CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) — Question 260

A security analyst recently read a report about a flaw in several of the organization's printer models that causes credentials to be sent over the network in cleartext, regardless of the encryption settings. Which of the following would be best to use to validate this finding?

Answer options

• A. Wireshark
• B. netcat
• C. Nessus
• D. Nmap

Correct answer: A

Explanation

Wireshark is the best tool for this situation as it allows for packet capturing and analysis, enabling the analyst to observe if credentials are being transmitted in cleartext. While netcat is useful for network connections and testing, it does not provide the packet analysis capabilities of Wireshark. Nessus is a vulnerability scanner and would not directly validate network traffic, and Nmap is primarily used for network discovery and scanning rather than monitoring traffic.