CCP CCP Cryptography & PKI 2

Question 1

What is a digital signature and how does it work?

Accepted Answer

A hash of the message encrypted with the sender's private key, verifiable with the sender's public key

Answer

A scanned image of a handwritten signature embedded in a document

Answer

A symmetric key used to authenticate the document origin

Answer

An SSL certificate attached to an email message

Question 2

Which key exchange protocol allows two parties to establish a shared secret over an insecure channel without transmitting the secret itself?

Accepted Answer

Diffie-Hellman (DH) key exchange

Answer

RSA key transport

Answer

AES key wrapping

Answer

Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES)

Question 3

What is the purpose of a Hardware Security Module (HSM) in a PKI deployment?

Accepted Answer

To securely generate, store, and manage cryptographic keys in tamper-resistant hardware

Answer

To accelerate network packet inspection

Answer

To distribute certificates to end-user devices

Answer

To monitor certificate expiration dates

Question 4

Which attack involves an adversary intercepting encrypted traffic today with the intention of decrypting it in the future once quantum computers become capable?

Accepted Answer

Harvest-now, decrypt-later (HNDL)

Answer

Downgrade attack

Answer

Birthday attack

Answer

Padding oracle attack

Question 5

What is a Certificate Transparency (CT) log, and how does it improve PKI security?

Accepted Answer

A publicly auditable append-only log of all issued certificates, enabling detection of misissued or rogue certificates

Answer

A private database storing expired certificates for compliance purposes

Answer

A key escrow system operated by government agencies

Answer

A revocation service that invalidates certificates in real time

Question 6

Which NIST standard describes a suite of post-quantum cryptographic algorithms intended to replace RSA and ECC against quantum-capable adversaries?

Accepted Answer

NIST IR 8413 / FIPS 203/204/205

Answer

NIST SP 800-57

Answer

FIPS 140-3

Answer

NIST SP 800-131A