a large data set containing de-identified patient information with research institution for a medical study. What is the most critical element to include in the data sharing agreement to ensure responsible information handling? A a clause specifying the purpose of the data sharing and limitations on its use to the stated research objectives. B a requirement for the research institute to implement strong security controls equivalent to your organization's standards. Or D a provision outlining the data, or actually that's not, or D it's. Or D a provision outlining the data, or actually that's not, or D it's. Or C a provision outlining data retention and destruction policies to be followed by the research institution upon completion of the study, or D? All of the above? And the answer is D all of the above, because each of those are very, very good to have. You want to have all of that. You've got security controls, you've got data detection and instruction, and you've got purpose and limitations. Those are all really good parts and so, therefore, they are all important.
Speaker 2:Okay, I hope you all had a great day. Again. Go to CISSP Cyber Training. Look at my blog. I've got some great stuff on the blog. A lot of this content goes out there. I've got them on YouTube. You hear the podcast there. You can also hear them on your local podcast provider, I, apple, spotify, whatever that might be, and then you can go to see ISP cyber training and get access to all my content. Sign up for my bronze package. The bronze package is amazing. You get for the least amount of money possible. You're gonna have access to get ready to your self-study program for the CISSP. It it's a no-brainer. It truly, truly is. It's an awesome program. The Blueprint will help you step-by-step on getting ready for the CISSP. You can't go wrong with it. You just truly can. Okay, hope you all have a great day and we will catch you all on the flip side, see ya.
