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SY0-301 · Question #240

During a routine audit a web server is flagged for allowing the use of weak ciphers. Which of the following should be disabled to mitigate this risk? (Select TWO).

The correct answer is A. SSL 1.0 E. DES. SSL 1.0 was never publicly released due to critical vulnerabilities, and DES uses a 56-bit key that is computationally trivial to brute force, making both weak ciphers that must be disabled to protect web server communications.

General security concepts

Question

During a routine audit a web server is flagged for allowing the use of weak ciphers. Which of the following should be disabled to mitigate this risk? (Select TWO).

Options

  • ASSL 1.0
  • BRC4
  • CSSL 3.0
  • DAES
  • EDES
  • FTLS 1.0

How the community answered

(48 responses)
  • A
    83% (40)
  • B
    10% (5)
  • C
    4% (2)
  • F
    2% (1)

Why each option

SSL 1.0 was never publicly released due to critical vulnerabilities, and DES uses a 56-bit key that is computationally trivial to brute force, making both weak ciphers that must be disabled to protect web server communications.

ASSL 1.0Correct

SSL 1.0 was Netscape's first draft of the SSL protocol and contained such severe cryptographic flaws that it was never publicly deployed - any server advertising support for it presents an unnecessary attack surface and should have it explicitly disabled.

BRC4

RC4 is also a known weak stream cipher vulnerable to statistical attacks, but it was not selected as a correct answer in this question's context.

CSSL 3.0

SSL 3.0 is vulnerable to the POODLE attack and is also considered insecure, but it was not among the two answers identified as correct here.

DAES

AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is a strong, modern symmetric cipher approved by NIST and should remain enabled, not disabled.

EDESCorrect

DES (Data Encryption Standard) relies on a 56-bit key length, which modern hardware can brute force in hours. It has been formally retired and replaced by AES, and its presence in a server's cipher suite constitutes a critical vulnerability.

FTLS 1.0

TLS 1.0 has known weaknesses (BEAST attack) and is generally discouraged, but it was not identified as one of the two correct answers in this question.

Concept tested: Disabling deprecated SSL protocols and weak encryption ciphers

Source: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-52/rev-2/final

Topics

#weak ciphers#SSL#DES#cryptographic protocols

Community Discussion

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