Which type of route does a Cisco router consider the most trustworthy by default?

A static route is considered the most trustworthy by default in a Cisco router due to its inherent characteristics. Unlike dynamic routes, which are determined through routing protocols and can change based on network conditions, static routes are manually configured by the network administrator. This manual configuration means that static routes do not change unless the administrator modifies them, providing a level of stability and predictability that dynamic routes do not possess.

Static routes also carry a higher administrative distance compared to dynamic routes. Administrative distance is the metric used by routers to determine the trustworthiness of a route; lower values indicate more trusted sources. By default, Cisco assigns an administrative distance of 1 to static routes, while dynamic routes and routes learned from routing protocols generally have higher values. This means that, in the case of routing conflicts, the router will prefer static routes over dynamic routes, further solidifying static routes' trusted status within the routing table.

While the other route types (such as dynamic routes, default routes, and routing protocol routes) play essential roles in network routing, they do not provide the same level of trustworthiness and reliability as static routes. Dynamic routes can vary based on the state of the network, and default routes serve as a catch-all for unspecified destinations, but they lack the definitive