CREST Practitioner Security Analyst (CPSA) 2026 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

The correct answer is UDP, which stands for User Datagram Protocol. UDP is classified as a connectionless protocol, meaning it does not establish a dedicated end-to-end connection before data transmission. It allows data to be sent without the overhead of connection setup and teardown, facilitating faster communications. In UDP, data packets, or datagrams, are sent without ensuring that the recipient is ready to receive them, making it suitable for applications that require speed and efficiency over reliability, such as streaming audio or video.

In contrast, other protocols listed, such as TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), FTP (File Transfer Protocol), and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), are connection-oriented. These protocols require a connection to be established before any data is sent, ensuring a reliable transmission with mechanisms for error checking and data sequencing. This connection-oriented approach guarantees that the data is delivered accurately and in the correct order, which is essential for many applications like file transfers and email communication.