Cisco Certified Support Technician (CCST) Networking practice questions
200 free questions with answers and explanations.
- 1.A network engineer is using a script to configure VLANs on multiple switches through a network controller's REST API. The script sends JSON payloads containing the desired VLAN configurations. Which data format is commonly used for representing structured data when interacting with REST APIs?Automation and Programmability
- 2.A network automation engineer is writing a Python script to interact with a network device's API. The device's API documentation specifies that all API calls require an API key to be included in the 'Authorization' header of every HTTP request. Which API concept does this requirement fall under?Automation and Programmability
- 3.A developer accidentally hardcodes sensitive credentials directly into the source code of a public-facing application. Which fundamental security concept is most directly violated by this action?Security Fundamentals
- 4.A company implements a new security policy requiring all employees to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) for accessing internal systems. Which security concept is primarily strengthened by this policy?Security Fundamentals
- 5.A security team requires an automated way to retrieve security event logs from all network devices for analysis. The network devices expose a RESTful API for this purpose. The team wants to ensure the data retrieved is in a structured format that can be easily parsed by their Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system. Which of the following API concepts is most relevant for this requirement?Automation and Programmability
- 6.A network operations team is implementing a new network automation solution. They want to use a standard data format for exchanging configuration and operational data between different network devices and automation scripts. Which of the following formats is widely adopted and human-readable for this purpose?Automation and Programmability
- 7.A network engineer is designing a network segment for public-facing web servers that need to be accessible from the internet but must be isolated from the internal corporate network to limit potential damage from external attacks. Which network security technology best provides this isolation?Security Fundamentals
- 8.A network administrator is evaluating different network automation tools. One tool advertises its ability to manage network configurations by simply defining the desired state of the network (e.g., 'interface GigabitEthernet0/1 should be up with IP address 192.168.1.1/24'). The tool then automatically figures out and executes the necessary commands to achieve and maintain that state. Which network automation approach does this tool primarily utilize?Automation and Programmability
- 9.A network engineer wants to automate the configuration of 50 new access points. Instead of manually logging into each device, the engineer plans to write a script that sends configuration commands to a RESTful API exposed by a central network controller. Which HTTP method would typically be used to create or update resource configurations on the API?Automation and Programmability
- 10.A technician is writing a script to monitor network device health. The script needs to periodically send requests to a device's API and receive responses containing metrics like CPU utilization and memory usage. To ensure efficient communication and avoid unnecessary overhead, which HTTP status code indicates that a request was successful and the requested data is included in the response body?Automation and Programmability
- 11.A network administrator is designing a new campus network and wants to implement a solution that centralizes network configuration and management, allowing for programmatic control and automation. The administrator specifically wants to decouple the control plane from the data plane. Which networking concept best fits these requirements?Automation and Programmability
- 12.A technician is configuring a new web server that will host public-facing company information. To enhance security, all traffic to and from this server will be inspected for malicious content and potential intrusions. Which network security technology is primarily responsible for deep packet inspection and signature-based threat detection?Security Fundamentals
- 13.A network security team observes an unusually high volume of traffic flooding a specific server from numerous disparate IP addresses simultaneously. This traffic is overwhelming the server's resources, making it unresponsive to legitimate requests. Which type of attack is most likely occurring?Security Fundamentals
- 14.An IT manager wants to ensure that all data transmitted from the company's web server to client browsers is encrypted to protect sensitive customer information. Which security protocol, commonly used with HTTP, achieves this goal?Security Fundamentals
- 15.A network administrator is implementing a security measure to prevent unauthorized devices from connecting to the wired network by ensuring that only devices with specific, pre-approved hardware addresses are allowed. Which network security technology is being utilized?Security Fundamentals
- 16.A security analyst is reviewing logs and identifies multiple failed login attempts from a single IP address targeting various user accounts on the company's external web server. The attempts are spaced out over several hours. Which common security threat does this activity most closely represent?Security Fundamentals
