AICPA CPA-Auditing Exam Actual Questions
CPA Auditing and Attestation (AUD) (Page 74 )

• 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.

• 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.

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.

• 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.

• In Microsoft Teams Phone System, a single Auto Attendant can handle multiple time-based greetings by using separate schedules for office hours, after hours, weekends, and holidays.
• You can configure one Auto Attendant with four distinct greetings mapped to:

• Open the Teams admin center > Voice > Auto attendants, edit or create an Auto Attendant.
• Under Time-based routing, define four rules:

• Create a Holiday schedule with the relevant dates (e.g., Easter, Christmas) and assign the Holiday greeting.
• Save the configuration.

• If your environment cannot separate weekend from after-hours within a single Auto Attendant, you might technically need more than one Auto Attendant.

• 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

• a) True — To add a field to the form layout, drag the field from the Fields tab to the desired destination on the form. This adds to the form view only, without changing the table definition.
• b) True — To create a new field on the form’s table, drag a data type from the Field Types tab to the form and configure it. This creates a new column on the table and adds the field to the form view.
• c) True — To remove a field from the form layout, hover to enable the action buttons and select Delete. This removes the field from the form view but does not remove it from the table definition.
• d) False — You cannot add a section by dragging from the Field Types tab. Sections are added via the Add Section option (toolbar or right-click menu), not from the Field Types tab.

• 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.

• DNS????????????????

• ???????????

• ????????????????

• 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.

• 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.

• Correct answer: D — AWS Migration Hub

• AWS Migration Hub provides a single location to track the progress of application migrations. It offers a centralized dashboard to view migration status across multiple tools and projects.

• AWS Application Discovery Service helps inventory and map on-prem applications and their dependencies, not a single progress tracker.
• AWS Application Migration Service (formerly SMS) performs the actual lift-and-shift migrations, but isn’t the centralized tracker itself.
• AWS Service Catalog manages catalogs of IT services for self-service deployment, not migration progress.

• Correct answer: Day 3 (Option B)

• Why: In Engagement Studio, when the program is paused, the prospects’ wait times are also paused and do not count down. They resume from the same point when the program restarts. Here, the prospect was at day 3 of a 5-day wait when paused, so they resume on day 3 after the 1-day pause.

• 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:

• Alice is co-resident on the same physical host and exploits shared hardware (the processor cache) to infer secrets. This is the classic definition of a side-channel attack—information leakage through implementation details (like timing or cache behavior) rather than by breaking a protocol or injecting code.

• Observing cache timing or access patterns to deduce cryptographic keys or plaintext data from the victim VM.

• Man-in-the-cloud attack: targets cloud trust/auth, not local hardware sharing.
• SQL injection: exploits input to run SQL commands, not a VM/caching vector.
• Service hijacking: takes control of a service, not about covert data leakage via shared hardware.

• Notice phrases like “shared hardware resources,” “co-resident,” or “cache”—these indicate a side-channel vector.

• Amazon DynamoDB — Managed NoSQL database, not PostgreSQL.
• Amazon Athena — Serverless service for querying data in S3; intended for analytics, not OLTP.
• Amazon EMR — Managed cluster platform for big-data frameworks such as Hadoop and Spark.

• Ensure that only users who manage the production environment sign in to the Azure portal from a hybrid Entra-joined device and authenticate with MFA.

• Use Microsoft Entra ID Protection (Identity Protection) to enforce MFA enrollment:

• Update the existing Capolicy1 (a Conditional Access policy):

• Identity Protection MFA registration policy ensures users are enrolled in MFA (Box 1 choice).
• CA policy Capolicy1 with aGrant control of “Require MFA” enforces MFA during sign-in (Box 2 choice).
• Both work together with the hybrid-joined device requirement to satisfy the authentication/authorization rules.

• Apply the MFA registration policy to the production-management users.
• Apply the MFA grant to Capolicy1 for those same users/groups.

