ISC Updated CISSP Exam Questions and Answers by atticus

Purging or re-imaging the hard disk drive of a laptop before traveling to a high risk area will reduce the risk of data compromise or theft in case the laptop is lost, stolen, or seized by unauthorized parties. Purging or re-imaging the hard disk drive will erase all the data and applications on the laptop, leaving only the operating system and the essential software. This will minimize the exposure of sensitive or confidential information that could be accessed by malicious actors. Purging or re-imaging the hard disk drive should be done using secure methods that prevent data recovery, such as overwriting, degaussing, or physical destruction.

The other options will not reduce the risk to the laptop as effectively as purging or re-imaging the hard disk drive. Examining the device for physical tampering will only detect if the laptop has been compromised after the fact, but will not prevent it from happening. Implementing more stringent baseline configurations will improve the security settings and policies of the laptop, but will not protect the data if the laptop is bypassed or breached. Changing access codes will make it harder for unauthorized users to log in to the laptop, but will not prevent them from accessing the data if they use other methods, such as booting from a removable media or removing the hard disk drive.

 An important principle of defense in depth is that achieving information security requires a balanced focus on the primary elements of people, technology, and operations. People are the users, administrators, managers, and other stakeholders who are involved in the security process. They need to be aware, trained, motivated, and accountable for their security roles and responsibilities. Technology is the hardware, software, network, and other tools that are used to implement the security controls and measures. They need to be selected, configured, updated, and monitored according to the security standards and best practices. Operations are the policies, procedures, processes, and activities that are performed to achieve the security objectives and requirements. They need to be documented, reviewed, audited, and improved continuously to ensure their effectiveness and efficiency.

The other options are not the primary elements of defense in depth, but rather the phases, functions, or outcomes of the security process. Development, testing, and deployment are the phases of the security life cycle, which describes how security is integrated into the system development process. Prevention, detection, and remediation are the functions of the security management, which describes how security is maintained and improved over time. Certification, accreditation, and monitoring are the outcomes of the security evaluation, which describes how security is assessed and verified against the criteria and standards.

A company whose IT services are being delivered from a Tier 4 data center should be most concerned with application failures when preparing a companywide BCP. A BCP is a document that describes how an organization will continue its critical business functions in the event of a disruption or disaster. A BCP should include a risk assessment, a business impact analysis, a recovery strategy, and a testing and maintenance plan.

A Tier 4 data center is the highest level of data center classification, according to the Uptime Institute. A Tier 4 data center has the highest level of availability, reliability, and fault tolerance, as it has multiple and independent paths for power and cooling, and redundant and backup components for all systems. A Tier 4 data center has an uptime rating of 99.995%, which means it can only experience 0.4 hours of downtime per year. Therefore, the likelihood of a power, storage, or network failure in a Tier 4 data center is very low, and the impact of such a failure would be minimal, as the data center can quickly switch to alternative sources or routes.

However, a Tier 4 data center cannot prevent or mitigate application failures, which are caused by software bugs, configuration errors, or malicious attacks. Application failures can affect the functionality, performance, or security of the IT services, and cause data loss, corruption, or breach. Therefore, the IT manager should be most concerned with application failures when preparing a BCP, and ensure that the applications are properly designed, tested, updated, and monitored.

A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) is a process that identifies and evaluates the potential effects of natural and man-made disasters on business operations. The BIA questionnaire is a tool that collects information from business process owners and stakeholders about the criticality, dependencies, recovery objectives, and resources of their processes. The BIA questionnaire should include questions that:

• Identify the operational impacts of a business interruption, such as loss of revenue, customer satisfaction, reputation, legal obligations, etc.
• Identify the financial impacts of a business interruption, such as direct and indirect costs, fines, penalties, etc.
• Determine the technological dependence of the business processes, such as hardware, software, network, data, etc.
• Establish the recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) for each business process, which indicate the maximum acceptable downtime and data loss, respectively.

The BIA questionnaire should not include questions that determine the risk of a business interruption occurring, as this is part of the risk assessment process, which is a separate activity from the BIA. The risk assessment process identifies and analyzes the threats and vulnerabilities that could cause a business interruption, and estimates the likelihood and impact of such events. The risk assessment process also evaluates the existing controls and mitigation strategies, and recommends additional measures to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.