ECCouncil 212-89 Exam Dumps & Practice Test Questions

Question 1:

Which of the following best describes the potential failure to meet goals due to constraints related to security, costs, or technology—resulting in negative impacts on an organization's performance or revenue?

A. Risk
B. Vulnerability
C. Threat
D. Incident Response

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

In the realm of cybersecurity and enterprise risk management, the concept of risk is central to understanding how organizations safeguard their operations, data, and assets. Risk, in this context, is defined as the possibility that an organization may not achieve its objectives—such as service availability, project goals, or financial targets—due to a variety of potential constraints or disruptive factors.

These limiting factors may include security vulnerabilities, financial restrictions, or technological shortcomings. When any of these elements prevent the achievement of strategic goals, the organization is exposed to potential losses—be it financial, reputational, or operational. This is the core definition of risk.

To elaborate further, risk is not merely the presence of a problem; it's the likelihood that a threat will exploit a vulnerability and cause harm, ultimately leading to failure in reaching a predefined target or goal. For example, a company launching a new web service may face risks such as budget overruns, system outages, or cyberattacks. If these risks are not identified and managed effectively, they can negatively affect business continuity and revenue streams.

Let’s differentiate this from other similar terms:

• Vulnerability refers to an inherent weakness in a system, software, or process that could be exploited by an attacker. It is not, by itself, the potential to fail but rather a flaw that increases risk exposure.

• Threat is any external or internal actor or event capable of exploiting a vulnerability to cause harm. It could be a cybercriminal, a natural disaster, or even human error.

• Incident Response is the strategic process followed after a security incident has occurred. It involves identifying, mitigating, and recovering from threats but is not about anticipating the inability to meet future objectives.

In summary, the correct term that encapsulates the potential to fail due to constraints impacting outcomes is Risk, making option A the correct answer.

Question 2:

In a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack where numerous compromised machines are used to flood a single target, what is the term commonly used for these infected devices?

A. Trojans
B. Zombies
C. Spyware
D. Worms

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a widespread cyber assault in which multiple compromised systems—often geographically distributed—are manipulated to flood a target (such as a server, website, or network) with massive volumes of traffic. The goal is to exhaust the resources of the target system, rendering it slow, unresponsive, or completely unavailable to legitimate users.

The individual machines used in such an attack are commonly referred to as "zombies" (option B). A zombie is a computer or device that has been silently compromised by malware—typically without the knowledge of its legitimate user. Once infected, the device becomes part of a botnet, a network of zombies controlled remotely by an attacker, also known as a bot herder.

These zombie systems lie dormant until activated, often receiving commands to participate in malicious activities such as:

• DDoS attacks

• Spam email distribution

• Data theft

• Scanning for vulnerabilities in other systems

While other terms may appear related, they serve different purposes:

• Trojans (Option A) are malicious software programs that disguise themselves as legitimate tools. A Trojan may be used as the initial infection vector to create a zombie, but the term "Trojan" refers to the malware itself, not the compromised system.

• Spyware (Option C) is software designed to stealthily gather user information, such as browsing habits or keystrokes, without consent. Spyware does not describe systems used in coordinated attacks like DDoS.

• Worms (Option D) are self-replicating programs that spread across networks without user interaction. While they can cause widespread disruption and may be used to propagate DDoS tools, they are distinct from zombies in function and definition.

In conclusion, in the context of a DDoS scenario, the infected and remotely controlled devices used to launch the attack are known as zombies, making option B the most accurate choice.

Question 3:

Which of the following does not represent a primary objective of an incident response plan?

A. Resolving interpersonal disputes within the human resources team
B. Leveraging insights from previous incidents to improve future responses and enhance defense mechanisms
C. Facilitating rapid recovery from cyber incidents to minimize service disruption, data loss, and theft
D. Effectively handling legal implications that arise during or after an incident

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

The main goal of incident response is to efficiently manage cybersecurity events that threaten an organization’s data, systems, or operations. The process aims to limit damage, ensure rapid recovery, maintain business continuity, and learn from each incident to strengthen defenses moving forward. However, resolving internal staff conflicts—such as disputes in the HR department—is outside the scope of cybersecurity incident response, making Option A the correct answer.

Incident response frameworks are developed to handle security breaches, malware infections, data leaks, denial-of-service attacks, and other related cyber events. A well-defined incident response plan consists of several phases: preparation, detection and analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned. These stages ensure that organizations react in a timely, structured, and legally compliant manner.

Option B highlights a crucial post-incident phase: lessons learned. After every incident, teams must analyze what went wrong, what worked, and where improvements can be made. This feedback loop is critical to reducing the likelihood or impact of future incidents.

