AICPA CPA-Auditing Exam Actual Questions
CPA Auditing and Attestation (AUD) (Page 29 )

• L2TP uses UDP port 1701 for the L2TP control channel.
• The destination port is 1701; the source port is a dynamically chosen ephemeral port on the client (not 1701).
• Therefore the statement that both source and destination ports are 1710 is incorrect (and 1710 is not the standard L2TP port).

• The destination port should be 1701, not 1710.
• The source port should be an ephemeral port chosen by the client, not 1701.

• Correct answer: B — From the code repository, modify Startup.cs (in ASP.NET Core you configure the Application Insights SDK in code, not with ApplicationInsights.config).

• Why the other options aren’t correct:

• How to implement fixed-rate sampling (ASP.NET Core):

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args); 


    builder.Services.Configure<TelemetryConfiguration>(telemetryConfiguration => 
    { 
        var builder = telemetryConfiguration.DefaultTelemetrySink.TelemetryProcessorChainBuilder; 
        double fixedSamplingPercentage = 10; // 10% sampling 
        builder.UseSampling(fixedSamplingPercentage); 
    }); 


    builder.Services.AddApplicationInsightsTelemetry(new ApplicationInsightsServiceOptions 
    { 
        EnableAdaptiveSampling = false 
    }); 


    var app = builder.Build();

• Correct answer: D. AWS CloudShell

• Why: AWS CloudShell is a browser-based shell that runs in the AWS Console and uses the current authenticated session. It provides a pre-authenticated, ready-to-use command-line environment directly from the Management Console, with AWS CLI and common tools installed.

• Why the other options aren’t correct:

Why B works

• AWS KMS keys are Regional resources. A normal customer managed key in Region A cannot be used directly in Region B.
• A customer managed multi-Region KMS key (MRK) has related key replicas in both Regions. The replicas share key material and key ID, although each has a Regional ARN.
• With client-side encryption, the application encrypts the data before storing it in S3. Cross-Region replication then copies already-encrypted objects, so S3 does not need to decrypt and re-encrypt them with a different Regional key.

Why the other choices are weaker

• A and C: SSE-S3 uses Amazon-managed S3 keys, not the required customer managed KMS key.
• D: SSE-KMS can work only if the solution creates and configures the appropriate KMS key or multi-Region key replica in each Region. As written, it says to create a customer managed KMS key in each Region, which implies separate keys—not the same KMS key. Replication also requires additional KMS permissions and destination encryption configuration.

• Strongest encryption algorithms: Choose the strongest available encryption and integrity options, typically AES with the largest key size and a secure integrity algorithm.
• Encrypt all traffic: Select tunnel mode rather than transport mode. Tunnel mode encrypts the entire original IP packet, which is appropriate for a site-to-site VPN between branch networks.
• Secret-password authentication: Configure a pre-shared key (PSK) on both VPN concentrators. The key must match at both ends.

• You provision the virtual machine.
• You manage the guest operating system, applications, and configuration.
• Azure manages the physical servers, datacenter, and underlying virtualization infrastructure.

• VMs without NGT: Not clearly a migration blocker on its own; NGT (Nutanix Guest Tools) status isn’t the typical gating factor for live migration during maintenance.
• VMs marked as an Agent: Not a standard, widely-known migration blocker; agents aren’t the typical reason a VM can’t be migrated.
• Memory Overcommitted VMs: While memory pressure can affect placement, memory overcommitment isn’t a fundamental reason a VM would be labeled non-migratable during maintenance.
• VMs with attached Volume Groups: This is the strongest candidate. A Volume Group is a set of volumes bound to a VM; moving the VM would entail relocating and reattaching those volumes, which can complicate or block live migration during maintenance.

• Short answer: The correct term is Anti-forensics (option D), not “Felony.”

• Why: The actions described—hiding files in slack space, changing file headers, placing suspicious files in executables, and altering metadata—are classic anti-forensics techniques. They’re used to hinder or obscure forensic analysis, not to label the act as a legal category.