• The problem: Guest users can’t create posts in the Monthly Reports channel.
• The recommended fix (answer B): Modify the Guest access settings in the Teams admin center.

• Guest access settings control what guests are allowed to do across Teams (for example, posting, chat, and channel participation). If guests are restricted from posting, enabling the appropriate guest permissions will let them post in channels like Monthly Reports.
• The other options don’t directly change guest permissions in the way that affects posting:

cmd 
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\Scripts\Configure-VM.ps1

• GPO logon script: Runs only when a user logs on, so configuration may be delayed and is user-dependent.
• GPO startup script: Can work, but requires the VMs to be domain-joined and introduces GPO dependency. It is not specifically tied to Windows deployment.
• Place scripts in a VHD: Merely makes the files available; it does not execute them.

• Basic: billing/subscription support only; no technical support requests can be opened.
• Developer, Standard, Professional Direct, and Premier: include technical support and allow opening new support requests.

• If option A corresponds to “Developer, Standard, Professional Direct, Premier,” that is the correct choice.
• If the option text is really “Premier only,” that would be incorrect per current Azure docs.

• Import mode loads the data into the Power BI model. Visuals query the in-memory model, which generally provides faster calculation and rendering than DirectQuery.
• Import mode also minimizes online processing because report interactions do not send queries back to the dataflow or SQL Server.
• A daily refresh can load data through the previous day, satisfying the freshness requirement without unnecessary hourly processing.

• DirectQuery keeps querying the data source or dataflow during report use, increasing online processing and potentially slowing visuals.
• Adding a gateway enables connectivity for on-premises sources, but it does not remove the performance disadvantages of DirectQuery.
• An hourly Power Automate refresh is unnecessary when the requirement is only data through the previous day and creates additional processing overhead.

• 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.

• Sustainability is not a CAF perspective (it's not one of the CAF perspectives).
• Performance efficiency and Reliability are pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, not CAF.

• Who performed the action
• What action occurred
• When it occurred
• Where it originated
• Whether it succeeded or failed

• Investigating suspicious activity: Important, but investigation depends on having adequate audit data first.
• Storage allocation: Necessary for retention, but storage does not help if the records lack meaningful details.
• Actions after audit failure: Part of operational planning, not the primary assessment of the application’s audit capability.

• Context: You’ve enabled auditing in Dataverse and need to trim audit data to free storage. The question asks which deletion options you can use.

• What the options typically mean:

• About the provided answer (A, C, D): The list includes “by column,” which isn’t a typical or supported way to purge audit data. The more plausible trio is A (by record), B (date range), and C (by table older than date). If the exam expects A, C, D, that seems incorrect or mis-stated in the source.

• Practical takeaway: To reduce audit storage, use per-record deletions, per-table purge by date, and/or date-range deletions as supported by the environment’s audit management UI or admin docs.

• 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.

• Users retain their existing usernames and passwords.
• Existing accounts can be used to access Azure-based resources.
• Administrators avoid manually recreating thousands of accounts.
• The transition is less disruptive before the on-premises data center is retired.

• Multi-pass wipe: Overwrites the drive’s existing data multiple times, making recovery much more difficult while preserving the drive’s functionality.
• Single-pass wipe: May be sufficient in some modern sanitization standards, but is presented here as less secure than multiple overwrites.
• Degaussing: Uses a strong magnetic field to disrupt data. It can render the drive unusable or unreliable, reducing its resale value.
• Pinning: Is not an appropriate data-sanitization method.

• The correct answer is A: CCTV recordings are not regularly reviewed.

• CCTV is a monitoring/control mechanism. If recordings aren’t reviewed, security events (break-ins, policy violations, equipment tampering) can go undetected and unaddressed.
• Regular review is essential for deterrence, incident response, and forensic evidence. Without it, the entire CCTV control provides little value.