Option C is another essential goal. After a security event, it is vital to restore operations quickly and minimize business disruption. This involves coordinating recovery activities, restoring affected systems, and communicating with stakeholders to ensure operational continuity.

Option D refers to the legal and compliance responsibilities of incident response. This includes maintaining evidentiary integrity, complying with data protection laws, and possibly cooperating with law enforcement. Proper handling of legal issues helps an organization avoid fines, lawsuits, and further reputational damage.

In summary, while all other options reflect components of a comprehensive incident response process, Option A—dealing with internal HR conflicts—is unrelated to cybersecurity incident response. That type of issue is typically handled by human resources or organizational development departments, not incident response teams.

Question 4:

A company experiences a security breach where a disgruntled employee leaks confidential access control data to a competitor. The incident response manager concludes it must be resolved urgently within the same day to protect the organization’s operations and market position. 

How should this incident be classified?

A. Critical Incident
B. Moderate Incident
C. Extremely Critical Incident
D. Minor Incident

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

When determining the severity of a security incident, organizations use incident classification models to assess its impact and urgency. These categories help prioritize response actions and allocate resources accordingly. In the given scenario, the leakage of sensitive access control data—especially to a competitor—presents a severe risk to business continuity, reputation, and competitive advantage. The need to resolve the issue within hours elevates the urgency. Therefore, this situation qualifies as a Critical Incident, making Option A the most accurate classification.

A Critical Incident typically:

• Threatens operational continuity or core business functions

• Jeopardizes sensitive information, intellectual property, or compliance posture

• Demands immediate attention, often within hours

• Has the potential to cause major reputational, financial, or legal damage

In this example, the malicious insider activity introduces all of these risks. Unauthorized disclosure of access control configurations could allow an adversary to exploit system vulnerabilities or gain privileged access, causing prolonged disruption.

Option B (Moderate Incident) would describe situations that are important but not immediately dangerous. These may require response within a few days, not hours, and typically do not endanger strategic business assets.

Option C (Extremely Critical Incident) is not commonly used in standard incident classification taxonomies. Most professional frameworks—like NIST, SANS, and ISO—use terminology such as Critical, High, Moderate, and Low severity. Introducing terms like “Extremely Critical” may lead to confusion or overlap with existing severity levels.

Option D (Minor Incident) refers to low-impact events such as a failed login attempt or an outdated antivirus signature—problems that can be resolved during routine operations and do not affect the organization’s ability to function.

In summary, when an incident involves insider threats, competitive data leaks, and urgent response requirements, it is clearly a Critical Incident. Accurate classification is key to activating the appropriate incident response protocols, involving the right teams, and maintaining control over escalating situations.

Question 5:

Which of the following plans is an essential component of a comprehensive business continuity strategy that ensures recovery after a major disruption?

A. Forensic Investigation Plan
B. Business Recovery Plan
C. Marketing Strategy Plan
D. New Product Development Plan

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a strategic framework organizations use to ensure that essential functions can continue during and after a significant disruption such as a natural disaster, cyberattack, or system failure. One of the foundational elements of a BCP is the Business Recovery Plan, which focuses on restoring critical operations and services in a structured and timely manner.

The Business Recovery Plan outlines detailed procedures for resuming business activities after a crisis. This includes recovering IT systems, restoring data from backups, and re-establishing communication lines. Its purpose is to minimize downtime, reduce revenue loss, and ensure a smooth transition back to normal operations. By prioritizing business-critical services, the recovery plan enables the organization to maintain operational resilience in challenging situations.

In contrast, the other options listed do not serve this immediate recovery purpose:

• Forensic Investigation Plan (A): This plan is typically used after a security incident to analyze the root cause, identify vulnerabilities, and gather evidence for legal or internal action. While valuable for understanding and preventing future incidents, it is not focused on ensuring service continuity during the disruption.

• Marketing Strategy Plan (C): This type of plan aims to define how a company promotes its products or services. While essential for long-term growth, it does not contribute to operational recovery or the ability to maintain core business functions during a crisis.

• New Product Development Plan (D): This plan relates to the creation and launch of new products. Although important for innovation, it is not part of an emergency response strategy or continuity planning. During a crisis, new product development is often suspended in favor of restoring existing operations.

A well-defined Business Recovery Plan plays a central role in mitigating risk and safeguarding an organization’s operational capacity. It ensures that teams know their responsibilities, systems are recovered efficiently, and key stakeholders are informed throughout the recovery process. This planning is especially vital for maintaining customer trust, regulatory compliance, and market stability during and after disruptions.

