Colin Farrell works as a senior cloud security engineer in a healthcare company. His organization has
migrated all workloads and data in a private cloud environment. An attacker used the cloud
environment as a point to disrupt the business of Colin's organization. Using intrusion detection
prevention systems, antivirus software, and log analyzers, Colin successfully detected the incident;
however, a group of users were not able to avail the critical services provided by his organization.
Based on the incident impact level classification scales, select the severity of the incident
encountered by Colin's organization?
A
Sam, a cloud admin, works for a technology company that uses Azure resources. Because Azure
contains the resources of numerous organizations and several alerts are received timely, it is difficult
for the technology company to identify risky resources, determine their owner, know whether they
are needed, and know who pays for them. How can Sam organize resources to determine this
information immediately?
A
Georgia Lyman works as a cloud security engineer in a multinational company. Her organization uses
cloud-based services. Its virtualized networks and associated virtualized resources encountered
certain capacity limitations that affected the data transfer performance and virtual server
communication. How can Georgia eliminate the data transfer capacity thresholds imposed on a
virtual server by its virtualized environment?
D
Explanation:
Virtual servers can face performance limitations due to the overhead introduced by the hypervisor in
a virtualized environment. To improve data transfer performance and communication between
virtual servers, Georgia can eliminate the data transfer capacity thresholds by allowing the virtual
server to bypass the hypervisor and directly access the I/O card of the physical server. This technique
is known as Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV), which allows virtual machines to directly access
network interfaces, thereby reducing latency and improving throughput.
Understanding SR-IOV: SR-IOV enables a network interface card (NIC) to appear as multiple separate
physical devices to the virtual machines, allowing them to bypass the hypervisor.
Performance Benefits: By bypassing the hypervisor, the virtual server can achieve near-native
performance for network I/O, eliminating bottlenecks and improving data transfer rates.
Implementation: This requires hardware support for SR-IOV and appropriate configuration in the
hypervisor and virtual machines.
Reference
VMware SR-IOV
Intel SR-IOV Overview
A client wants to restrict access to its Google Cloud Platform (GCP) resources to a specified IP range
by making a trust-list. Accordingly, the client limits GCP access to users in its organization network or
grants company auditors access to a requested GCP resource only. Which of the following GCP
services can help the client?
B
Explanation:
To restrict access to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) resources to a specified IP range, the client can use
VPC Service Controls. VPC Service Controls provide additional security for data by allowing the
creation of security perimeters around GCP resources to help mitigate data exfiltration risks.
VPC Service Controls: This service allows the creation of secure perimeters to define and enforce
security policies for GCP resources, restricting access to specific IP ranges.
Trust-List Implementation: By using VPC Service Controls, the client can configure access policies that
only allow access from trusted IP ranges, ensuring that only users within the specified network can
access the resources.
Granular Access Control: VPC Service Controls can be used in conjunction with Identity and Access
Management (IAM) to provide fine-grained access controls based on IP addresses and other
conditions.
Reference
Google Cloud VPC Service Controls Overview
VPC Service Controls enable clients to define a security perimeter around Google Cloud Platform
resources to control communication to and from those resources. By using VPC Service Controls, the
client can restrict access to GCP resources to a specified IP range.
Create a Service Perimeter: The client can create a service perimeter that includes the GCP resources
they want to protect.
Define Access Levels: Within the service perimeter, the client can define access levels based on
attributes such as IP address ranges.
Enforce Access Policies: Access policies are enforced, which restrict access to the resources within the
service perimeter to only those requests that come from the specified IP range.
Grant Access to Auditors: The client can grant access to company auditors by including their IP
addresses in the allowed range.
Reference:
VPC Service Controls provide a way to secure sensitive data and enforce a perimeter around GCP
resources.
It is designed to prevent data exfiltration and manage access to services within the
perimeter based on defined criteria, such as source IP address12
. This makes it the appropriate
service for the client’s requirement to restrict access to a specified IP range.
