CREST Practitioner Security Analyst (CPSA) Practice 2025 - Free CPSA Practice Questions and Study Guide

The Time to Live (TTL) value for Windows devices is commonly set to 128. TTL is a mechanism that helps prevent packets from circulating indefinitely in a network by specifying the maximum time a packet is allowed to exist before being discarded. When a device sends a packet, it decrements the TTL value by one for every hop the packet makes to reach its destination.

The choice of 128 as the default TTL for Windows devices aligns with the design decisions made by Microsoft and is optimal for standard networking scenarios, ensuring that packets traverse sufficient hops without the risk of being discarded prematurely due to reaching a low TTL value.

In contrast, other values like 64, 255, or 32 are not the default settings for Windows, even though they may be used by different operating systems or specific networking configurations. For instance, Linux systems historically have used 64, while other systems may vary their default TTL based on their intended use cases. Thus, the selection of 128 reflects the standard approach taken by Windows operating systems.