Pass the Cisco CyberOps Associate 200-201 Questions and answers with CertsForce

NetFlow is a network protocol developed by Cisco for collecting IP traffic information and monitoring network traffic. It collects metadata of the IP traffic flowing across networking devices like routers and switches. On the other hand, Traffic mirroring involves capturing all the data packets that flow through a particular point in the network to analyze or inspect them later. References := Cisco Cybersecurity Operations Fundamentals

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack involves multiple compromised devices (botnet) sending a large number of requests to a target server to overwhelm it.

In a specific type of DDoS attack known as an NTP amplification attack, the attacker exploits the Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers by sending small queries with a spoofed source IP address (the target’s IP).

The NTP server responds with a much larger reply to the target’s IP address, thereby amplifying the traffic directed at the target.

This reflection and amplification technique significantly increases the volume of traffic sent to the target, causing denial of service.

References

OWASP DDoS Attack Overview

NTP Amplification Attack Explained

Understanding Botnets and Distributed Attacks

In digital forensics, hash values are used to verify the integrity of disk images. When a disk image is created, cryptographic hash functions such as MD5 or SHA-256 are calculated and recorded. These hashes act as a digital fingerprint of the data at the time of acquisition.

An untampered disk image maintains the same hash value throughout the investigation, proving that the data has not been altered. A tampered disk image, however, will produce a different hash value because even the smallest modification to the data changes the resulting hash. This difference immediately indicates that the integrity of the evidence has been compromised.

Options A, C, and D are incorrect because encryption, access permissions, and compression do not define whether an image is tampered. Cybersecurity and forensic documentation consistently emphasizes hash verification as the primary method for validating forensic integrity.

Therefore, the key difference is that a tampered image has a different hash value, making Option B correct.

The “ps” command is used to display information about the processes running on a system. The “-ef” option shows the full format listing, which includes the process ID, the user, the CPU and memory usage, the command name, and other details. This can help the engineer identify which processes are consuming the most resources and causing the degraded performance of the server. The other options are either invalid or irrelevant, as they do not provide the necessary information or perform the required action. References := Cisco Cybersecurity

HTTPS uses SSL/TLS encryption to secure data transmission over the internet. This encryption makes it difficult to monitor HTTPS traffic because the data packets are encrypted making them unreadable to anyone trying to intercept or monitor the data without proper decryption keys. References := Cisco CyberOps Associate

The ping of death is a type of attack that involves sending oversized or malformed packets using the ICMP protocol to crash, freeze, or reboot the target system1.

UDP flooding is an attack method that sends a large number of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packets to random ports on a remote host, causing the host to repeatedly check for the application listening at that port, and (when no application is found) reply with an ICMP Destination Unreachable packet. This process can saturate the network and the resources of the host, leading to denial of service2.

Cloudflare’s explanation of common DoS attacks1.

Wikipedia’s description of denial-of-service attack methods

A vulnerability management framework is a set of processes and tools that helps an organization identify, assess, prioritize, remediate, and mitigate system vulnerabilities. A vulnerability management framework aims to reduce the attack surface and the risk of compromise by applying security patches, hardening configurations, implementing security controls, and monitoring the system status. A vulnerability management framework is an essential component of a security operations center (SOC). References: Understanding Cisco Cybersecurity Operations Fundamentals (CBROPS) - Cisco, page 2-14; 200-201 CBROPS - Cisco, exam topic 1.2.b