Study Cisco CCST Cybersecurity principles: CIA triad, risk, controls, authentication, authorization, least privilege, and security policy.
Essential Security Principles is the vocabulary layer of CCST Cybersecurity. The exam expects you to explain why a control exists before you decide whether it is the right control for a scenario.
| Topic | What to know |
|---|---|
| CIA triad | confidentiality protects secrecy, integrity protects correctness, availability keeps systems usable |
| Risk | likelihood and impact of a threat exploiting a vulnerability |
| Controls | preventive, detective, corrective, administrative, technical, and physical safeguards |
| Identity | authentication proves identity; authorization grants allowed actions |
| Least privilege | users and systems should have only the access required |
| Policy | rules, ownership, acceptable use, and escalation expectations |
| Scenario cue | Likely security goal |
|---|---|
| exposed customer records | confidentiality |
| altered configuration or tampered file | integrity |
| ransomware blocking access | availability |
| admin account used without approval | authentication, authorization, and accountability |
| unsupported public-facing server | risk management and remediation |
CCST questions often describe a simple business harm. Convert that harm into the security objective before picking the answer. If the problem is unauthorized viewing, encryption or access control may fit. If the problem is altered records, integrity controls, backups, change control, or logging may fit. If the problem is downtime, availability and recovery controls matter.
Authentication asks, “Who are you?” Authorization asks, “What are you allowed to do?” Multi-factor authentication improves identity assurance, but it does not automatically give a user permission to every system. Role-based access, group membership, privileges, and policy determine authorization.
| Control type | Example |
|---|---|
| Preventive | MFA, firewall rule, least privilege, secure configuration |
| Detective | logs, alerts, monitoring, IDS |
| Corrective | restore from backup, revoke token, patch vulnerable service |
| Administrative | policy, training, approval workflow |
| Physical | locked room, badge reader, camera |