ITPEC IP October 2025 Question 42
A business PC that was connected to a company’s internal wireless LAN network was used to view a website on the Internet. Immediately after this, the web browser crashed and unknown files were created, and other such events occurred that indicated the possibility of infection with malware. Which of the following is the appropriate action that the user of this PC should take first?
Explanation
Reinstalling the web browser — the official key, which treats the browser that crashed as the component to restore.
The symptoms appeared in the browser right after the website was viewed, so the key takes the browser as the damaged part and reinstalls it, replacing files the site may have altered.
Note on the key: ITPEC's official answer is (a), and that is what this paper scores. Incident-response practice, including IPA's guidance for a suspected malware infection, puts (c) first: disconnect the PC from the network before anything else, so the malware cannot spread to other PCs on the internal LAN, send data out or receive commands, and then report to the administrator. Reinstalling the browser does not remove malware that has already run elsewhere on the PC. On the exam, choose the official answer; in practice, isolate first.
Answer (a)
Why not others:
- •(b) — updating the malware definitions keeps the PC on the network while it may be infected; scanning with fresh definitions comes after isolation
- •(c) — the first step by every incident-response rule, but not the official answer to this question
- •(d) — the encryption of the wireless link protects data in transit from eavesdroppers; it does nothing about malware already running on an authorized PC
Key rule: When malware is suspected, contain first: disconnect the device from the network and report, then investigate, remove the malware and recover.
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