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Smishing(SMS phishing) involvessending malicious text messagesposing as legitimate entities to trick individuals into disclosing sensitive information or clicking malicious links.

Social Engineering via SMS:Attackers often impersonate trusted institutions (like banks) to induce fear or urgency.

Tactics:Typically include fake alerts, password reset requests, or promotional offers.

Impact:Users may unknowingly provide login credentials, credit card information, or download malware.

Example:A message claiming to be from a bank asking users to verify their account by clicking a link.

Other options analysis:

A. Hacking:General term, does not specifically involve SMS.

B. Vishing:Voice phishing via phone calls, not text messages.

D. Cyberstalking:Involves persistent harassment rather than deceptive messaging.

CCOA Official Review Manual, 1st Edition References:

Chapter 6: Social Engineering Tactics:Explores phishing variants, including smishing.

Chapter 8: Threat Intelligence and Attack Techniques:Details common social engineering attack vectors.

Themost effective approach to tracking vulnerabilitiesis to regularly performvulnerability scans and assessmentsbecause:

Proactive Identification:Regular scanning detects newly introduced vulnerabilities from software updates or configuration changes.

Automated Monitoring:Modern scanning tools (like Nessus or OpenVAS) can automatically identify vulnerabilities in systems and applications.

Assessment Reports:Provide prioritized lists of discovered vulnerabilities, helping IT teams address the most critical issues first.

Compliance and Risk Management:Routine scans are essential for maintaining security baselines and compliance with standards (like PCI-DSS or ISO 27001).

Other options analysis:

A. Wait for external reports:Reactive and risky, as vulnerabilities might remain unpatched.

B. Rely on employee reporting:Inconsistent and unlikely to cover all vulnerabilities.

D. Track only public vulnerabilities:Ignores zero-day and privately disclosed issues.

CCOA Official Review Manual, 1st Edition References:

Chapter 6: Vulnerability Management:Emphasizes continuous scanning as a critical part of risk mitigation.

Chapter 9: Security Monitoring Practices:Discusses automated scanning and vulnerability tracking.

Theprimary purposeof adopting acybersecurity frameworkis to establish astandardized approach to managing cybersecurity risks.

Consistency:Provides a structured methodology for identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks.

Best Practices:Incorporates industry standards and practices (e.g., NIST, ISO/IEC 27001) to guide security programs.

Holistic Risk Management:Helps organizations systematically address vulnerabilities and threats.

Compliance and Assurance:While compliance may be a secondary benefit, the primary goal is risk management and structured security.

Other options analysis:

A. To ensure compliance:While frameworks can aid compliance, their main purpose is risk management, not compliance itself.

B. To automate processes:Frameworks may encourage automation, but automation is not their core purpose.

D. To guarantee protection:No framework canguaranteecomplete protection; they reduce risk, not eliminate it.

CCOA Official Review Manual, 1st Edition References:

Chapter 3: Cybersecurity Frameworks and Standards:Discusses the primary purpose of frameworks in risk management.

Chapter 10: Governance and Policy:Covers how frameworks standardize security processes.

Theprimary purpose of load balancers in cloud networkingis todistribute incoming network trafficacross multiple servers, thereby:

Ensuring Availability:By balancing traffic, load balancers prevent server overload and ensure high availability.

Performance Optimization:Evenly distributing traffic reduces response time and improves user experience.

Fault Tolerance:If one server fails, the load balancer redirects traffic to healthy servers, maintaining service continuity.

Scalability:Automatically adjusts to traffic changes by adding or removing servers as needed.

Use Cases:Commonly used forweb applications, databases, and microservicesin cloud environments.

Other options analysis:

B. Optimizing database queries:Managed at the database level, not by load balancers.

C. Monitoring network traffic:Load balancers do not primarily monitor but distribute traffic.

D. Load testing applications:Load balancers do not perform testing; they manage live traffic.

CCOA Official Review Manual, 1st Edition References:

Chapter 4: Network Traffic Management:Discusses the role of load balancers in cloud environments.

Chapter 7: High Availability and Load Balancing:Explains how load balancers enhance system resilience.