SSCP Certification SSCP Cryptography Fundamentals 5

Question 1

What is a side-channel attack in the context of cryptography?

Accepted Answer

Exploiting information leaked through physical implementation, such as timing or power consumption

Answer

Side-channel attacks exploit physical information leaked during cryptographic operations — such as execution time, power consumption, or electromagnetic emissions — rather than mathematical weaknesses.

Question 2

In PKI, what is Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) used for?

Accepted Answer

Providing real-time certificate revocation status checks

Answer

OCSP allows clients to query a CA's OCSP responder in real time to check whether a specific certificate has been revoked, as an alternative to downloading the full CRL.

Question 3

Which symmetric key algorithm uses a 56-bit key and is now considered insecure due to its short key length?

Accepted Answer

DES

Answer

DES (Data Encryption Standard) uses a 56-bit key which is vulnerable to brute-force attacks with modern hardware, and has been broken experimentally in under 24 hours.

Question 4

What is the function of a key derivation function (KDF) such as HKDF?

Accepted Answer

Deriving one or more cryptographic keys from a master secret or password

Answer

A KDF like HKDF derives cryptographically strong keys from input keying material such as a shared secret or password, enabling multiple distinct keys to be produced from a single source.

Question 5

Which of the following describes a chosen-ciphertext attack (CCA)?

Accepted Answer

An attacker who submits ciphertexts and observes corresponding plaintexts to learn the key

Answer

In a chosen-ciphertext attack, the adversary can choose arbitrary ciphertexts and obtain their decryptions from the target system, using these oracle responses to deduce the decryption key or recover plaintexts.

SSCP Certification Practice Test

SSCP Certification Practice Test

SSCP Certification SSCP Cryptography Fundamentals 5