CompTIA Updated CV0-004 Exam Questions and Answers by alma

Based on the logs provided, the port that has been compromised is Port 8048. The state "TIME_WAIT" indicates that this port was recently used to establish a connection that has now ended. This could be indicative of the recent activity where large amounts of data were downloaded to an external source, suggesting a potential security breach. References: CompTIA Cloud+ Study Guide (Exam CV0-004) by Todd Montgomery and Stephen Olson

A. Ransomware: Encrypts data to demand payment but doesn’t typically result in sustained high CPU utilization.

B. Cryptojacking: Involves unauthorized use of VMs to mine cryptocurrency, leading to 100% CPU usage without high network activity.

C. DDoS: Causes high network throughput and latency, which are not present in this scenario.

D. Zombie instances: Refers to unused VMs consuming resources unnecessarily but doesn’t explain high CPU utilization.

A NAS (Network Attached Storage) typically uses file-level protocols such as NFS or SMB, which are generally considered slower and less efficient than the block-level protocols used by SANs (Storage Area Networks), such as iSCSI or Fibre Channel. SANs are designed for high performance and low latency, making them more suitable for applications requiring fast and efficient storage access.

Given the suspicious activity and Kali Linux's association with penetration testing and hacking tools, the security analyst should block all inbound connections on port 4444, as it is commonly used for malicious purposes, and block the IP address that's potentially the source of the intrusion. Additionally, checking the running processes on John Smith's computer is crucial to determine if a backdoor or unauthorized connection has been established.References: Incident response and threat mitigation steps such as these are part of the security protocols discussed in the CompTIA Cloud+ certification.