Tim’s day to day responsibilities include monitoring health of devices on the network. He uses a Network
Monitoring System supporting SNMP to monitor the devices for any anomalies or high traffic passing through
the interfaces.
Which of the protocols would be BEST to use if some of the requirements are to prevent easy disclosure of the
SNMP strings and authentication of the source of the packets?

A.
UDP

B.
SNMP V1

C.
SNMP V3

D.
SNMP V2

Explanation:
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) was released to the networking world in 1988 to help with the
growing demand of managing network IP devices. Companies use many types of products that use SNMP to
view the status of their network, traffic flows, and the hosts within the network.
SNMP uses agents and managers. Agents collect and maintain device-oriented data, which are held in
management information bases. Managers poll the agents using community string values for authentication
purposes.
SNMP versions 1 and 2 send their community string values in cleartext, but with SNMP version 3, cryptographic
functionality has been added, which provides encryption, message integrity, and authentication security. So any
sniffers that are installed on the network cannot sniff SNMP traffic.
Incorrect Answers:
A: UDP is not a protocol used to monitor network devices.
B: SNMP versions 1 and 2 send their community string values in cleartext. This does not prevent easy
disclosure of the SNMP strings and authentication of the source of the packets.
D: SNMP versions 1 and 2 send their community string values in cleartext. This does not prevent easy
disclosure of the SNMP strings and authentication of the source of the packets.

Harris, Shon, All In One CISSP Exam Guide, 6th Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2013, p. 587
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Network_Management_Protocol