• About the options:

• Note: The provided answer key lists B (Felony), which is misleading for this exam objective. The exam typically tests knowledge of forensics concepts, where anti-forensics is the correct category.

• B: Intégrez des résultats de due diligence tels que les évaluations de risque client.

• C: Utilisez des correspondants en aval pour enquêter et signaler les activités suspectes.

• The target API uses HTTPS, so Mule must validate the server’s TLS certificate.
• The TLS configuration is set to None, meaning no custom truststore is configured.
• Mule therefore uses the JRE’s default truststore to determine whether the target certificate is trusted.
• If the issuing CA certificate is in that truststore, the TLS handshake can succeed.
• If it is absent—or the certificate is otherwise invalid—the request fails with a TLS/handshake error.

• Basic support does not include architectural/design assessments.
• Premier support includes advisory services such as architectural reviews/design assessments.

• The solution (subscribe to Premier support) does meet the goal. The correct choice should be Yes (A).
• The provided answer key showing B (No) is likely incorrect for current Azure support plans.

• Correct answer: A. Email templates

• Snippets are reusable content blocks that you insert into email content, and they require an email template (or at least an email draft) to render.
• You can store region-specific footers as snippets and include them in a template, but there would be nothing to render the snippet into without a template.
• The other options aren’t prerequisites for using snippets:

• A — conformant: Incorrect because one explicit requirement is violated.
• B — consistent: “Consistent” is not sufficient where the implementation contradicts a mandatory specification. The RPC mechanism is covered by the architecture, and the implementation differs from it.
• C — consistent: Incorrect reasoning: the RPC mechanism does have a defined architectural requirement, so conformance must be assessed.
• D — non-conformant: Correct because the implementation fails to follow the specified RPC/threading requirement.

• Problème: le système d’alertes signale des fluctuations tout en manquant les activités qui restent anormalement constantes sur une période longue. Il faut donc un scénario qui capte les anomalies qui se maintiennent dans le temps plutôt que les pics ponctuels.
• Peer: permet de comparer un client à ses pairs; utile pour repérer des écarts relatifs, mais ne cible pas nécessairement les motifs d’anomalie persistante sur plusieurs périodes.
• Revenus mapping: relie les transactions à des sources ou flux de revenus; utile pour l’analyse des fonds, mais pas directement pour détecter une anomalie longue durée.
• Below-the-line: conçu pour détecter des activités qui passent en dessous des seuils habituels ou qui demeurent anormales sur une longue période, comblant ainsi la faiblesse des alertes à long terme.

• The AWS Support Concierge is a specialized team within Enterprise Support whose primary role is handling billing and account questions and helping with account setup and getting started.
• They are not the source for architecture guidance or development assistance; those services are provided by Technical Account Managers (TAMs) or Solutions Architects as part of Enterprise Support.
• For technical support cases, customers typically interact with AWS Support engineers or the TAMs, not the Concierge. The Concierge may route or coordinate related requests, but they don’t provide the technical resolution.

• What Concierge does: billing and account inquiries, onboarding help, coordination with AWS support.
• What Concierge does not do: provide architecture/design guidance or in-depth technical support case resolutions.

• The diagnostic output shows that the protocol is TCP (proto=6) and the session state is 2.
• In FortiGate’s session output, state=2 maps to SYN_SENT. This means the TCP SYN has been sent but the handshake hasn’t completed yet.
• Therefore, the session is not ESTABLISHED, FIN/ACK-related states, or other states; it’s in SYN_SENT.

• Correct answer: D (Special category data)

• Why:

• Quick notes:

• Why this is correct: In Azure Virtual Desktop, user access to a host pool is controlled through App Groups. The default app group for a host pool publishes the full desktop, so adding members to that app group grants them sign-in and access to the desktop (and any RemoteApps in that group). This is the standard way to give users access to AVD resources.

