AICPA CPA-Auditing Exam Actual Questions
CPA Auditing and Attestation (AUD) (Page 35 )

• The correct answer is “Think and work holistically” (Option B).

• Focus on value: ensures outcomes matter to stakeholders, but isn’t specifically about end-to-end delivery.
• Optimize and automate: about efficiency and performance, not the holistic view.
• Collaborate and promote visibility: about teamwork and sharing information, not the end-to-end scope.

• Correct answer: A) Hashing

• Why: Hashing produces a fixed-size digest of the software. If the final build is altered in any way, the hash will change, enabling you to detect tampering by comparing the stored digest with a freshly computed one.

• Why not the others:

1. Ingestion Lambda receives requests from API Gateway and places messages in an SQS queue.
2. Processing Lambda is triggered by the queue and loads records into Aurora PostgreSQL.

• Decoupling: API request handling is separated from database loading.
• Buffering: SQS absorbs bursts when incoming traffic exceeds the database’s processing capacity.
• Controlled concurrency: Configure the SQS-triggered Lambda’s concurrency and batch size to avoid overwhelming Aurora or exhausting database connections.
• Automatic retries: Messages that fail processing can return to the queue and be retried. A dead-letter queue can capture persistent failures.
• Lower operational effort: The solution remains serverless and avoids managing EC2 servers or Kubernetes clusters.

• A: EC2 and Tomcat add server-management overhead.
• B: DynamoDB/DAX would require changing the database model and does not solve the Aurora ingestion design.
• C: SNS is useful for notifications and fanout, but SQS is better for durable buffering and backpressure in this producer-consumer workflow.

• Residual neural network (ResNet): Primarily used for computer vision tasks such as image classification.
• Support vector machine (SVM): Commonly used for classification and regression, not natural-language query generation.
• WaveNet: Designed mainly for generating or modeling audio and speech.

• Enable the owner dimension

• Assign a standard costing inventory model

• Batch dimension tracks batches or lots, such as expiration or production batches. It does not identify inventory ownership.
• Moving average is a costing method, but it is not the required choice for this consignment configuration.

• A. Flash the BIOS: Not the first move. A BIOS update can be risky when POST is failing. It’s better to first rule out simpler causes (like RAM seating). BIOS flashing is usually done if the CPU isn’t supported by the current BIOS, which you’d check after RAM seating.

• B. Check the CMOS battery: Possible but unlikely the immediate cause. CMOS battery issues would more likely cause BIOS settings to reset or clock problems. RAM seating is a more common, direct fix after a motherboard swap.

• D. Reinstall the old motherboard: Not a troubleshooting step for the new system. The goal is to get the new motherboard to POST, not revert to old hardware.

• C. Reseat the RAM: Correct because memory seating problems are the most common cause of POST failures after a motherboard swap. Re-seating ensures proper contact in the new board’s slots.

• Why: A multi-modal embedding model maps both text and images into a shared vector space, enabling cross-modal similarity and retrieval (e.g., find images matching a text query or text matching an image).

• What it does: Enables efficient similarity search using a vector database or nearest-neighbor indexing.

• Why the other options aren’t suitable:

• Quick implementation note: you’d typically pair the embeddings with a vector store (e.g., ANN index) and possibly fine-tune on domain data for better alignment across modalities.

• Two VMs
• Distributed across two separate availability zones

• Answer: D: Making business cases for improvement action

• Continual Improvement focuses on identifying and planning improvements and ensuring they’re funded and prioritized. Creating a business case for an improvement action is part of justifying and obtaining support/resources to implement improvements.
• A (Identifying the cause of incidents) aligns with Problem Management.
• B (Authorizing changes) aligns with Change Enablement.
• C (Logging/managing incidents that result in improvement opportunities) aligns with Incident Management, not Continual Improvement.

• Assign users or their team an appropriate security role.
• Ensure the role has the required table privileges, such as read, create, write, and append.
• Share the app with that security role in the app designer.

• Dynamics administration center: Used for environment and service administration, not routine app access configuration.
• Manage Roles: Not the specific Dataverse area used to define app and data permissions.
• Security Roles: Define what users can access and which operations they can perform.

• Answer: C – netstat -an

• netstat -an lists all active connections and listening ports with numeric addresses, without resolving names. This lets you spot DoS patterns such as a flood of connections to a specific port or many connections from a single or few IPs.
• The other options don’t help as directly:

• Windows: netstat -an and look for numerous ESTABLISHED connections to a service or many SYNs to a port.
• Filter by port, e.g., netstat -an | findstr :80, or on Linux: ss -tunap | grep ':80'.

• Netstat provides a snapshot. DoS detection often benefits from continuous monitoring, flow data, and IDS/IPS logs.

• Each statement is evaluated as True (Yes) or False (No) independently.
• Key Azure facts to recall:

• Amazon GuardDuty: Detects suspicious activity and threats using security-related data sources; it is not primarily a software vulnerability scanner.
• Amazon Detective: Helps investigate and analyze the root cause of security findings after an event.
• Amazon Cognito: Provides user authentication and authorization for applications.

• Ablauf: Er wird in der gleichen Transaktion ausgeführt, bei der z. B. ein Datensatz erstellt oder aktualisiert wird. Der Benutzer wartet, bis der Workflow abgeschlossen ist.
• Stufen: Kann vor dem Vorgang (pre-operation) oder nach dem Vorgang (post-operation) laufen.
• Zweck: Sofortige Validierung oder Anpassung von Daten, ggf. auch das Verhindern eines Vorgangs, wenn Bedingungen nicht erfüllt sind.

• Automatisierte Flows (Power Automate, automatisierte/ Background Flows) laufen asynchron im Hintergrund, nachdem der Trigger erkannt wurde, und blockieren den Benutzer nicht.

