Which of the following is not a two-factor authentication mechanism? A. Something you have and something you know. B. Something you do and a password. C. A smartcard and something you are. D. Something you know and a password.
Correct Answer: D
Explanation:
Something you know and a password fits within only one of the three ways authentication could be done. A password is an example of something you know, thereby something you know and a password does not constitute a two-factor authentication as both are in the same category of factors.
A two-factor (strong) authentication relies on two different kinds of authentication factors out of a list of three possible choice:
something you know (e.g. a PIN or password), something you have (e.g. a smart card, token, magnetic card), something you are is mostly Biometrics (e.g. a fingerprint) or something you do (e.g. signature dynamics).
TIP FROM CLEMENT: On the real exam you can expect to see synonyms and sometimes sub-categories under the main categories. People are familiar with Pin, Passphrase, Password as subset of Something you know.
However, when people see choices such as Something you do or Something you are they immediately get confused and they do not think of them as subset of Biometrics where you have Biometric implementation based on behavior and physilogical attributes. So something you do falls under the Something you are category as a subset.
Something your do would be signing your name or typing text on your keyboard for example.
Strong authentication is simply when you make use of two factors that are within two different categories.
Reference(s) used for this question: Shon Harris, CISSP All In One, Fifth Edition, pages 158-159
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