Free ISC2 CC Practice Test To Ace The Exam

The ISC2 CC Practice Test is, without question, the single most valuable tool for preparing for the ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) certification exam. Designed by the premier organization in information security, ISC2, this entry-level certification provides the foundational knowledge necessary to kickstart a successful career in the cybersecurity field. To truly master the domains and secure your certification, you need practice that mirrors the complexity and scenario-based nature of the actual test. By consistently engaging with a high-quality ISC2 CC Practice Test, candidates can identify and eliminate knowledge gaps, ensuring they approach exam day with absolute confidence. https://www.isc2.org/certifications/cc

Note: You can access the full, free interactive practice test at the bottom of this post.

Free ISC2 CC Practice Test to Ace the Exam

Domain 1: Security Principles Mastery on Your ISC2 CC Practice Test

The foundation of every security program is built on a few unshakeable principles. The ISC2 CC Practice Test heavily emphasizes these concepts, as they frame every decision made in the field.

The CIA Triad: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability

You must understand the CIA Triad and be able to classify risks and controls according to these three pillars:

Integrity: This principle ensures that information remains accurate, complete, and trustworthy. For example, if a hacker successfully alters data in a financial report to hide fraudulent activity, the core security principle of Integrity has been violated.
Availability: This guarantees that systems and data are accessible to authorized users whenever they are needed. A classic scenario involves a system outage: an organization experiencing a power outage or Hardware failure is facing a security risk directly categorized as an Availability issue.
Confidentiality: This involves preventing unauthorized disclosure of information.

Operational Security Principles for the ISC2 CC Practice Test

Beyond the CIA Triad, the ISC2 CC Practice Test will test your understanding of controls designed to prevent fraud and errors:

Segregation of Duties (SoD): This administrative control prevents a single individual from controlling an entire critical process. An organization implementing a policy where an employee cannot both approve a payment and issue the payment is enforcing the security principle known as Segregation of duties. This control is designed to prevent a single individual from having conflicting permissions over a sensitive operation.

Domain 2: Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Incident Response

Disruption is a matter of when, not if. Therefore, every cybersecurity professional must understand how to recover from incidents. This is a vital domain in the ISC2 CC Practice Test.

The Anatomy of Recovery: BIA, RPO, and RTO

Effective recovery starts with planning and defined objectives:

Business Impact Analysis (BIA): The BIA is the crucial document created during business continuity planning to identify mission-essential functions and the critical IT systems that support them. It assesses the potential impact of disruptions and prioritizes recovery efforts.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO): The RPO defines the maximum tolerable amount of data loss. If an organization determines it can tolerate a maximum of 4 hours of data loss from its primary sales database, that metric is known as the Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
Recovery Time Objective (RTO): The maximum amount of time a system can be down before the business suffers unacceptable consequences.

Disaster Recovery Sites and Incident Response

The complexity of recovery sites is also a core topic on the ISC2 CC Practice Test:

Hot Site: A company requiring a disaster recovery site that is fully equipped with hardware, software, and up-to-the-minute data, allowing for immediate failover, needs a Hot Site. This type of site is a fully operational data center ready to take over operations with minimal downtime.
NIST Incident Response: The active phase of addressing a breach is critical. According to the NIST incident response lifecycle, the phase that involves limiting the damage caused by an incident and removing its effects from the network is Containment, Eradication & Recovery.

Domain 3: Access Control and Authentication in the ISC2 CC Practice Test

Access control governs who can access resources. The ISC2 CC Practice Test will probe your knowledge of how identity is proven and permissions are managed.

The Authentication Process

Authentication is the process of verifying a claimed identity using a secret, possession, or biometric.

Authentication Factors: The combination of factors is crucial. A user required to enter a password (“something you know”) and then use a fingerprint scanner (“something you are”) is employing Multi-factor authentication. This approach combines at least two different authentication factors.
Authentication Step: In an access control process, the step that involves a user proving their claimed identity, such as by providing a password, is called Authentication.

Domain 4: Risk Management and Security Controls

Managing risk is central to the CC certification. You must know the various strategies for dealing with identified threats.