• Why the other options are not correct:

• Practical steps (high level):

• CAPWAP (Control And Provisioning of Wireless Access Points) creates a tunnel between the AP and the Wireless LAN Controller over the IP network. The AP and WLC communicate via this CAPWAP tunnel, which can traverse Layer 2 or Layer 3 networks.
• The AP does not have to be on the same switch as the WLC. It can connect to any switch in the network, as long as there is IP reachability between the AP and the WLC. This is why option D is correct.
• The other options are incorrect:

• Answer: Data enhancement.

• Why: Augmenting gold-layer tables with an additional dataset is enriching or enhancing the existing data to support the ad-hoc analysis. The other options don’t capture the idea of adding external data to improve the dataset (ad-hoc improvements = tweaks, last-mile dashboarding = building dashboards, last-mile ETL = ETL steps at the end of the pipeline). In practice, this is often also called data enrichment.

• prompt: the input or instruction given to the model
• completion: the desired response

json 
{"prompt":"Summarize this customer complaint.","completion":"The customer reports a delayed shipment."}

• B: A .txt file containing CSV-style lines is not automatically a valid fine-tuning dataset. The required structure and format must match the selected Bedrock model.
• C: Provisioned Throughput provides dedicated inference capacity; it does not fine-tune a model.
• D: Journals and textbooks might support domain adaptation or pretraining, but they do not provide the prompt-to-answer examples typically required for supervised fine-tuning.

• What the scenario asks: You have a Power BI semantic model that pulls from multiple sources (Azure SQL Database and SharePoint Online), must support a single dataset for three reports, keep data current (daily refresh by 7 AM PT), and apply RLS to limit sales data by region. You need to choose a storage mode for the tables.

• Correct choice: Dual storage mode.

• Why Dual fits:

• Key concepts:

• TCP is connection-oriented. It establishes a connection before data transfer using a three-way handshake (SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK), enabling reliable delivery, ordering, and flow control.

• UDP is connectionless. It sends datagrams without a prior connection and provides no guarantee of delivery, order, or protection against duplicates; any reliability is up to the application.

• B incorrectly states UDP uses acknowledgment packets; UDP has no built-in ACKs.
• C wrongly claims UDP provides reliable transfer and that TCP is connectionless.
• D misstates framing bits; neither protocol uses the listed TCP/UDP handshake bits in frames.

• Correct options: C and D.

• The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) security perspective focuses on capabilities to protect information and manage security risk.
• Observability (A) is primarily an operations/monitoring capability, not a core security capability under CAF.
• Incident and problem management (B) is IT service management/operations, not specifically a CAF security capability.
• Incident response (C) is a security-focused capability: detecting, containing, and recovering from security incidents.
• Infrastructure protection (D) involves applying security controls to protect the underlying infrastructure, which fits the security perspective.

• Correct answer: Power BI dataset

• The scenario says the data model already contains several measures and you want to create a report from the existing data with minimal development. Reusing a published Power BI dataset lets you inherit the existing measures and data model, so you don’t have to recreate them.
• How to do it: In Power BI Desktop, use the connector Power BI datasets (Get Data > Power BI datasets) and connect to the existing dataset, then build visuals using the pre-defined measures.
• Why the other options are less suitable:

• Correct answer: A — a clear business case has been established.

• The audit focus for IT procurement is ensuring there is a solid economic justification for the investment. A clear business case documents the expected benefits, costs, risks, and alignment with strategic objectives, which governs whether the investment is worth pursuing.
• The other options are important controls or project aspects, but they are secondary to ensuring the investment is justified financially and strategically:

• This is a lookup relationship. Salesforce does not cascade access from a child (Opportunity) to its parent (Account) via implicit sharing.
• To view the Account, the user must have explicit access to the Account (via its OWD/sharing, or object permissions).

• The user has Read/View (or higher) on Account via profile/permission set.
• Manual sharing or a sharing rule grants that Account to the user.
• The Account is exposed by a broader permission like View All/Modify All on Account.
• Role hierarchy with Grant Access Using Hierarchies could grant access to Accounts owned by others, if applicable.

