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Question 301.

A development team wants to prevent security weaknesses caused by inconsistent validation logic across multiple APIs. Which approach is BEST?

1. Allow each developer to create unrelated validation rules
2. Use approved reusable validation components with context-specific rules
3. Validate data only in the user interface
4. Disable validation for authenticated users

Correct Answer: 2. Use approved reusable validation components with context-specific rules

Explanation:

Reusable validation components can improve consistency and reduce repeated implementation mistakes across APIs. However, validation must still reflect the specific context, expected format, range, and business rules of each field. Client-side validation can improve usability but should not be treated as the security boundary. Server-side validation should be combined with safe APIs, authorization, and output encoding where applicable.

Question 302.

Which security control BEST helps prevent unauthorized modification of infrastructure-as-code templates before deployment?

1. Store templates only on developer desktops
2. Allow anonymous repository access
3. Disable version history
4. Protect repositories with access control, review, and integrity-aware change management

Correct Answer: 4. Protect repositories with access control, review, and integrity-aware change management

Explanation:

Infrastructure-as-code can create networks, identities, storage, and security controls, so unauthorized changes may have significant impact. Templates should be stored in controlled repositories with individual identities, branch protections, peer review, and traceable changes. Automated policy checks can also detect insecure configurations before deployment. Treating infrastructure code with the same rigor as application code improves consistency and accountability.

Question 303.

A software architect wants to reduce the damage that could result if one application component is compromised. Which design principle is MOST appropriate?

1. Least privilege
2. Open design
3. Maximum availability
4. Shared administration

Correct Answer: 1. Least privilege

Explanation:

Least privilege limits each component to the permissions and resources necessary for its legitimate function. If the component is compromised, attackers are therefore restricted in what they can access or modify. Service identities, database permissions, file-system access, and network privileges should all be scoped narrowly. Permissions should also be reviewed as software responsibilities change.

Question 304.

A web application accepts a URL from a user and retrieves the referenced resource from the server side. Which vulnerability should be considered MOST carefully?

1. Cross-site request forgery
2. Server-side request forgery
3. Password spraying
4. Clickjacking

Correct Answer: 2. Server-side request forgery

Explanation:

Server-side request forgery can occur when attackers control a destination that the server retrieves. This may allow access to internal services, cloud metadata endpoints, or otherwise restricted systems. The application should restrict destination schemes and hosts, validate URLs, enforce outbound network controls, and prevent access to sensitive internal addresses. User-provided URLs should never be trusted automatically.

Question 305.

A security requirement states that administrators must not be able to deny having approved a high-value transaction. Which security property is MOST relevant?

1. Confidentiality
2. Availability
3. Nonrepudiation
4. Data minimization

Correct Answer: 3. Nonrepudiation

Explanation:

Nonrepudiation provides evidence that an action or transaction was performed or approved by a particular party in a way that makes credible denial difficult. Digital signatures, strong identity controls, protected audit trails, and reliable timestamps may contribute to this objective. The exact mechanism depends on legal, technical, and business requirements surrounding the transaction.

Question 306.

A secure application uses temporary authentication codes. Which characteristic is MOST important?

1. Codes should remain valid indefinitely
2. Codes should be predictable to support troubleshooting
3. Codes should be reusable many times
4. Codes should be short-lived, unpredictable, and protected against repeated guessing

Correct Answer: 4. Codes should be short-lived, unpredictable, and protected against repeated guessing

Explanation:

Temporary authentication codes should have limited validity and sufficient unpredictability to resist guessing. Rate limiting and attempt controls help prevent brute-force attacks, while single-use behavior can reduce replay risk. Codes should also be protected during transmission and should not be unnecessarily exposed in logs or diagnostic systems. Their strength should reflect the sensitivity of the operation they protect.

Question 307.

A security team wants to know whether a newly disclosed dependency vulnerability affects production. What information is MOST useful?

1. An accurate inventory of deployed components and versions
2. The application color scheme
3. The number of developers on the project
4. The age of the product logo

Correct Answer: 1. An accurate inventory of deployed components and versions

Explanation:

An accurate component inventory allows teams to determine quickly whether a vulnerable package and affected version are present in production. A software bill of materials may support this analysis, but the information must reflect actual deployed artifacts. The team should then determine whether the vulnerable functionality is exposed and prioritize remediation or mitigation according to risk.