Risk Treatment Strategies: If a company decides to stop offering a high-risk online service to completely remove the associated cybersecurity threats, this strategy is Risk avoidance. This strategy involves discontinuing the activity that creates the risk, thereby eliminating the risk entirely.
Types of Security Controls: The ISC2 CC Practice Test requires you to categorize controls:
- Technical Controls: A firewall implemented to block malicious traffic is a Technical security control. This category uses technology to achieve security objectives.
- Physical Controls: A facility using bollards to block vehicle access is using a Physical control.
- Detective Controls: A security guard monitoring CCTV feeds is an example of a Detective control, as its purpose is to identify and report that an incident is occurring or has occurred.

Conclusion

Mastering the ISC2 CC Practice Test is the fastest and most effective way to ensure you are ready for the ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity exam. Every question in the ISC2 CC Practice Test is designed to validate your foundational knowledge across the entire curriculum, giving you a competitive edge. Please do not forget to checkout other free ISC2 Certifications on CertyBuddy.com: https://certybuddy.com/practice-tests/?vendor=isc2

Don’t delay your career! Access the full, free ISC2 CC Practice Test, Quiz, and Flashcards today and confidently prepare for your certification.

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Free ISC2 CC Practice Test to Ace the Exam

In IaaS, the customer has the most control and therefore the most responsibility compared to other cloud models.

1 / 63

In the cloud shared responsibility model for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), who is responsible for securing the operating system?

The Cloud Provider

It is a shared responsibility

The Operating System Vendor

The Cloud Customer

Think about how this type of program strengthens the ‘human’ layer of security.

2 / 63

What is the main goal of a security awareness training program?

To replace the need for technical security controls like firewalls.

To empower employees to recognize and prevent security incidents.

To teach employees how to write secure code.

To fulfill compliance requirements with minimal effort.

Think of this model as a dedicated, non-shared environment for one entity.

3 / 63

Which cloud deployment model is operated solely for a single organization but may be managed by a third party and hosted internally or externally?

Hybrid Cloud

Community Cloud

Public Cloud

Private Cloud

Always look for the highest version number when considering security protocol strength.

4 / 63

Which wireless security protocol is considered the most secure for modern Wi-Fi networks?

WPA

WEP

WPA2

WPA3

An attacker might say, ‘You need to do this immediately or something terrible will happen!’

5 / 63

Which social engineering tactic relies on creating a sense of panic to rush a victim into making a poor decision?

Urgency

Authority

Scarcity

Familiarity

Consider who owns the equipment and network being used.

6 / 63

Which of the following would have the least reasonable expectation of privacy?

A user completing their tax return on a government website.

A customer providing credit card details to an e-commerce site.

A patient discussing medical records with a doctor.

An employee using their work computer to browse the internet.

Consider the main challenge of using a single shared secret key among many parties.

7 / 63

In cryptographic systems, what is a primary advantage of asymmetric encryption over symmetric encryption?

It is significantly faster for encrypting large volumes of data.

It simplifies secure key distribution and management.

It requires fewer keys for a large group of communicants.

It uses the same key for both encryption and decryption.

Think of this as the ‘doing’ part of responsibility, as opposed to the ‘researching’ part.

8 / 63

Which of the following best describes the principle of ‘due care’ in information security?

A legal contract that transfers risk from one party to another.

The process of investigating and understanding the risks to the organization.

The act of implementing reasonable security controls and practices to protect assets.

The requirement to report a data breach to regulatory authorities within a specific timeframe.

This process is often used to verify data integrity rather than ensure confidentiality.

9 / 63

Which of the following is a cryptographic function that creates a fixed-size, unique ‘fingerprint’ of a message and is one-way?

Steganography

Asymmetric Encryption

Symmetric Encryption

Hashing

This type of hypervisor is often called ‘bare-metal’ because it interacts directly with the server hardware.

10 / 63

Which of the following describes a Type I hypervisor?

It is a software tool used for virtualizing a single application.

It is installed directly on the physical hardware, without a host OS.