SecureSoft IT Pvt. Ltd. is an IT company located in Charlotte, North Carolina, that develops software
for the healthcare industry. The organization generates a tremendous amount of unorganized data
such as video and audio files. Kurt recently joined SecureSoft IT Pvt. Ltd. as a cloud security engineer.
He manages the organizational data using NoSQL databases. Based on the given information, which
of the following data are being generated by Kurt's organization?
C
Explanation:
The data generated by SecureSoft IT Pvt. Ltd., which includes video and audio files, is categorized as
unstructured data. This is because it does not follow a specific format or structure that can be easily
stored in traditional relational databases.
Understanding Unstructured Data: Unstructured data refers to information that either does not have
a pre-defined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner. It includes formats like audio,
video, and social media postings.
Role of NoSQL Databases: NoSQL databases are designed to store, manage, and retrieve
unstructured data efficiently. They can handle a variety of data models, including document, graph,
key-value, and wide-column stores.
Management of Data: As a cloud security engineer, Kurt’s role involves managing this unstructured
data using NoSQL databases, which provide the flexibility required for such diverse data types.
Significance in Healthcare: In the healthcare industry, unstructured data is particularly prevalent due
to the vast amounts of patient information, medical records, imaging files, and other forms of data
that do not fit neatly into tabular forms.
Reference:
Unstructured data is a common challenge in the IT sector, especially in fields like healthcare that
generate large volumes of complex data. NoSQL databases offer a solution to manage this data
effectively, providing scalability and flexibility. SecureSoft IT Pvt. Ltd.'s use of NoSQL databases aligns
with industry practices for handling unstructured data efficiently.
Global InfoSec Solution Pvt. Ltd. is an IT company that develops mobile-based software and
applications. For smooth, secure, and cost-effective facilitation of business, the organization uses
public cloud services. Now, Global InfoSec Solution Pvt. Ltd. is encountering a vendor lock-in issue.
What is vendor lock-in in cloud computing?
D
Explanation:
Vendor lock-in in cloud computing refers to a scenario where a customer becomes dependent on a
single cloud service provider and faces significant challenges and costs if they decide to switch to a
different provider.
Dependency: The customer relies heavily on the services, technologies, or platforms provided by one
cloud service provider.
Switching Costs: If the customer wants to switch providers, they may encounter substantial costs
related to data migration, retraining staff, and reconfiguring applications to work with the new
provider’s platform.
Business Disruption: The process of switching can lead to business disruptions, as it may involve
downtime or a learning curve for new services.
Strategic Considerations: Vendor lock-in can also limit the customer’s ability to negotiate better
terms or take advantage of innovations and price reductions from competing providers.
Reference:
Vendor lock-in is a well-known issue in cloud computing, where customers may find it difficult to
move databases or services due to high costs or technical incompatibilities.
This can result from
using proprietary technologies or services that are unique to a particular cloud provider12
.
It is
important for organizations to consider the potential for vendor lock-in when choosing cloud service
providers and to plan accordingly to mitigate these risks1
.
A web server passes the reservation information to an application server and then the application
server queries an Airline service. Which of the following AWS service allows secure hosted queue
server-side encryption (SSE), or uses custom SSE keys managed in AWS Key Management Service
(AWS KMS)?
B
Explanation:
Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) supports server-side encryption (SSE) to protect the
contents of messages in queues using SQS-managed encryption keys or keys managed in the AWS
Key Management Service (AWS KMS).
Enable SSE on Amazon SQS: When you create a new queue or update an existing queue, you can
enable SSE by selecting the option for server-side encryption.
Choose Encryption Keys: You can choose to use the default SQS-managed keys (SSE-SQS) or select a
custom customer-managed key in AWS KMS (SSE-KMS).
Secure Data Transmission: With SSE enabled, messages are encrypted as soon as Amazon SQS
receives them and are stored in encrypted form.
Decryption for Authorized Consumers: Amazon SQS decrypts messages only when they are sent to an
authorized consumer, ensuring the security of the message contents during transit.