Question 308.

A development team wants to reduce exposure from unused API functionality. Which practice is BEST?

1. Publish every experimental endpoint
2. Remove or disable unnecessary endpoints and methods
3. Give all users access to unused features
4. Leave debug APIs permanently enabled

Correct Answer: 2. Remove or disable unnecessary endpoints and methods

Explanation:

Unused functionality expands attack surface and increases the number of components that must be maintained, tested, and monitored. Removing unnecessary endpoints, methods, services, and features reduces potential entry points. Required functions should still enforce authentication and authorization appropriately. Disabling unneeded functionality is generally safer than leaving it available but undocumented.

Question 309.

A development team wants to reduce risk from a parser handling attacker-controlled files. Which design provides the BEST defense in depth?

1. Run the parser as an administrator
2. Disable file-size restrictions
3. Isolate the parser and restrict its file, network, and process privileges
4. Trust files with familiar extensions

Correct Answer: 3. Isolate the parser and restrict its file, network, and process privileges

Explanation:

Complex parsers may contain vulnerabilities even when input validation is carefully implemented. Running them in a restricted environment limits potential damage if exploitation succeeds. Sandboxing, containers, restricted identities, network controls, file-system limitations, and resource quotas can all contribute. File extensions alone do not prove that content is trustworthy or safe.

Question 310.

A production service discovers that its authorization configuration has unexpectedly changed from the approved baseline. What should happen FIRST?

1. Ignore the difference if the service still works
2. Permanently update the baseline to match production
3. Disable all monitoring
4. Investigate the configuration drift and assess its security impact

Correct Answer: 4. Investigate the configuration drift and assess its security impact

Explanation:

Unexpected configuration drift can weaken authentication, authorization, encryption, logging, or network controls. The organization should determine what changed, who or what caused it, and whether sensitive behavior is affected. The approved configuration may need to be restored, and the event may warrant incident investigation. Baselines should not simply be changed to legitimize unexplained production differences.

Question 311.

Which practice BEST supports secure handling of hard-coded credentials discovered during code review?

1. Remove the credential, rotate or revoke it, and move secret retrieval to an approved mechanism
2. Rename the variable containing the credential
3. Encode the credential using Base64
4. Leave it in place if the repository is private

Correct Answer: 1. Remove the credential, rotate or revoke it, and move secret retrieval to an approved mechanism

Explanation:

A hard-coded credential should generally be treated as exposed because repository history, logs, backups, or build artifacts may contain copies. Simply deleting the current line of code is not enough. The credential should be rotated or revoked, and applications should obtain future secrets from an approved secrets-management service or workload identity mechanism with appropriate access controls.

Question 312.

A team wants to ensure security-sensitive code changes cannot be merged without automated tests and peer approval. Which control is MOST appropriate?

1. Shared administrator credentials
2. Protected branches with required checks and review
3. Direct commits to the production branch
4. Disabled source-control logging

Correct Answer: 2. Protected branches with required checks and review

Explanation:

Branch protection can enforce peer approval, automated test completion, signed commits or other integrity requirements, and restrictions on who may merge changes. This supports separation of duties and makes the development process more consistent. Emergency procedures may exist, but bypasses should be tightly controlled, logged, and reviewed afterward.

Question 313.

A security tester discovers that changing the HTTP method from GET to POST bypasses authorization on an endpoint. What is the MAIN issue?

1. Insufficient encryption
2. Excessive password complexity
3. Inconsistent authorization enforcement across methods
4. Weak data compression

Correct Answer: 3. Inconsistent authorization enforcement across methods

Explanation:

Authorization should be enforced for every protected operation regardless of how the request is invoked. Different HTTP methods can map to different code paths, and incomplete checks may allow attackers to bypass restrictions simply by changing the method. Required methods should be explicitly authorized, while unnecessary methods should be disabled. Security testing should cover method variations for sensitive endpoints.

Question 314.

A software team must protect a long-lived archive containing encrypted confidential data. Which design consideration is MOST important over the archive’s lifetime?