• Global Unicast: These are the IPv6 addresses that are globally routable on the Internet. They’re allocated by Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) and can be reached from anywhere with proper routing (similar to IPv4 public addresses). Example ranges include 2000::/3.

• Link-local: fe80::/10. Used only on the local link; not routable beyond the directly connected network.

• Unique Local Addresses (ULA): fc00::/7. Private addresses for internal use within an organization; not publicly routable on the Internet (like IPv4 private addresses).

• Multicast: ff00::/8. One-to-many addresses used for group communication, not unicast routing.

• The Scrum Guide specifies four required events: Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective. These events enable transparency, inspection, and adaptation.
• The other items listed are not mandatory under Scrum:

• Correct answer: No (B).

• To deploy and manage Azure VMs, you use Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). IaaS provides the actual virtual machines you configure, patch, and control.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) abstracts infrastructure and OS management and is used for hosting applications (e.g., web apps) on managed runtimes, not for provisioning and managing individual VMs.

• 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.

• The 99.99% availability SLA for VMs is achieved when you run VMs across two or more Availability Zones.
• Two VMs in a single Availability Zone do not meet the 99.99% target (their SLA is lower, e.g., around 99.95% or less depending on configuration).

• Deploy at least two VMs across two different Availability Zones (one VM in each zone, or both in two zones with a load balancer).
• This provides the required zone redundancy and the 99.99% SLA.

• Phishing can map to two MITRE ATT&CK tactics depending on the attacker’s objective.

• Therefore, phishing isn’t confined to a single tactic; it can serve both Reconnaissance and Initial Access, which is why option D (Reconnaissance, Initial Access) is correct.

• Domeny tworza restrykcjony razem z typem. Wykorzystujesz je w kolumnach, aby miec spójna walidacje danych w wielu miejscach.
• To nie jest pelny niestandardowy typ z wlasnym input/output funkcjonowaniem. Aby stworzyc typ z wlasnym I/O i operacjami, uzylbys CREATE TYPE (lub rozszerzen w C). Domeny to uproszczona forma ograniczen na istniejacy typ.

• CREATE DOMAIN positive_int AS integer NOT NULL CHECK (VALUE > 0);
• CREATE TABLE orders (id serial, qty positive_int);

• latwo wymuszaja wspólne reguly dla wielu kolumn/naglówków,
• zmiana regul w jednym miejscu (domena) automatycznie wplywa na wszystkie kolumny ja uzywajace.

• Enable the owner dimension
• Allocate a standard costing inventory model

• Owner dimension (B): This dimension Lets you track who owns the stock. By enabling the owner dimension, items can be configured as either company owned or consignment (vendor-owned) when you create or edit items. Without enabling this dimension, you can’t designate ownership per item.
• Standard costing inventory model (D): Selecting a costing model determines how item costs are calculated and posted. Standard costing provides a fixed cost per unit, which is commonly used for agreed pricing scenarios like consignment arrangements for easier accounting and valuation. It helps ensure consistent cost treatment across transactions for items that can be owned by the company or on consignment.

• Batch dimension (A): Batch tracking is unrelated to ownership and isn’t required to support company-owned vs. consignment configurations.
• Moving average costing (C): This is an alternative costing method. It’s not required to enable ownership config, and the exam’s expected choice focuses on standard costing for this scenario.

• Cross-account access is typically implemented with an IAM role. You create a role in the target account (where the resources live) and configure a trust policy that allows principals from the source account to assume that role.
• Users in the source account then assume the role (via Switch Role in the console or STS:AssumeRole) and receive temporary credentials with the role’s permissions to access the resources.

• IAM group: Groups exist inside a single account; they don’t grant cross-account access.
• IAM tag: Tags are metadata and do not grant access.
• IAM Access Analyzer: It analyzes and identifies public or cross-account access but does not grant access itself.

• Incidents & alerts — see how the phishing activity was detected, correlated, and investigated.
• Threat Explorer — search for the malicious messages, recipients, URLs, attachments, and campaign activity.
• Email and collaboration reports — assess how many users or messages were affected.
• Remediation details — verify whether messages were quarantined, removed, or otherwise contained.

• Microsoft 365 admin center — general tenant administration.
• Microsoft Entra admin center — identity and access management.
• Exchange admin center — mail-flow and Exchange configuration, rather than full phishing-incident investigation.

• Shadow IT describes employees using unsanctioned tools or methods to access systems, often without IT oversight (e.g., bypassing the VPN).
• Not A (Espionage): this implies external covert actors; here the activity is internal.
• Not B (Data exfiltration): there’s no explicit data transfer shown, just bypassing the VPN.
• Not C (Nation-state attack): this involves external political/strategic actors; not the internal behavior described.

• Implement policy and training to enforce approved tools.
• Use IAM, VPN enforcement, and network access controls to ensure only sanctioned access.
• Monitor for unsanctioned tools and provide secure, approved alternatives.

• MFA verifies a user’s identity using additional authentication factors, such as a phone prompt or security token.
• It helps prevent unauthorized access even if a password is compromised.
• It does not provide secure storage or encryption of credentials used during automated deployment.

python 
import azure.cognitiveservices.speech as speechsdk 


speech_config = speechsdk.SpeechConfig( 
    subscription="YOUR_KEY", 
    region="YOUR_REGION" 
)

Important Azure Speech SDK classes

• SpeechConfig

• AudioConfig

python 
  audio_config = speechsdk.audio.AudioConfig( 
      use_default_microphone=True 
  )

• SpeechRecognizer

python 
  recognizer = speechsdk.SpeechRecognizer( 
      speech_config=speech_config, 
      audio_config=audio_config 
  )

• SpeechSynthesizer

• AudioOutputConfig

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