In summary, among the options provided, the Business Recovery Plan is the mandatory component that directly supports the goals of business continuity by ensuring that essential operations can be quickly and efficiently restored.

Question 6:

What is the correct chronological order of steps in the incident recovery process?

A. System Operation → System Restoration → System Validation → System Monitoring
B. System Validation → System Operation → System Restoration → System Monitoring
C. System Restoration → System Monitoring → System Validation → System Operations
D. System Restoration → System Validation → System Operations → System Monitoring

Correct Answer: D

Explanation:

Effective incident recovery follows a structured, sequential process to restore services while ensuring that systems are secure, stable, and functioning as expected. The correct order is:
System Restoration → System Validation → System Operations → System Monitoring

1. System Restoration:
   This is the first and most urgent step after an incident. It involves recovering systems, data, and network infrastructure that may have been compromised or shut down during the event. Activities include restoring backups, rebuilding corrupted systems, reinstalling software, and reestablishing basic functionality. The goal is to bring the systems back to an operable state where they can undergo further testing and validation.

2. System Validation:
   Once systems are restored, it’s critical to ensure they are functioning correctly and are free from vulnerabilities or residual threats. Validation includes rigorous testing, vulnerability scans, and verification of system integrity. This step confirms that the environment is clean, secure, and capable of supporting normal business operations without risk of reinfection or failure.

3. System Operations:
   After successful validation, the system is transitioned back into normal operations. This means that business applications, user access, and service workflows resume as usual. Operational readiness is assessed to confirm that all stakeholders can interact with the systems without issues. This stage marks the return to business-as-usual processes.

4. System Monitoring:
   The final step is ongoing monitoring of the restored systems. This includes observing system performance, checking logs, analyzing user activity, and looking for any anomalies that may signal lingering issues. Monitoring ensures long-term stability and provides early warnings of potential new threats. It also contributes to compliance reporting and continuous improvement.

The steps must be followed in this order to avoid premature system use, which could lead to re-exploitation or data loss. Skipping validation before resuming operations, for instance, could reintroduce vulnerabilities into the environment.

In conclusion, the proper flow of incident recovery—Restoration, Validation, Operations, and Monitoring—ensures a smooth, safe, and structured transition from crisis to full functionality, safeguarding business continuity and IT integrity.

Question 7:

Which of the following elements is generally not considered a standard component of a computer risk policy?

A. A method for assigning financial resources to address risk
B. A strategy for evaluating the success of implemented security measures
C. A plan for regularly educating authorized personnel
D. A framework for maintaining operations during system outages

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A Computer Risk Policy is a foundational document within an organization’s cybersecurity framework. Its primary role is to establish procedures and guidelines for identifying, managing, and mitigating risks related to computer systems and data. Such a policy is especially vital in environments where digital assets are core to business operations and where threats such as malware, data breaches, and system outages could have significant consequences.

While a comprehensive risk policy may touch upon financial concerns at a high level, detailed procedures for allocating funds are typically handled in budget planning or financial management documents, not in the risk policy itself. Therefore, option A is the correct answer, as it is not typically included.

Let’s review each option in detail:

• A. Procedure for allocating funds to manage risk: Although budgeting is important for implementing security tools and hiring staff, the risk policy doesn’t usually define how funds are distributed. This is a financial responsibility handled by leadership or finance departments.

• B. Procedure to monitor the effectiveness of security controls: This is a critical inclusion in any risk policy. A strong policy mandates regular assessment of how well security measures are working. This includes auditing access logs, running vulnerability scans, and conducting periodic reviews to ensure controls remain effective as threats evolve.

• C. Procedure for the continuous training of employees with authorized access: Humans are often the weakest link in cybersecurity. Thus, a robust risk policy includes ongoing education and awareness programs to ensure authorized users stay current with best practices and are trained to recognize phishing, social engineering, and other attack vectors.
  D. Provisions for ongoing support in case of a system interruption or crash: This is directly related to business continuity and disaster recovery, both of which are key topics in risk management. The policy typically outlines how to maintain services during disruptions and ensures response protocols are in place.

In summary, a computer risk policy focuses on operational safeguards, user behavior, and continuity planning, not the specifics of financial allocation. Hence, A is not a standard component.

Question 8:

Which type of network-based attack prevents legitimate users from accessing services by overwhelming system resources with excessive traffic?

A. URL Manipulation
B. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
C. SQL Injection
D. Denial of Service (DoS) Attack

Correct Answer: D

Explanation:

A Denial of Service (DoS) attack is a type of cyberattack that seeks to render a computer, network, or application unavailable to its intended users by flooding it with excessive traffic or overwhelming its processing capabilities. The goal of a DoS attack is not to breach security or steal data but to disrupt availability — one of the key pillars of the CIA Triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) in cybersecurity.

