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CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) — Architecture, Cryptography & Operations flashcards

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Domains 1, 3, 4 and 5 of SY0-701 as scenario questions: cryptography and PKI, network architecture and secure protocols, firewalls and appliances, 802.1X and wireless, identity and access control, resilience, incident response, monitoring, risk arithmetic and governance roles.

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Learn deck · part of CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) · written against: Exam SY0-701 objectives; SY0-701 can still be sat in English until 11 June 2027, and SY0-801 launches on 17 November 2026 (as of October 2026). Updated 2026-10-10.

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  1. A backup system must encrypt terabytes of data quickly using a key both ends already hold. Symmetric or asymmetric, and which algorithm is the standard choice?
    Symmetric encryption with AES — fast and built for bulk data.

    Why: asymmetric algorithms such as RSA are far slower and only practical for small inputs like keys and hashes, so protocols use them to exchange a symmetric key and then switch to AES.
    Cryptography
  2. Why are public-facing web servers placed in a screened subnet instead of on the internal LAN?
    A screened subnet (DMZ) sits between an external and an internal firewall, so a compromised web server cannot reach internal systems directly — only the specific ports it needs inward are permitted.
    Network Architecture
  3. Which protocol replaces Telnet for remote administration, and what else rides on it?
    SSH (TCP port 22) — an encrypted, authenticated shell that also carries SFTP and SCP file transfers. Telnet sends every keystroke, including passwords, in plaintext.
    Secure Protocols
  4. A switch port should carry no traffic until the connected device proves its identity. Which standard applies, and what are its three roles?
    802.1X — the supplicant (the device), the authenticator (switch or access point) and the authentication server (usually RADIUS). EAP carries the credential exchange.
    Network Access & Wireless
  5. Which RAID level offers speed but no fault tolerance, and what do the common redundant levels provide?
    RAID 0 (striping) — one failed disk loses everything. RAID 1 mirrors, RAID 5 stripes with parity and survives one disk failure, RAID 6 survives two, and RAID 10 stripes across mirrored pairs.
    Resilience & Backups
  6. A user logs in once and reaches email, HR and a dozen partner-hosted SaaS apps without re-entering credentials. What is this, and which standard commonly carries it between organizations?
    Single sign-on (SSO); across organizational boundaries it is federation, most often with SAML assertions sent from an identity provider to each service provider.
    Identity & Access
  7. What is the order of the incident response process as the exam presents it?
    Preparation → Detection → Analysis → Containment → Eradication → Recovery → Lessons learned.
    Incident Response & Forensics
  8. What is the difference between a SIEM and a SOAR platform?
    A SIEM collects, correlates and alerts on logs from many sources; a SOAR platform automates the response playbooks — enriching, blocking, ticketing — that those alerts trigger.
    Monitoring & Testing
  9. A server valued at 20,000 dollars would lose half its value in a fire expected once every ten years. What is the annualized loss expectancy?
    ALE = SLE × ARO. SLE = 20,000 × 0.5 = 10,000; ARO = 0.1; so ALE = 1,000 dollars per year.
    Risk Management
  10. How do a policy, a standard and a procedure differ?
    A policy states what must be done and why (management intent); a standard sets the specific measurable requirement, such as the approved disk encryption algorithm; a procedure gives the step-by-step how. Guidelines are optional advice.
    Governance & Data

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About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

  • Written for SY0-701, which can still be sat in English until 11 June 2027; its successor, SY0-801, launches on 17 November 2026 (CompTIA's Security+ V7 and V8 pages, as of October 2026).
  • Checked against the CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 exam objectives (topic list only; no text copied); the incident response phases follow objective 4.8.
  • Checked against NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3 (April 2025, which superseded Rev. 2) and NIST SP 800-86 (public domain), and against RFC 3227, for incident handling and order of volatility.
  • Checked against the RFCs for TLS 1.3 (RFC 8446), OCSP (RFC 6960), the IPsec architecture (RFC 4301) and IPsec ESP (RFC 4303) for protocol behaviour (reference only).

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