• Options:

• Answer: The correct choice is A (800-61r3).

• NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3 is the dedicated guide for incident handling/response and reflects the latest guidance on the incident response lifecycle (preparation, detection/analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, post-incident activity).
• 800-61r2 is an older revision of the same incident response guide.
• 800-53 covers security and privacy controls, not a specific incident response standard.
• 800-171 focuses on protecting CUI in non-federal systems and networks, not incident response guidance.

• IPv6 address types you’ll typically see:

• Unique Local Addresses (ULAs)

• If an address begins with fdXX:… or fc00:…, place it under “Unique Local Address” (ULA).
• If it begins with 2000::/3, place it under “Global Unicast.”
• If it begins with fe80::, place it under “Link-local.”
• If it begins with ff00::, place it under “Multicast.”

• The correct AAA mapping (per Cisco objectives) is:

• Why the given options aren’t fully correct:

• Quick takeaway: when you configure AAA, you should conceptually map them as:

• Example commands (to reinforce concepts):

• The Act requires:

• It does not, as a public obligation, mandate publishing a detailed report on the training data used.
• Also, the Act does not specify a fixed “six months” retention for system logs in a way that would clearly make A required; logs for traceability are implied, but the six-month period is not a defined, universal requirement.

• In Azure, the typical cost approach for pay-as-you-go VMs is an Operational Expenditure (OPEX) model. You’re billed for actual usage each month.
• The term “elastic expenditure model” isn’t a standard Azure cost category. Elasticity describes scaling capacity, not the billing category itself.
• So recommending the elastic expenditure model is not correct for this goal.

• The solution does not meet the goal. Answer: No (B).

• Pay-as-you-go aligns with OPEX because costs vary with usage.
• Elasticity is about scaling resources, which affects performance and capacity, not the fundamental cost model.

• You want: a row for each year and each product (year+product), plus a summary row for each year that totals all products (year only).
• GROUP BY ROLLUP(YEAR(SO.ModifiedDate), P.Name) yields:

• GROUP BY CUBE(YEAR(SO.ModifiedDate), P.Name) produces all combinations of the grouping columns, including:

• This adds extra rows (per-year totals by product across all years and a grand total) that aren’t needed for your stated goal.

• If you want exactly the (Year, Product) and (Year) rows, you can use GROUPING SETS ((Year, Product), (Year)) which is equivalent to Rollup in this two-column case but makes intent explicit.

• SELECT YEAR(SO.ModifiedDate) AS OrderYear, P.Name AS ProductName, SUM(SO.OrderQty) AS TotalQty

• Side loading means installing software from sources outside official or trusted repositories.
• This process can bring in malicious payloads because the installed software hasn’t been vetted. A rootkit is a type of malware that hides its presence and maintains privileged access, making it a prime risk when using untrusted sources.
• Why not the other options:

• Only install apps from trusted sources; verify signatures.
• Use application whitelisting and security controls to block sideloading.
• Keep systems updated and use anti-malware tools capable of detecting rootkits.

• Box 1: Azure Lighthouse — ??? ??????? ? ?????????? ????????? ? ?????????? Entra tenants. ??? ??????????? ??? ??? ????? ????? ? VM ? ?????? ?????????/????????.
• Box 2: Azure Monitor Agent ? ?????????????? Data Collection Rules (DCR) — AMA ???????? ??????? Windows (????????, Security Logs) ? DCR ??????????, ????? ??????? ???????? ? ???? ?????????? (? ?????? Log Analytics workspace).

• Why: The data is unlabeled, so you can’t train a model with known input-output pairs. Unsupervised learning discovers structure in the data by grouping similar customers into clusters or tiers without labels.
• What it does: Clustering and segmentation (e.g., k-means, hierarchical clustering, DBSCAN, Gaussian mixtures) to form meaningful groups.
• Why the other options aren’t as suitable:

1. Download the updated VPN client configuration package from the Azure VPN gateway.
2. Remove or update the existing VPN client configuration on the Windows 10 workstation.
3. Install the new package and reconnect.

