Classify the controls already running on your own machine

short · 30 min · Objective 1.1

Task

Take the controls actually present on your lab VM, not a textbook list, and classify each one by category and by type. The point is that the same control lands differently depending on how it is used, and you cannot see that from a definition — only from a real configuration.

Steps

  1. Collect the evidence into /tmp/controls.txt: systemctl list-units --type=service --state=running, sudo ufw status verbose (or sudo nft list ruleset), sudo passwd -S $(whoami), and ls -l /etc/ssh/sshd_config.
  2. Pick six distinct controls from what you collected — for example the host firewall, the SSH configuration, the password policy, the audit daemon, file permissions on a sensitive file, and the login banner.
  3. Write /tmp/classified.csv with one row per control and the columns control,category,type,why. Category is technical/managerial/operational/physical; type is preventive/deterrent/detective/corrective/compensating/directive.
  4. For at least one control, write a second row giving it a DIFFERENT type, with a sentence describing the use that makes that reading correct. The login banner and the audit log are the easiest pair.
  5. Mark any control that is compensating for something you cannot do, and name what you would do instead if you could.

Verify

awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=4 {n++} END {print n" classified row(s)"}' /tmp/classified.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 {print $1}' /tmp/classified.csv | sort | uniq -d
awk -F, 'NR>1 {print $3}' /tmp/classified.csv | sort -u | wc -l

The first count must be at least seven — six controls plus the one you classified twice. The second must print at least one control name, which is the one appearing under two types; an empty result means you skipped step 4, which is the step the lab exists for. The third must be at least three: if every control you found is preventive, you have classified the easy ones and missed the detective and directive controls that are certainly running.

Notes

The row you wrote twice is the one worth keeping. In an exam question the scenario decides the type, and the habit of asking what is this control for in this sentence is what turns a guess into an answer.

This is an independent study companion for CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 and is not produced by or endorsed by CompTIA.