CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601) — Question 245

During a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) convention to discuss security awareness, the attendees are provided with a network connection to use as a resource. As the convention progresses, one of the attendees starts to notice delays in the connection, and the HTTPS site requests are reverting to HTTP. Which of the following BEST describes what is happening?

Answer options

• A. Birthday collision on the certificate key
• B. DNS hijacking to reroute traffic
• C. Brute force to the access point
• D. A SSL/TLS downgrade

Correct answer: D

Explanation

The correct answer is D, as the observed behavior of HTTPS requests reverting to HTTP suggests a deliberate attempt to weaken the encryption, which is characteristic of an SSL/TLS downgrade attack. Options A and C do not relate to the symptoms described, and option B, while a possible attack vector, does not specifically explain the observed downgrade of HTTPS to HTTP.