- 17.A network administrator is troubleshooting an issue where a new automation script fails to connect to a network device's API. The script is attempting to establish a secure connection using HTTPS, but it consistently receives an SSL/TLS certificate error. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of this error?Automation and Programmability
- 18.A network administrator notices unusual outbound traffic patterns originating from several internal workstations, including connections to unknown IP addresses on high-numbered ports. The traffic volume is low but persistent. Users report no issues with their applications. Which of the following best describes the most likely type of security threat occurring?Security Fundamentals
- 19.A network architect is designing a new solution where applications need to interact directly with network devices to provision services and retrieve operational state. The solution requires a standardized, programmatic interface that is independent of vendor-specific CLI commands. Which protocol is specifically designed for managing network devices with structured data models and supports both XML and JSON encoding?Automation and Programmability
- 20.A network automation script is designed to retrieve configuration data from a network device using its REST API. The script needs to parse the received data, which is formatted as JSON, and extract specific values from nested objects. Which programming construct is commonly used in languages like Python to access elements within a JSON object?Automation and Programmability
- 21.A user receives an email that appears to be from their bank, asking them to click a link to verify their account details due to 'unusual activity'. The email contains the bank's logo and a convincing layout, but the link points to a slightly misspelled domain. Which type of common security threat is this?Security Fundamentals
- 22.A network automation engineer is deploying a new application that will programmatically provision virtual networks and firewall rules in a cloud environment. This application requires direct access to the cloud provider's network resources. Which type of API is the engineer MOST likely interacting with?Automation and Programmability
- 23.A network administrator is troubleshooting an automation script that interacts with a network device's REST API. The script consistently receives an HTTP status code 403. What does this code most likely indicate?Automation and Programmability
- 24.A network automation engineer is deploying a new service that provides network telemetry data to an analytics platform. This service needs to expose an API that allows the analytics platform to subscribe to real-time events and receive data pushes whenever a significant network event occurs (e.g., interface status change, high utilization). Which type of API interaction model is best suited for this real-time, event-driven data pushing?Automation and Programmability
- 25.A cybersecurity team is investigating a potential data breach where an attacker gained unauthorized access to sensitive customer records. The team discovers that the attacker exploited a vulnerability in the web application's input validation, allowing them to execute malicious commands on the database server. Which type of attack was most likely used?Security Fundamentals
- 26.A network operations team is implementing an automation script to regularly check the status of network device interfaces. The script needs to fetch current operational data from a device's API without making any changes. Which API interaction type is being performed?Automation and Programmability
- 27.A network engineer needs to retrieve the current running configuration from a Cisco switch using a RESTful API. Which HTTP method is most appropriate for this read-only operation?Automation and Programmability
- 28.A small business wants to protect its internal network from unauthorized access while allowing employees to securely access company resources when working remotely. Which network security technology is primarily designed to create a secure, encrypted connection over a public network?Security Fundamentals
- 29.A network administrator is designing an automation workflow where a script needs to determine if a network device is reachable before attempting to configure it via an API. Which command-line utility is commonly used to test the reachability of a host on an IP network?Automation and Programmability
- 30.A network engineer is writing a Python script to gather operational data from a large number of network devices. The script needs to parse the received data, which is structured in a human-readable format with key-value pairs, nested objects, and arrays. Which Python module is most suitable for handling this data format?Automation and Programmability
- 31.A network security engineer is tasked with automating the process of blocking malicious IP addresses on perimeter firewalls. The automation involves a script that receives a list of suspicious IPs and sends an API call to each firewall's controller to add these IPs to a blocklist. The engineer wants to ensure that if the script is run multiple times with the same list of IPs, it does not create duplicate entries or cause unintended side effects beyond ensuring the IPs are blocked. Which API property is the engineer seeking?Automation and Programmability
- 32.A network architect is designing a new solution that uses a centralized controller to manage both wired and wireless network infrastructure across multiple sites. The goal is to simplify policy enforcement, automate provisioning, and provide a single point of management. Which type of SDN solution is best suited for this comprehensive, enterprise-wide approach?Automation and Programmability