It runs on top of a conventional host operating system like Windows or macOS.

It is used exclusively for containerization technologies like Docker.

This is a proactive search for flaws within your own systems.

11 / 63

The process of identifying a system’s weaknesses, such as missing patches or misconfigurations, is known as:

Risk treatment

Incident response

Vulnerability assessment

Threat modeling

Think about the different categories of authentication factors: something you know, have, and are.

12 / 63

A user is required to enter a password and then use a fingerprint scanner to log in. This combination represents what type of authentication?

Biometric authentication

Single-factor authentication

Multi-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication

Think about what encryption does to plaintext data to make it unreadable.

13 / 63

What is the primary purpose of using data encryption?

To create a permanent record of who accessed the data.

To ensure data is available when needed.

To verify the integrity of data and prevent unauthorized changes.

To protect the confidentiality of information from unauthorized access.

The key word here is that the owner has ‘discretion’ over permissions.

14 / 63

A system where file owners can grant or deny access permissions to other users is an example of which access control model?

Mandatory Access Control (MAC)

Discretionary Access Control (DAC)

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC)

This term describes the art of manipulating people to bypass security controls.

15 / 63

An attacker calls an employee pretending to be an IT technician and tricks them into revealing their password. This is an example of what type of attack?

Social Engineering

Phishing

Denial-of-Service

Eavesdropping

Consider the principle that prevents a single individual from having end-to-end control over a sensitive process.

16 / 63

An organization implements a policy where an employee cannot both approve a payment and issue the payment. This control is an example of which security principle?

Need to know

Two-person control

Least privilege

Segregation of duties

This fundamental triad represents the core objectives of protecting information.

17 / 63

Which of the following are the three main goals of information security as defined by the CIA triad?

Detection, Prevention, and Recovery

Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability

Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting

Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Risks

This model is the most abstracted, where the customer only needs to manage their data and user access.

18 / 63

A business uses a cloud service that provides a complete application, such as a CRM or email service, over the internet. What type of cloud service model is this?

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Software as a Service (SaaS)

This process aims to make it impossible to identify individuals within a dataset.

19 / 63

An organization wants to analyze data without revealing the identities of the individuals in the dataset. The process of removing or modifying personally identifiable information (PII) to achieve this is known as:

Data Classification

Data Encryption

Data Archiving

Anonymization

This control is a tangible object designed to restrict movement in the real world.

20 / 63

A facility uses bollards to block vehicle access to pedestrian areas. This is a form of which type of control?

Administrative control

Physical control

Detective control

Logical control

This specialized firewall operates at the Application Layer (Layer 7) to protect specific services.

21 / 63

What is the primary purpose of a web application firewall (WAF)?

To protect web applications from common attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS).

To provide secure remote access to an organization's internal network.

To balance incoming web traffic across multiple servers.

To filter network traffic based on source and destination IP addresses and ports.

Think of the site’s temperature as a metaphor for its readiness to take over operations.

22 / 63

A company requires a disaster recovery site that is fully equipped with hardware, software, and up-to-the-minute data, allowing for immediate failover. What type of site is this?

Hot Site

Warm Site

Cloud Site

Cold Site

This strategy involves completely eliminating the source of the risk.

23 / 63

A company decides to stop offering a high-risk online service to completely remove the associated cybersecurity threats. Which risk treatment strategy is this?

Risk acceptance

Risk avoidance

Risk mitigation

Risk transference

This term refers to technology solutions used within an organization without official approval or oversight.

24 / 63

What is the primary security risk of ‘shadow IT’?

Use of systems and services that are not vetted or managed by the IT department, creating unknown risks.

Reduced employee productivity due to use of non-standard tools.

Conflict between the IT department and other business units.

Increased software licensing costs for the organization.

Consider which backup type always uses the last full backup as its reference point.

25 / 63

A backup schedule involves a full backup on Sunday, followed by backups each weekday that only include files changed since the last full backup. What type of weekday backup is this?

Incremental backup

Full backup

Differential backup

Snapshot backup

Think about how organizations can securely connect remote employees or branch offices over a public network.

