100+ Free IBM Cybersecurity Analyst Practice Questions

Cybersecurity roles, processes & operating-system security

Master the CIA triad, least privilege and just-in-time access, authentication versus authorization, MFA factor categories, SOC analyst tiers, and social engineering. Secure Windows (access tokens, SIDs), Linux (file permissions, /etc/shadow), and macOS (ACLs) through hardening and patch management.

Network security, firewalls, and defense

Understand the TCP/IP model and three-way handshake, well-known ports, stateful firewalls and implicit deny, IDS versus IPS, VPN tunnels, DMZ and segmentation to limit lateral movement, NAT, DNS poisoning, and packet analysis with Wireshark.

Cyber threat intelligence & vulnerability management

Work with CVE identifiers and the NIST NVD, apply the CVSS v3.1 severity scale (None 0.0, Low 0.1-3.9, Medium 4.0-6.9, High 7.0-8.9, Critical 9.0-10.0), run port and vulnerability scans, distinguish threat-intelligence types and IOCs, and map behavior to MITRE ATT&CK and the OWASP Top 10.

Penetration testing, incident response & digital forensics

Know the pen-test phases and white-box versus black-box testing, the NIST SP 800-61 incident response life cycle (Preparation; Detection and Analysis; Containment, Eradication, and Recovery; Post-Incident Activity), chain of custody, the order of volatility, evidence hashing, and Python automation.

SIEM (including IBM QRadar), endpoint protection & tooling

Learn SIEM log normalization and correlation, QRadar offenses and magnitude from severity, relevance, and credibility, EDR and sandboxing, DLP, SOAR playbooks, UEBA baselining, and tuning rules to reduce false positives and alert fatigue.

Compliance frameworks, standards & regulations

Apply the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and ISO/IEC 27001, PCI-DSS cardholder-data protection, GDPR (72-hour breach notification, data minimization, right to erasure), HIPAA administrative/physical/technical safeguards, and governance controls such as separation of duties and residual-risk management.

Breach analysis & capstone case studies

Analyze real breaches through the cyber kill chain, symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, hashing and salting, ransomware recovery from offline backups, insider and APT threats, Zero Trust, RBAC, DNS-based data exfiltration detection, and responsible use of generative AI in investigations.