300-740 Designing and Implementing Secure Cloud Access for Users and Endpoints (SCAZT) Questions and Answers

Automation of containment and response actions—such as isolating compromised endpoints and applying predefined security policies—is a critical capability of Cisco’s XDR and SecureX platform. According to SCAZT Section 6: Threat Response (Pages 112–117), automating threat containment allows security teams to rapidly limit the blast radius of incidents and improve mean time to respond (MTTR), without relying solely on manual intervention.

According to the SCAZT documentation, web application firewalls (WAFs) designed to protect against zero-day Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks leverage adaptive and behavioral-based algorithms. These algorithms dynamically analyze traffic patterns, baseline normal behavior, and detect anomalies that could indicate novel or zero-day attacks. Unlike signature-based detection, adaptive and behavioral methods adjust in real-time to emerging threats, learning from ongoing traffic without relying on pre-defined rules. This proactive approach enables rapid detection and mitigation of unknown DDoS vectors, critical for cloud and network security where threats evolve constantly.

The flow data in the exhibit shows multiple short-duration, high-volume HTTPS connections (443/TCP) from IP 10.10.10.10 to multiple destination IPs in the 50.10.10.0/24 network. All flows are 22 seconds long and transfer exactly 1.77M of data. This uniform behavior to a large set of IP addresses strongly indicates a Denial of Service (DoS) pattern, where an internal host (10.10.10.10) is overwhelming external systems in the 50.10.10.0/24 range.

The SCAZT guide (Section 6: Threat Response, Pages 114–117) explains how Secure Cloud Analytics uses NetFlow and behavioral modeling to identify such volumetric threats. Key identifiers include:

Same connection size (1.77M)

Multiple unique peer IPs in a single external subnet

Same destination port and protocol (HTTPS)

Zero TCP connections completed, indicating unacknowledged connections

This matches the behavioral pattern of a DoS originating from an internal host.

The screenshot from Cisco ISE shows a configuration of a “File Condition” posture check that verifies the existence and version of the “Srv.sys” file in the System32 directory. This is a known method to validate if a Windows device has received a critical security patch (in this case, one related to protection against the WannaCry vulnerability, MS17-010). Cisco ISE does not rely solely on a patch management system for this type of validation but can use specific file version and path checks. Therefore, the correct posture condition is File Condition.

When integrating Cisco ISE with Azure AD using SAML SSO:

B: The Azure AD metadata must be uploaded into ISE to establish trust and allow token validation.

D: External Identity Sources settings must be configured in ISE to recognize and process authentication requests via SAML-based identity providers like Azure AD.

These are mandatory steps for enabling browser-based SSO authentication in ISE as explained in SCAZT Section 2 (User and Device Security, Pages 42–44), which describes federated identity integration.

Note: Option A is already completed as stated in the prompt. Options C and E are not essential to the authentication flow in this SAML context.

The error %OPENDNS-3-DNS_RES_FAILURE indicates a failure to resolve DNS queries via Cisco Umbrella. The most common cause of this error is the router lacking DNS resolution capability. To resolve this, the router must be explicitly configured to use Cisco Umbrella’s OpenDNS servers by adding the following to global configuration:

According to the SCAZT guide (Section 1: Cloud Security Architecture, Pages 17–19), Umbrella enforces cloud-based DNS-layer protection, and upstream devices must be properly configured with working DNS name servers to perform redirection and inspection.

A drive-by compromise occurs when malicious code is automatically downloaded and executed simply by visiting a compromised website—often through malicious advertising scripts (malvertising). According to SCAZT Section 4: Application and Data Security (Pages 85–87), ad blockers help prevent drive-by downloads by blocking these third-party ad scripts and redirections, which are commonly used in such attacks.

VPNs and private browsing modes (e.g., Incognito) do not provide protection against malicious content hosted on web pages.

The screenshot from Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics shows a Role Violation alert. According to the “Supporting Observations” pane, the device with IP 10.201.0.15 is assigned the role of Domain Controller but has demonstrated traffic behavior matching an FTP client, connecting to ports 20, 21, 115, 152, 989, and 990. This discrepancy triggered the alert.

Cisco SCAZT documentation emphasizes that devices acting outside their expected network roles (e.g., a domain controller acting as an FTP client) indicate potential compromise or misuse. Role-based anomaly detection is part of Visibility and Assurance mechanisms where baseline behaviors are continuously monitored and flagged when changes occur outside expected policy or operational norms.

MITRE ATT&CK is a globally accessible knowledge base that catalogs adversarial tactics and techniques based on real-world observations. According to SCAZT Section 6: Threat Response (Page 113), this framework enables security professionals to map and anticipate adversarial behavior throughout the attack lifecycle. It supports threat modeling, detection engineering, and incident response.

Rule 1 is a “deny all” rule placed at the top of the access control policy. Because Cisco firewalls process rules sequentially from top to bottom, Rule 1 is blocking all traffic—including RDP (Rule 2) and HTTPS (Rule 3). To allow specific traffic, the “deny all” catch-all rule should be placed last so that the specific allow rules are evaluated first.

SCAZT Section 3 (Network and Cloud Security, Pages 69–74) discusses rule hierarchy and clearly states that allow rules must precede any general deny policies to ensure intended traffic is matched correctly. This best practice is essential when dealing with multi-cloud access control.

Rule 3 allows all traffic (including SSH) from 10.1.0.0/30 during the hours of 18:00–08:00, which directly conflicts with Rule 1 that is intended to deny SSH at those same hours. Since firewall rules are evaluated top-down and Rule 3 allows traffic during the exact period where SSH should be blocked, deleting Rule 3 will allow Rule 1 to apply correctly.

This behavior is explained in SCAZT Section 3 (Network and Cloud Security, Pages 72–75), where rule precedence and time-based evaluation logic are discussed.

The provided JSON-like policy structure shows a segmentation rule with action "BLOCK" and filters referencing the HTTPS Consumer and HTTPS Provider. However, to block HTTP, you must define the protocol explicitly in the parameters. The attribute “l4_params” is currently empty. According to Cisco Secure Workload best practices (SCAZT Section 4: Application and Data Security, Pages 88–91), Layer 4 parameters (l4_params) must be used to specify protocols such as HTTP or port 80. Without defining HTTP here, the policy does not apply to HTTP traffic.

Cisco Extended Detection and Response (XDR) leverages telemetry from Cisco Secure Endpoint, Secure Email, Secure Network Analytics, and other sources to correlate threat detections with contextual data, such as asset value and business impact. This allows Cisco XDR to prioritize threats not only by the risk of the detection but also by the importance of the affected asset—essentially assessing the risk to business. This dynamic and context-aware prioritization method enables security teams to address the most impactful threats first.