1. Use one fixed algorithm forever regardless of future weaknesses
2. Store decryption keys with the archive in plaintext
3. Disable key rotation
4. Plan for cryptographic agility and long-term key management

Correct Answer: 4. Plan for cryptographic agility and long-term key management

Explanation:

Data that must remain confidential for many years may outlive the useful security life of current algorithms, key sizes, or key-management mechanisms. Cryptographic agility allows organizations to migrate to stronger methods when needed. Long-term protection also requires secure key backup, rotation, recovery, access control, and eventual destruction according to retention requirements.

Question 315.

Which practice BEST supports secure deletion of sensitive temporary data?

1. Minimize creation and retention, restrict access, and remove temporary data when it is no longer required
2. Keep temporary data indefinitely
3. Copy temporary files to shared directories
4. Disable cleanup processes

Correct Answer: 1. Minimize creation and retention, restrict access, and remove temporary data when it is no longer required

Explanation:

Temporary files, caches, and intermediate processing data can expose the same sensitive information as primary storage. Applications should minimize their creation, protect them with appropriate permissions, and remove them when processing is complete. The exact deletion technique depends on the storage technology and threat model, but unnecessary retention should be avoided.

Question 316.

A software application accepts signed requests but does not verify timestamps or nonces. Which attack remains possible?

1. SQL injection
2. Replay of previously valid requests
3. Cross-site scripting
4. Buffer overflow

Correct Answer: 2. Replay of previously valid requests

Explanation:

A valid signature proves integrity and possession of the signing credential, but it does not necessarily prove freshness. An attacker may capture a previously valid signed request and submit it again. Nonces, sequence numbers, timestamps, or transaction identifiers can help detect duplicates or stale messages. Freshness values must be included within the authenticated data so attackers cannot alter them.

Question 317.

A security team wants to identify whether important security events can be correlated across multiple services. Which capability is MOST useful?

1. Larger application icons
2. Longer session lifetimes
3. Consistent timestamps, correlation identifiers, and centralized protected logging
4. Public access to all log files

Correct Answer: 3. Consistent timestamps, correlation identifiers, and centralized protected logging

Explanation:

Distributed systems can generate security events across many services. Reliable time synchronization, request or transaction correlation identifiers, and centralized collection help analysts reconstruct events and detect suspicious activity across service boundaries. Logs should preserve integrity and restrict access because they may contain sensitive operational information. Correlation is especially valuable during incident investigation.

Question 318.

A product team proposes postponing all security testing until immediately before release. What is the MAIN disadvantage?

1. Security defects found late may be more expensive and disruptive to remediate
2. Late testing guarantees more vulnerabilities
3. Early security testing prevents all defects
4. Testing before release is never useful

Correct Answer: 1. Security defects found late may be more expensive and disruptive to remediate

Explanation:

Security defects are generally easier to fix when discovered close to the lifecycle stage in which they were introduced. Design flaws found after implementation may require architectural changes, while coding defects caught during development can often be corrected quickly. Security testing should therefore be integrated throughout the lifecycle while still including appropriate pre-release verification.

Question 319.

A software organization receives recurring findings involving unsafe deserialization. What is the BEST long-term response?

1. Fix each occurrence individually without changing development practices
2. Stop tracking deserialization vulnerabilities
3. Address the root cause through safer frameworks, standards, training, and automated checks
4. Accept the weakness as unavoidable

Correct Answer: 3. Address the root cause through safer frameworks, standards, training, and automated checks

Explanation:

Repeated vulnerability classes often indicate systemic weaknesses in technology choices, secure coding standards, developer knowledge, or automated controls. Fixing individual defects is necessary but does not prevent recurrence. Root-cause analysis can lead to safer serialization formats, restricted frameworks, reusable secure components, targeted training, and automated detection. This supports continuous improvement across the secure development lifecycle.

Question 320.

Which practice BEST demonstrates mature software security risk management?

1. Treat every security issue as equally urgent
2. Ignore low-frequency threats
3. Let developers accept security risk without oversight
4. Assess likelihood and impact, prioritize treatment, document decisions, and monitor residual risk

Correct Answer: 4. Assess likelihood and impact, prioritize treatment, document decisions, and monitor residual risk

Explanation:

Software security resources should be applied according to business risk. Risk management evaluates threats, vulnerabilities, likelihood, impact, existing controls, and residual exposure so decision-makers can prioritize remediation or formally accept risk when justified. Decisions should have accountable owners and appropriate review. Risk should also be reassessed when software, threats, business requirements, or operational conditions change.