• B (records deleted after one year) affects forensic availability, but it’s a data-retention issue rather than the ongoing effectiveness of the surveillance program.
• C (footage not recorded 24x7) creates gaps in coverage, which is a concern, but regular review of available footage still supports detection; 24x7 coverage is a separate policy/perimeter issue.
• D (cameras not in break rooms) is more about privacy and space planning than core data-center security monitoring.

• Answer: Record Producer (option D)

• Why: In ServiceNow HR Service Delivery, to make an HR Service usable from the Employee Service Center (self-service portal), there must be a way for employees to submit the request. A Record Producer provides the employee-facing form that creates the underlying HR Case when submitted. Without a linked Record Producer, the HR Service wouldn’t offer a submit form in the Employee Center.

• What the other fields are generally for (not required for exposure):

• Quick check: Look at the HR Service definition and ensure a Record Producer is associated so employees can submit requests from the Employee Center.

• 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.

• Coordinate and manage the assessment team
• Assign assessment activities
• Direct interviews, examinations, and tests
• Ensure the assessment follows the CAP

• Answer key: Lead Assessor — likely wrong
• CAP-based answer: C3PAO

• View/inspect configuration: Possible.
• Modify the installed application or its S-Controls: Typically restricted in a test-drive org.

• The correct answer is Mass Transfer Tool.

• The Mass Transfer Records tool is Salesforce’s built-in way to reassign ownership of existing records in bulk. In this scenario, you need to transfer ownership of the departed rep’s accounts and opportunities to a new rep while keeping the team structure intact.

• Go to Setup > Data Management > Mass Transfer Records.
• Choose the object: Accounts (and then Opportunities, if needed).
• Set “Transfer From” (the leaving rep) and “Transfer To” (the new rep).
• Decide whether to transfer related records as well (e.g., opportunities tied to accounts) and proceed.
• Review and confirm.

• Data Loader / Data Import Wizard are for bulk import/export, not bulk reassigning ownership.
• Dataloader.io is a third-party tool; the built-in Mass Transfer tool is the standard Salesforce method for this task.

• The correct option is A: Data architecture.

• Why: In the AWS CAF, the Platform perspective covers the technical foundation and architecture that enable cloud workloads to run reliably and efficiently. This includes how data is modeled, stored, and accessed across the enterprise—the core of data architecture.

• Quick mapping for the other options:

• Basic: Self-help only; no technical support or design assessment.
• Standard: Technical support, but not the full proactive architectural guidance required here.
• Professional Direct: Provides proactive guidance and architecture-related assistance.
• Premier: Also supports this, but is a more expensive, enterprise-level option.

• The app on EC2 connects to Aurora using DB credentials stored on the instance. Secrets Manager centralizes these credentials and can rotate them automatically, eliminating manual updates on each EC2 host.
• Automatic rotation reduces operational overhead and enhances security because credentials are rotated on a schedule without code changes.
• The app can retrieve the current secret at runtime (e.g., via the AWS SDK) and use it to authenticate to Aurora, avoiding reliance on locally stored files.

• B (Parameter Store) can store secrets but lacks seamless built-in rotation for database credentials like Secrets Manager; rotation often requires more custom work.
• C (S3) would require complex tooling to rotate and securely fetch credentials and still risks exposure if access policies aren’t perfect.
• D (Encrypted EBS volumes) would store credentials locally on each instance and does not automate rotation or centralized management.

• C — Schema.describeSObjects(new String[]{myObject})[0].fields.getMap()

• D — Schema.getGlobalDescribe().get(myObject).getDescribe().fields.getMap()

• A: sObjectType is not used this way, and fieldSet() is not the appropriate method for retrieving all fields.
• B: mySObject.myObject is not valid dynamic Apex syntax.

• Cutover: The old system is replaced immediately. It may be fast, but any failure can cause significant disruption.
• Phased: The system is introduced in stages, which reduces implementation risk but may prolong the transition.
• Pilot: The system is first deployed to a limited group or location. This is useful for testing but does not necessarily minimize downtime for the entire organization.

