CompTIA CASP+ Practice Test

In a government agency prioritizing confidentiality, which vulnerability ranks as the least important?

1. Insecure direct object references

2. CSRF

3. Smurf

4. XSS

The correct answer is: Smurf

In the context of a government agency that prioritizes confidentiality, understanding the vulnerabilities is essential to assess their threats effectively. Smurf attacks, which involve sending ICMP Echo Request packets to a network's broadcast address using a spoofed source address, primarily target network availability rather than data confidentiality. This type of attack aims to overwhelm a network with traffic, potentially causing denial of service. While availability is a critical aspect of information security, the direct impact on confidentiality—such as unauthorized access to sensitive information—is minimal compared to other vulnerabilities listed. In contrast, vulnerabilities like insecure direct object references, CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery), and XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) all pose more immediate threats to confidentiality. Insecure direct object references can allow unauthorized users to access sensitive data by modifying URLs. CSRF can exploit the trust a web application has in a user's browser, potentially allowing unauthorized actions to be taken on behalf of a user without their consent, compromising confidentiality. XSS can enable an attacker to inject scripts into web applications, which can lead to the theft of session tokens and sensitive information, directly undermining confidentiality. Thus, within the prioritized framework of a government agency focusing on confidentiality, the Smurf attack is ranked as the least important