26 / 63

What is the primary function of a Virtual Private Network (VPN)?

To create a secure, encrypted tunnel over an untrusted network like the Internet.

To inspect network traffic for malicious activity and block it.

To filter web content based on organizational policy.

To logically segment a network into separate broadcast domains.

This concept is about providing undeniable proof of an action.

27 / 63

Which security concept ensures that a sender cannot later deny having sent a message?

Integrity

Non-repudiation

Confidentiality

Authentication

This concept describes a component whose failure would cause an entire system to stop working.

28 / 63

An organization uses redundant firewalls in a high availability pair to ensure that if one fails, the other can take over immediately. This design is intended to remove what?

A single point of failure

A segregation of duties conflict

A defense-in-depth vulnerability

A need for load balancing

This method is named after the unit of magnetic flux density.

29 / 63

Which data destruction method uses a strong magnetic field to erase data from magnetic media like hard disk drives and tapes?

Degaussing

Overwriting

Cryptographic Erase

Physical Destruction

Is this control stopping an incident before it happens, or identifying it as it happens?

30 / 63

A security guard monitoring CCTV feeds is an example of which type of security control?

Corrective control

Technical control

Preventive control

Detective control

This objective relates to the amount of data, not the time it takes to restore a service.

31 / 63

An organization determines it can tolerate a maximum of 4 hours of data loss from its primary sales database. This metric is known as the:

Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

Recovery Service Level (RSL)

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

The name of this policy is a common acronym describing the practice of using personal devices at work.

32 / 63

A policy that defines the rules for employees using their personal smartphones and laptops for work is called a:

Password Policy

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Policy

Data Handling Policy

Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

This strategy is often compared to the layers of an onion or the defenses of a medieval castle.

33 / 63

The concept of ‘defense in depth’ refers to what security strategy?

Relying primarily on security awareness training for all employees.

Implementing multiple layers of different security controls to protect an asset.

Using the strongest possible encryption for all data.

Focusing all security resources on protecting the network perimeter.

This concept provides a standardized starting point for securing all new systems of a certain type.

34 / 63

What is the primary purpose of establishing a security configuration baseline for servers?

To manage the process for applying software patches.

To track all user login activity on the servers.

To ensure all servers are deployed with a consistent and secure set of configurations.

To inventory all hardware components of the servers.

This technology provides a ‘single pane of glass’ for security events across an organization.

35 / 63

When an organization centrally collects and analyzes log data from firewalls, servers, and applications to detect security incidents, what type of system are they using?

Vulnerability Scanner

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Network Access Control (NAC)

Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)

Think about threats that prevent authorized users from accessing the resources they need.

36 / 63

An organization experiences a power outage. Which of the following security risks is most directly categorized as an availability issue?

Social engineering

Man-in-the-middle attack

Hardware failure

Eavesdropping

This step comes after a user provides their username but before they are granted access to resources.

37 / 63

In an access control process, what step involves a user proving their claimed identity, for example by providing a password?

Identification

Accounting

Authorization

Authentication

Think of this malware as having a built-in timer or trigger.

38 / 63

A malware payload that remains dormant until a specific date or condition is met is called a:

Worm

Logic Bomb

Trojan Horse

Virus

This tool helps solve the problem of users reusing the same password across multiple services.

39 / 63

Which of the following is a security benefit of using a password manager?

It automatically detects and blocks phishing websites.

It eliminates the need for multi-factor authentication.

It allows users to have unique, strong passwords for every site without needing to remember them.

It enforces password expiration policies across all websites.

This layer is concerned with logical addressing and path determination across an internetwork.

40 / 63

At which layer of the OSI model does the Internet Protocol (IP) operate, handling the routing of packets across different networks?

Layer 3 (Network)

Layer 7 (Application)

Layer 2 (Data-Link)

Layer 4 (Transport)

This stage ensures that old data cannot be recovered after its retention period ends.

41 / 63

In the data lifecycle, what is the final stage where data is securely and permanently removed when it is no longer needed?

Use

Destroy