• Azure Resource Manager templates: Use ARM templates to define the VM infrastructure and baseline configuration as code. This ensures all Windows Server 2016 VMs are created with a uniform setup, minimizing manual configuration.

• PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) extension for Windows: DSC enforces a defined state across all servers and can automatically remediate drift. This keeps the VMs in the desired configuration with minimal ongoing admin effort.

• 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();

• Use a field on Account to show the aggregated yearly shipments (a Roll-Up Summary).
• A Master-Detail relationship between Shipment and Account is required for Roll-Up Summary to work (and to ensure access is governed by the parent Account).
• OWD and the relationship type determine what users can see. If you want to restrict shipment-level access while still showing a summary on Account, Private OWD on Shipment plus Master-Detail helps, because access to shipments is controlled by the Account record.

• A (Public OWD on Shipment with Process Builder and a Lookup to Account): Not ideal. Public access would expose shipments broadly, and a lookup cannot support a built-in roll-up summary.
• B (Private OWD on Shipment, Roll-Up Summary, Master-Detail to Account): Best answer. Private shipments, but because of Master-Detail, access and the roll-up are tied to the Account. The Account can show the yearly total via a Roll-Up Summary field.
• C (Controlled by Parent on Shipment, Trigger, Master-Detail): Master-Detail is correct, but using a trigger is unnecessary for a straightforward roll-up; roll-ups are the standard, maintainable solution.
• D (Private OWD on Shipment, Trigger, Lookup to Account): More complex and not as efficient; no automatic roll-up, and lookup breaks the ease of summarizing by Account.

• Two VMs
• Distributed across two separate availability zones

• Two instances: Free/Shared do not provide the production-level multi-instance hosting you need. Basic/Standard support more than one instance, with Standard specifically meeting the scale requirement.
• SSL support: SSL (custom domain TLS) isn’t available on the Free tier and isn’t a driver for cost on paid tiers—but you’ll need a paid tier to map a custom domain (miami.weyland.com) and use SSL.
• Storage: Your site needs 12 GB. Free/Shared have very limited storage; Basic tier storage is typically smaller than what you need, while Standard provides substantially more storage capacity.
• Cost: Among the tiers that meet all requirements (two instances, SSL, sufficient storage), Standard is the lowest-cost option that satisfies them.

• 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.

• 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.

• Geo-redundant storage (GRS) replicates data to a secondary Azure region, but the secondary copy is normally unavailable for read access.
• RA-GRS provides geo-replication and read-only access to the secondary region, satisfying all requirements.
• Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) replicates data across availability zones within the same Azure region, not separate geographic regions.
• Locally redundant storage (LRS) keeps copies within a single datacenter or region and does not provide geographic resiliency.

• Storage requirement: 10 apps × 10 GB each = 100 GB total. Basic’s storage quota is insufficient to host 100 GB in one plan, whereas Standard provides enough storage capacity for multiple apps.

• Dedicated compute: The plan must use dedicated compute instances; Free/Shared do not meet this, while Basic, Standard, and higher do.

• Load balancing: The plan must include load balancing between instances. Standard includes built-in load balancing across app instances; Basic may not meet this requirement.

• Costs: Among the plans that satisfy storage, dedicated compute, and load balancing, Standard is the lowest-cost option.

• Correct answer: D — use the same hashing algorithm as the sender's to create a numerical representation of the file.

• Integrity is verified by recomputing the hash on the received data and comparing it to the sender’s hash. This must use the same hash function; if you use a different algorithm, the digests won’t match even if the data is intact.
• The hash output is a fixed-length digest (a numerical representation). Whether you call it a “binary image” or a “numerical representation,” the key is that you generate the same type of digest with the same algorithm and compare them.

• A: same algorithm but the result is described as a binary image instead of a digest; you still compare the digest, but the phrasing is less precise.
• B/C: using a different algorithm would produce a different digest, causing false mismatch or failure to verify integrity.