Reference:
Amazon SQS provides server-side encryption to protect sensitive data in queues, using either SQS-
managed encryption keys or customer-managed keys in AWS KMS1
.
This feature helps in meeting
strict encryption compliance and regulatory requirements, making it suitable for scenarios where
secure message transmission is critical12
.
A security incident has occurred within an organization's AWS environment. A cloud forensic
investigation procedure is initiated for the acquisition of forensic evidence from the compromised
EC2 instances. However, it is essential to abide by the data privacy laws while provisioning any
forensic instance and sending it for analysis. What can the organization do initially to avoid the legal
implications of moving data between two AWS regions for analysis?
B
Explanation:
When dealing with a security incident in an AWS environment, it’s crucial to handle forensic
evidence in a way that complies with data privacy laws. The initial step to avoid legal implications
when moving data between AWS regions for analysis is to create an evidence volume from the
snapshot of the compromised EC2 instances.
Snapshot Creation: Take a snapshot of the compromised EC2 instance’s EBS volume. This snapshot
captures the state of the volume at a point in time and serves as forensic evidence.
Evidence Volume Creation: Create a new EBS volume from the snapshot within the same AWS region
to avoid cross-regional data transfer issues.
Forensic Workstation Provisioning: Provision a forensic workstation within the same region where
the evidence volume is located.
Evidence Volume Attachment: Attach the newly created evidence volume to the forensic workstation
for analysis.
Reference:
Creating an evidence volume from a snapshot is a recommended practice in AWS forensics.
It
ensures that the integrity of the data is maintained and that the evidence is handled in compliance
with legal requirements12
.
This approach allows for the preservation, acquisition, and analysis of
data without violating data privacy laws that may apply when transferring data across regions12
.
The cloud administrator John was assigned a task to create a different subscription for each division
of his organization. He has to ensure all the subscriptions are linked to a single Azure AD tenant and
each subscription has identical role assignments. Which Azure service will he make use of?
A
Explanation:
To manage multiple subscriptions under a single Azure AD tenant with identical role assignments,
Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM) is the service that provides the necessary
capabilities.
Link Subscriptions to Azure AD Tenant: John can link all the different subscriptions to the single Azure
AD tenant to centralize identity management across the organization1
.
Manage Role Assignments: With Azure AD PIM, John can manage, control, and monitor access within
Azure AD, Azure, and other Microsoft Online Services like Office 365 or Microsoft 3652
.
Identical Role Assignments: Azure AD PIM allows John to configure role assignments that are
consistent across all subscriptions.
He can assign roles to users, groups, service principals, or
managed identities at a particular scope3
.
Role Activation and Review: John can require approval to activate privileged roles, enforce just-in-
time privileged access, require reason for activating any role, and review access rights2
.
Reference:
Azure AD PIM is a feature of Azure AD that helps organizations manage, control, and monitor access
within their Azure environment.
It is particularly useful for scenarios where there are multiple
subscriptions and a need to maintain consistent role assignments across them23
.
An organization is developing a new AWS multitier web application with complex queries and table
joins.
However, because the organization is small with limited staff, it requires high availability. Which of
the following Amazon services is suitable for the requirements of the organization?
D
Explanation:
For a multitier web application that requires complex queries and table joins, along with the need for
high availability, Amazon DynamoDB is the suitable service. Here’s why:
Support for Complex Queries: DynamoDB supports complex queries and table joins through its
flexible data model and secondary indexes.
High Availability: DynamoDB is designed for high availability and durability, with data replicated
across multiple AWS Availability Zones1
.
Managed Service: As a fully managed service, DynamoDB requires minimal operational overhead,
which is ideal for organizations with limited staff.
Scalability: It can handle large amounts of traffic and data, scaling up or down as needed to meet the
demands of the application.
Reference:
Amazon DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with
seamless scalability.
It is suitable for applications that require consistent, single-digit millisecond
latency at any scale1
.
It’s a fully managed, multi-region, durable database with built-in security,
backup and restore, and in-memory caching for internet-scale applications1
.