During a DoS attack, the attacker generates a large volume of requests, often beyond what the system can handle. This results in system slowdown, unresponsiveness, or even a complete crash. The more powerful variant, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), uses multiple compromised machines (often forming a botnet) to amplify the traffic load, making mitigation more complex.

Now, let’s compare this with the incorrect options:

• A. URL Manipulation: This technique involves altering a website’s URL parameters to gain unauthorized access or reveal sensitive information. It’s often used in session hijacking or privilege escalation, but it does not flood the system with traffic.

• B. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): XSS is a code injection attack where malicious scripts are injected into trusted websites. It’s used to steal session cookies or run unauthorized actions in a user’s browser, but it’s not a resource exhaustion attack.

• C. SQL Injection: This attack exploits input fields to insert malicious SQL queries into a database. It’s primarily used to extract or modify data, not to deny access via traffic overload.

• D. Denial of Service (DoS) Attack: This is the correct answer because it directly addresses the scenario described — authorized users being unable to access services due to system resources being overwhelmed.

Organizations typically counter DoS attacks using tools like firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), load balancers, and cloud-based DDoS mitigation services. They may also implement rate-limiting, traffic filtering, and anomaly detection to identify and stop attacks before they affect availability.

In summary, the defining characteristic of a DoS attack is service disruption due to resource exhaustion, making D the correct and most accurate choice.

Question 9:

What is the primary goal of the identification phase in the incident handling process?

A. Eliminating the threat actor's access to the network
B. Restoring affected systems to normal operation
C. Determining whether an event qualifies as a security incident
D. Deploying security patches to vulnerable systems

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

In the identification phase of the incident handling lifecycle, the primary objective is to determine whether an observed anomaly qualifies as a security incident. This is a critical first step in incident response because not every unusual activity signifies a true threat. Some anomalies may be harmless system errors, false positives, or performance-related issues rather than attacks.

The process typically begins when security monitoring tools, such as intrusion detection systems (IDS), security information and event management (SIEM) systems, or antivirus software, generate alerts. Security teams then investigate these alerts to assess the scope, impact, and authenticity of the event.

Option C is correct because the identification phase revolves around analyzing collected data, log files, and alerts to confirm the legitimacy of a potential incident. Once a real incident is verified, the handler categorizes and prioritizes it based on severity, affected systems, and business impact.

Option A and B relate to later stages in the incident response process—containment and recovery, respectively. Option D, patching systems, is typically done as part of the post-incident remediation or prevention phase, not during identification.

Accurate identification is essential for effective response. False negatives may allow attackers to operate undetected, while false positives can waste resources and delay responses to real threats. Well-defined procedures, solid documentation, and communication channels are vital to make the identification process efficient.

Question 10:

Which of the following is considered a best practice during the containment phase of incident handling?

A. Shutting down the affected system immediately to stop the attack
B. Notifying law enforcement before conducting internal analysis
C. Isolating compromised systems from the network to prevent spread
D. Publicly disclosing the breach before any investigation is completed

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

The containment phase of the incident handling process is all about limiting the scope and impact of a confirmed security incident. Once an incident is verified in the identification phase, it is crucial to act swiftly and carefully to prevent it from spreading to other systems, damaging more data, or affecting critical operations.

Option C is the correct answer because isolating affected systems—either by unplugging them from the network or using virtual segmentation—is a well-established best practice. This action helps prevent lateral movement by attackers and blocks further data exfiltration or system compromise. Isolation buys time for forensic analysis and root cause investigation.

Option A, while it may sound effective, is generally not recommended unless absolutely necessary. Abruptly shutting down a system can destroy volatile evidence (such as running processes, memory contents, and network connections), which are crucial for digital forensics and understanding how the breach occurred.

Option B is incorrect because law enforcement notification should follow internal protocols and legal obligations. It is rarely the first action and typically happens after the organization has done an internal assessment.

Option D is a dangerous practice. Premature disclosure can lead to reputational damage, cause panic, or alert threat actors that the organization is aware of the breach. Communication should follow a well-defined incident communication plan and only after proper analysis.

During containment, security teams may also apply temporary fixes like access control changes, patching known vulnerabilities, or disabling specific accounts. These short-term measures are implemented while planning for full eradication and recovery.

A methodical and informed containment strategy can significantly reduce the damage of an incident and preserve critical forensic evidence for further investigation and legal or regulatory purposes.