• Failed login attempts
• The account being targeted
• The source user or system
• Time and frequency of attempts

• Two-factor authentication: Helps prevent unauthorized access, but does not primarily detect the employee’s attempts.
• Firewall: Controls network traffic; it generally does not monitor individual login attempts.
• Intrusion prevention system (IPS): Can detect certain network attacks, but this scenario is best addressed through authentication and audit logging.

• Wiping securely overwrites the drive so the original data cannot reasonably be recovered. It is generally less expensive than physically destroying the device.
• Recycling could expose the data if the drive is not securely erased first.
• Shredding physically destroys the drive and is effective, but usually more costly and prevents reuse.
• Deletion only removes file references; it is not a secure sanitization method.

• Active vs passive: Active assessment involves actively scanning targets by sending probes/packets to identify hosts, services, and vulnerabilities. Passive assessment observes traffic without probing.
• External vs internal: External assessment is about testing from outside the network perimeter; the scenario doesn’t specify external vantage, only that tools are identifying hosts/services across the enterprise network.

• The correct answer is D: All of the above.

• Snowflake Web Interface (UI): You can create and manage Virtual Warehouses from the UI (resize, suspend/resume settings, etc.).
• SQL commands: You can create and alter warehouses with DDL like CREATE WAREHOUSE and ALTER WAREHOUSE.
• Data integration tools: ETL/ELT tools can create/manage warehouses by connecting to Snowflake and issuing the appropriate commands or using their config to specify a warehouse.

• The Balanced Scorecard translates an organization’s vision and strategy into a set of concrete objectives and metrics across four perspectives (financial, customer, internal processes, learning & growth). This framework explicitly links IT goals to business goals and provides a way to measure and monitor alignment over time.

• Enterprise architecture (EA): Great for governance, standards, and roadmaps to ensure IT assets support business needs, but it’s more about structure and alignment at design time rather than directly measuring ongoing alignment of goals.
• KPIs: Useful metrics, but they don’t by themselves provide a full framework to ensure IT goals are aligned with organizational strategy.
• Enterprise dashboard: A visualization tool for metrics; it helps report status but doesn’t inherently establish or assess alignment.

• Correct answer: C. AWS CloudFormation

• Why: CloudFormation lets you define infrastructure as code via templates (JSON or YAML). You can create a single template that describes multiple AWS resources and reuse it to deploy consistent stacks across environments. Templates can be parameterized and stored for repeated deployments. Other options (Marketplace, AMI, OpsWorks) don’t provide reusable deployment templates in the same way.

• It is a sequence of distinct phases that flow one after another (requirements ? design ? implementation ? verification ? maintenance).
• Requirements are defined up front and changes are costly; the project often requires formal sign-off before moving to the next phase.
• It emphasizes heavy documentation and minimal iteration after a phase is completed.

• Leadership and stakeholder commitment
• Business capability and skills
• Organizational culture
• Availability of resources
• Ability to manage and sustain change
• Impact of the proposed transformation

• How ready the organization is
• Which areas require urgent attention
• How difficult each issue may be to resolve
• Risks that could affect implementation

• A: Places the assessment in Phase B and refers vaguely to creating views; this is not the prescribed technique.
• B: An Implementation Factor Assessment and Deduction Matrix is not the primary TOGAF technique described for business transformation readiness.
• D: A Business Scenario helps identify requirements and stakeholder concerns, but it is not the main technique for assessing organizational readiness.

• Approval publish: Request approval from a manager of the knowledge base before moving the article into the publish state.
• Instant Publish: Immediately publishes a draft article without requiring an approval.
• Instant Retire: Immediately retires a published article without requiring an approval.
• Retire Knowledge: Moves a knowledge article to the retired state.

• These are the base knowledge workflows that control how articles move between states (Draft, Published, Retired) and whether approvals are required.
• The other options describe different lifecycle actions, but these four cover the standard publish/retire workflows in ServiceNow.