(ISC)2 Certified in Cybersecurity Practice Exam

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How many bits are commonly found in a byte?

4 bits
8 bits
16 bits
32 bits

The correct answer is: 8 bits

A byte is universally defined as consisting of 8 bits. This is the foundational unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications. Each bit is a binary digit, meaning it can hold one of two values: 0 or 1. When you group 8 bits together, they can represent 256 different values (from 0 to 255), which is why bytes are commonly used to encode a single character of text in computer systems, as well as in various data types such as integers and bytes in memory storage. This standardization of the byte size to 8 bits is a critical aspect of computer architecture and data processing. In contrast, other options such as 4, 16, and 32 bits do not represent the commonly accepted size of a byte but may refer to different structures in computing, such as nibbles (4 bits), larger data types (like 16-bit integers), or 32-bit architecture in processors, which pertains to the width of registers or data buses rather than the size of a byte.