Isaca Cybersecurity-Audit-Certificate - ISACA Cybersecurity Audit Certificate Exam

From a regulatory perspective, the MOST important thing for the healthcare organization to determine when outsourcing its patient information processing to a third-party Software as a Service (SaaS) provider is the incident escalation procedures. This is because incident escalation procedures define how security incidents involving patient information are reported, communicated, escalated, and resolved between the healthcare organization and the SaaS provider. This is essential for complying with regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, which mandate timely notification and response to breaches of protected health information. The other options are not as important as incident escalation procedures from a regulatory perspective, because they either relate to technical aspects that may not affect compliance (A, B), or operational aspects that may not affect patient information security (D).

 The responsibility of an organization to protect its assets, including IT infrastructure and information, falls under the broader umbrella of governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC). Governance ensures that organizational activities, like managing IT operations, are aligned with the business’s goals, risk management involves identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks, and compliance ensures that the organization adheres to laws, regulations, and policies.

References = While I can’t provide direct references from the Cybersecurity Audit Manual, the concept of GRC is widely recognized in cybersecurity frameworks and best practices, such as those outlined by ISACA and other industry standards.

The MOST important thing to verify when reviewing the effectiveness of an organization’s identity management program is whether the processes are aligned with industry best practices. Identity management is the process of managing the identities and access rights of users across an organization’s systems and resources. Industry best practices provide guidelines and standards for how to implement identity management in a secure, efficient, and compliant manner.

The document that contains the essential elements of effective processes and describes an improvement path considering quality and effectiveness is Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). This is because CMMI is a framework that defines five levels of process maturity, from initial to optimized, and provides best practices and guidelines for improving the quality and effectiveness of processes across different domains, such as software development, service delivery, or cybersecurity. The other options are not documents that contain the essential elements of effective processes and describe an improvement path considering quality and effectiveness, but rather different types of documents or tools that provide guidance or recommendations for implementing policies or controls, such as Balanced Scorecard (B), ISO 27004:2009 C, or COBIT 5 (D).

Change management processes are designed to ensure that changes are introduced in a controlled and coordinated manner. The main objective is to minimize the impact of changes on the business and its operations. This involves careful planning, testing, communication, and implementation to ensure that business processes continue to operate smoothly during and after the transition.

References: The importance of minimizing disruptions in a change management process is highlighted in various resources, including those from Harvard Business School Online and Bloomfire. They emphasize the need for preparing the organization for change, planning, implementation, embedding the change, and review & analysis to ensure a smooth transition12.

DNS data exfiltration poses a significant threat to mobile computing mainly because it is challenging to differentiate between malicious activity and legitimate DNS traffic. Attackers can exploit this by embedding data within DNS queries and responses, which often go unnoticed because DNS traffic is generally allowed through firewalls and security systems without triggering alerts. This method of data theft can be particularly effective in mobile computing, where devices frequently switch networks and rely on DNS for connectivity.

References = ISACA’s resources on cybersecurity risks associated with DNS highlight the difficulty in detecting DNS data exfiltration due to its ability to blend in with normal traffic. This is further supported by industry resources that discuss the challenges in identifying and preventing such exfiltration techniques1234.

An objective of public key infrastructure (PKI) is to independently authenticate the validity of the sender’s public key. PKI is a system that uses cryptographic keys to secure communications and transactions. PKI involves a trusted third party called a certificate authority (CA) that issues digital certificates that link a public key with an identity. The recipient can use the CA’s public key to verify the sender’s certificate and public key.

The FIRST phase of the ISACA framework for auditors reviewing cryptographic environments is inventory and discovery. This is because the inventory and discovery phase helps auditors to identify and document the scope, objectives, and approach of the audit, as well as the cryptographic assets, systems, processes, and stakeholders involved in the cryptographic environment. The inventory and discovery phase also helps auditors to assess the maturity and effectiveness of the cryptographic governance and management within the organization. The other phases are not the first phase of the ISACA framework for auditors reviewing cryptographic environments, but rather follow after the inventory and discovery phase, such as evaluation of implementation details (A), hands-on testing (B), or risk-based shakeout C.

SSH, or Secure Shell, is a network protocol that operates at the Application layer of the OSI model. This is the topmost layer, which allows users to interact with the network through applications. SSH provides a secure channel over an unsecured network in a client-server architecture, enabling users to log into another computer over a network, to execute commands in a remote machine, and to move files from one machine to another.

References: The information aligns with the OSI model’s definition, where the Application layer is responsible for providing network services to the applications of the user12.