Security Principles — CISSP Practice Questions

Security principles are the foundational guidelines that inform the design, implementation, and management of secure systems and processes. The CISSP exam regularly references core principles such as least privilege, separation of duties, defense in depth, fail-safe defaults, open design, and economy of mechanism, many of which originate from Saltzer and Schroeder's classic work. Candidates must be able to apply these principles to architectural and policy decisions and recognize when a described system or process violates one or more of them. These principles appear across multiple domains and often serve as the reasoning layer beneath more specific technical controls.

Free questions on security principles

More security principles questions in the full bank

• A system should deny access by default and only grant what is explicitly needed. Which principle is this? Unlock answer & explanation →
• Which security principle underlies the requirement that data owners classify information and data custodians protect it? Unlock answer & explanation →
• What is the principle of least privilege in access control? Unlock answer & explanation →