ITPEC FE Subject B October 2024 Question 17

The scenario describes a ransomware attack on two PCs in an accounting department.

Blank A — Prevention measure:
Point 7: ransomware spread to the shared PC by exploiting OS vulnerabilities because security patches were not applied. The correct prevention measure is OS updates.

• •SPAM filter enhancement is ruled out — point 5 says the phishing email was too sophisticated even for enhanced spam filters
• •Virus definition updates are ruled out — point 8 says anti-virus definitions were already updated daily

Blank B — Data Protection measure:
Point 9: OS storage encryption was already enabled but was not effective against ransomware. Point 4: Employee X's PC had no backup, so data was lost. Point 3: the shared PC had daily backups, so data was restored. The effective data protection measure is data backup.

• •Data encryption is ruled out — point 9 explicitly states encryption was already in place and failed to prevent the attack

Why not others:
- (a) SPAM filter + backup — spam filter part is wrong (point 5 rules it out)
- (b) SPAM filter + encryption — both parts wrong (points 5 and 9)
- (d) OS updates + encryption — encryption already failed (point 9)
- (e) Virus definitions + backup — virus definitions already current (point 8)
- (f) Virus definitions + encryption — both parts wrong (points 8 and 9)

Key rule: When a measure is already in place and proven ineffective in the scenario, it cannot be the correct answer — look for the measure that was missing and would have made a difference.

AI-generated — may contain errors