CertByte is a bi-weekly blog and segment on the CyberWire Daily podcast hosted by Chris Hare, a content developer and project management specialist at N2K. On CertByte, we share practice questions from our suite of industry-leading content and a study tip to help you achieve the professional certifications you need to fast-track your career growth. View our CertByte series on YouTube.
CertByte: ISC2® Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®)
On this edition of CertByte, we discuss a question from N2K’s ISC2® Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) practice test.
As your news-to-knowledge partner, N2K will advance your career while bringing you the industry news and trends that help you stay a step ahead. Through our bi-weekly episodes of CertByte on the CyberWire Daily podcast, and these companion articles, we aim to support your certification journey and fast-track your career growth in IT, cybersecurity, and project management. As your host, I or my guest will share a practice question from N2K’s suite of industry-leading content and a study tip (or study “bit” as I like to call it) to increase your confidence and readiness on exam day.
In this segment, my new guest host Steven Burnley and I break down a question from N2K's ISC2 Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) Practice Test. The CISSP exam is intended for experienced security practitioners, executives, and managers who want to prove their knowledge of a variety of security practices and principles. According to ISC2, the CISSP is the world's premier cybersecurity certification. As always, the question we shared is a sample from N2K's ISC2 Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) Practice Test*, and not from the actual ISC2 exam.
Quick ISC2 CISSP study bit.
Here’s an important study bit from Steven that you should know before you sit for the live exam: study the parts of the exam that scare you. Because we tend to gravitate towards material we are familiar with, it’s a good practice to focus on the parts of the exam that are unfamiliar. For example, ISC2 added an exam objective related to DevSecOps, and as this may not be traditionally in the subject wheelhouse of this certification, it will serve to help you broaden your understanding and skill set.
This week’s question.
As your organization's security administrator, you are reviewing the audit results to assess if your organization's security baselines are maintained. In which phase of the security management life cycle are you engaged?
Answer choices:
- Plan and Organize
- Implement
- Operate and Maintain
- Monitor and Evaluate
Working through the logic of each answer choice.
Before considering each answer option, I checked the exam’s objectives. This particular question falls under the “Evaluate and apply organizational processes and organizational roles and responsibilities” objective and the “Evaluate and apply security governance principles” sub-objective. I decided because this is one of those step 1, step 2, step 3, sequential-type questions where there is a precedence relationship, I was going to use some contextual logic here to answer this question. Because the options seem to be a set of steps that are part of the security management life cycle, I started by asking Steven whether the answer choices covered all of the steps in this cycle. He said this was not the case, so I moved on to my guessing strategy.
If the student had already memorized this life cycle, it would be easy to narrow down the options. As I had not done so, I chose to hone in on the verb choices for a clue about the proper answer selection. The question tells me I am "reviewing the audit results to assess," so if I pull out the terms “review" and "assess," maybe I can map them to the answer choices. So, do I feel "Plan and Organize" map to "review" and "assess"? Well, "Plan and Organize" sounds like the initial steps one would take, so I ruled that one out. Next was "Implement" 一 this word doesn't quite map to reviewing and assessing, which sounds more post-implementation, so I struck that one out also. Next, "Operate and Maintain" 一 since the question refers to "maintained" in the past tense, this doesn't track well either, so I passed on that one. Finally, "Monitor and Evaluate" 一 these terms seem to fit well, as “Monitor” can be synonymous with "review," and "evaluate" is synonymous with "assess," so I decided to go with "D. Monitor and Evaluate."
Steven shared the good news that the correct answer is: D. This is the Monitor and Evaluate phase of the security management life cycle, which includes the following components: Reviewing logs, audit results, metrics, and service level agreements, assessing accomplishments, completing quarterly steering committee meetings, and developing improvement steps for integration into Plan and Organize phase. He also noted that reviewing audits is not part of any of the other phases.
Before we wrapped up, I asked Steven if he had any other advice about how a student can study for this question. He mentioned that one of the aspects of my answer deconstruction that he liked was how I paid close attention to verb tense (past, present, or future). Given procedural questions of this kind, Steven felt that was a pro study tip to give candidates an edge in answering these types of questions.
In other product news, Steven shared there is an update coming up in early 2025 of ISC2’s CISSP exam. N2K also updated the framework for Cisco’s CCNA exam in September 2024. We also have several more Microsoft, CompTIA, and Amazon practice test updates coming soon, so keep a lookout on our website or subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
Want more help with this exam?
Whether you are actively studying for the CISSP or would like to suggest a future certification question, email us at certbyte at n2k.com.
Premium certification prep tools.
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Explore key terms from the CISSP certification.
Visit N2K CyberWire’s glossary to dive deeper into these key terms, listed in the order discussed in our segment: ISC2®, CISSP®, security administrator, baselining, security governance, security management lifecycle, audit log, and service level agreement.
Happy certifying!