- 33.A network technician needs to configure a default route on a Cisco router to forward all traffic for unknown destinations to the internet service provider (ISP). The ISP's router has an IP address of 203.0.113.1 on the directly connected link. Which command would correctly configure this default route?IP Connectivity
- 34.A network administrator is configuring BGP on a router and needs to define the local autonomous system number. Which BGP command initializes the BGP routing process on a Cisco router and specifies this AS number?IP Connectivity
- 35.A network technician is configuring a router for a small office network. The office uses private IP addresses (192.168.1.0/24) internally and needs to access the internet. Which type of Network Address Translation (NAT) is most suitable if multiple internal hosts need to share a single public IP address for outbound connections?IP Connectivity
- 36.A network technician is troubleshooting an IPv6 routing issue. Two directly connected routers, R1 and R2, are unable to establish an OSPFv3 adjacency. R1's interface is configured with 'ipv6 ospf 1 area 0'. R2's interface is configured with 'ipv6 ospf 1 area 1'. What is the most likely reason for the OSPFv3 adjacency failure?IP Connectivity
- 37.A network administrator is troubleshooting an issue where a router is not forwarding traffic to a newly added subnet. The routing table shows no entry for the destination subnet. Which of the following is the most likely reason for this issue?IP Connectivity
- 38.A network architect is designing a routing solution for a campus network that requires fast convergence and support for unequal-cost load balancing. The network consists entirely of Cisco devices. Which routing protocol would be the most suitable choice to meet these requirements?IP Connectivity
- 39.A network engineer is troubleshooting an IPv6 routing issue. A router is unable to reach a specific IPv6 network despite having a valid entry in its routing table. Upon inspection, it's noted that the entry shows the route as 'installed', but the 'next-hop' address is a link-local address (e.g., FE80::1) on an interface that is currently down. Which of the following is the most likely reason for the routing failure?IP Connectivity
- 40.A network engineer is configuring OSPF on a router. They need to ensure that the router becomes the Designated Router (DR) for a specific multi-access segment. Which OSPF parameter should be adjusted to influence this election, assuming all other parameters are default?IP Connectivity
- 41.A network technician is configuring a new router to connect a small office network to the internet. The office uses private IP addresses, and the technician needs to ensure that internal hosts can access external resources. Which networking service should the technician configure on the router to allow multiple internal private IP addresses to share a single public IP address for outbound internet access?IP Connectivity
- 42.A network technician is configuring a router to forward traffic for all unknown destinations to a specific next-hop IP address. Which type of route is being configured?IP Connectivity
- 43.A network administrator is troubleshooting an issue where a newly added static route is not being used by the router, even though the destination network is unreachable without it. The `show ip route` command output confirms the static route is present but traffic is still being dropped. Which of the following is the most likely reason the static route is not being used?IP Connectivity
- 44.A technician is examining the routing table of a Cisco router and sees an entry for network 10.10.10.0/24 with a next-hop IP address of 192.168.1.2 and an administrative distance of 1. What type of route is this entry most likely to be?IP Connectivity
- 45.A network engineer is designing an IPv6 network. They need to configure a router to advertise its presence and network configuration information to hosts on the local link without requiring a DHCPv6 server. Which IPv6 routing protocol or mechanism enables this functionality?IP Connectivity
- 46.A network engineer is designing an IPv6 network for a large organization. The organization requires a highly scalable routing protocol that supports various network topologies and can converge quickly. Which IPv6 routing protocol would be the most appropriate choice for this scenario?IP Connectivity
- 47.A network technician is configuring a Cisco router to perform Port Address Translation (PAT) for internal users accessing the internet. Which of the following commands correctly defines the inside global interface for PAT?IP Connectivity
- 48.A network engineer is configuring a router to use OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) as its interior gateway protocol. The engineer wants to ensure that all interfaces participating in OSPF are included in Area 0. Which of the following OSPF commands, when configured under router OSPF 1, will enable OSPF on the interface with IP address 192.168.10.1/24 and assign it to Area 0?IP Connectivity
- 49.A network administrator is configuring EIGRP on a router and wants to ensure that specific interfaces participate in the EIGRP routing process, while other interfaces (e.g., connecting to the internet) do not send or receive EIGRP updates. Which EIGRP configuration feature should be used to achieve this?IP Connectivity
- 50.A network engineer is designing a routing solution for a network where fast convergence and support for unequal-cost load balancing are critical requirements. Which IP routing protocol is best suited for these requirements?IP Connectivity