Managing-Cloud-Security Exam Dumps - WGU Courses and Certificates Questions and Answers

The engineers are concerned aboutportability. Vendor-specific APIs and tools create a dependency on a single provider, leading to vendor lock-in. This limits the ability to migrate services or workloads to another provider without significant rework.

Reliability and availability refer to service uptime and continuity, while scalability addresses performance under demand. Although important, none of these directly relate to cross-platform flexibility. Portability ensures that services, data, and applications can be easily moved or integrated across environments.

By adopting portable solutions—such as open standards, containerization, and multi-cloud strategies—organizations reduce long-term risks, increase negotiation power with providers, and enhance resilience.

The described control isauthorization, which occurs after authentication. Authorization determines what resources a user can access based on their role, attributes, or policies stored in an access control database.

Authentication confirms identity, but authorization validates permissions. WAFs protect applications from malicious traffic, and antispyware tools detect malware. Neither applies to access decisions.

By checking users against a database of permissions, the organization enforces the principle of least privilege, ensuring employees only access the resources necessary for their role. This strengthens data protection, reduces insider threats, and aligns with compliance requirements for access governance.

AnIdentity Provider (IdP)is a system that stores and manages identity information and validates authentication and authorization requests. IdPs are critical in cloud and hybrid environments, supporting protocols such as SAML, OAuth, and OpenID Connect for federated access.

An HSM manages encryption keys, not identities. Zero Trust is a security philosophy requiring continuous verification, but the system that enforces authentication is the IdP. A bastion host provides secure administrative access but does not manage identity.

By using an IdP, organizations centralize credential management, enforce multifactor authentication, and integrate with Single Sign-On (SSO). This reduces password fatigue, increases security, and ensures consistent access control policies across applications and services.

In cloud environments, the provider’s role in thechain of custodyprimarily involvescollecting and preserving digital evidencewhen incidents or investigations occur. Because providers manage the infrastructure, they have direct access to logs, storage systems, and virtual machines necessary for evidence collection.

Backup policies and incident response may involve collaboration, but they remain customer responsibilities in many service models. Data classification and analysis are business-driven tasks, which customers must handle.

Providers must ensure that evidence collection is forensically sound and documented properly to maintain legal admissibility. This responsibility is critical in maintaining trust and ensuring compliance with laws and contractual obligations. It reinforces the shared responsibility model by clearly defining which aspects of digital forensics belong to the provider.

The correct approach for sanitizing a USB thumb drive while preserving its usability isoverwriting. Overwriting involves replacing the existing data on the device with random data or specific patterns to ensure that the original information cannot be recovered. This process leaves the physical device intact, allowing it to be reused securely.

Physical destruction, such as shredding, renders the device unusable. Degaussing only works on magnetic media like hard disks or tapes, not on solid-state or flash-based USB drives. Key revocation applies to cryptographic keys and not to physical devices.

By using overwriting, organizations comply with data sanitization standards while balancing operational efficiency. Many tools exist that perform multi-pass overwrites to meet regulatory requirements such as those from NIST or ISO. This ensures that sensitive data is removed while allowing the device to remain in circulation for continued use.

Continuous monitoring is the control that allows organizations to actively verify that a cloud provider is fulfilling contractual and compliance obligations. This involves automated collection and analysis of operational, security, and performance data. It enables organizations to ensure that service-level agreements (SLAs) are being honored and that compliance requirements are being met in real time.

While regulatory oversight is provided by external authorities and incident management is reactive in nature, continuous monitoring is a proactive approach. It allows customers to maintain visibility into provider operations. Confidential computing focuses on data protection but does not verify contract adherence.

By employing continuous monitoring, organizations establish transparency and accountability. It also supports audit processes by providing evidence that controls remain effective over time. This reduces risk associated with outsourcing critical functions to a cloud provider and ensures resilience against potential provider-side failures.

When a required PCI DSS control cannot be implemented due to technical limitations, the organization must apply acompensating control. A compensating control is an alternative safeguard that meets the intent and rigor of the original requirement.

Risk acceptance is insufficient under PCI DSS, as compliance demands enforceable safeguards. Privacy controls and protection levels may enhance data security but do not formally replace mandatory encryption requirements.

For example, a provider may use strict access controls, network segmentation, or monitoring to mitigate risks from unencrypted cardholder data. Documenting these compensating controls is essential during audits, ensuring compliance despite system limitations.

Abastion hostis a hardened system placed at the boundary between different security zones. It acts as a gateway, controlling access from a less secure network (such as the internet or a lower-trust zone) into a higher-security zone (such as an internal cloud environment).

Secure Shell (SSH) provides secure communication but does not create a boundary. Virtual clients and host isolation are endpoint measures, not boundary defenses.

By placing a bastion host at the perimeter, organizations centralize monitoring, apply strict access controls, and reduce attack surfaces. These hosts are typically stripped down to essential services, patched frequently, and monitored closely. In cloud environments, bastion hosts are essential for controlling administrative access while enforcing strong authentication and logging.

Once a vendor has been chosen, the onboarding phase requires confirmingcontractual details and arranging technical agreements. This includes specifying encryption standards, data transfer methods, SLAs, and compliance responsibilities. These discussions establish a clear foundation for the partnership.

Auditing and monitoring occur later, during ongoing vendor management. Evaluating requirements and policies occurs earlier, during vendor selection. Terminating a relationship is an offboarding activity, not onboarding.

Clarifying technical and contractual details at onboarding ensures a secure, compliant, and efficient partnership. It reduces risks of miscommunication and enforces accountability from the beginning.

Outside the United States,ISAE 3402 (International Standard on Assurance Engagements 3402)is the standard used for audits equivalent to SOC reports. It ensures that service organizations demonstrate adequate internal controls over financial reporting and operational processes.

SSAE 18 is the U.S. standard governing SOC audits. ISRE 2400 and SSARS 25 focus on accounting and review services, not assurance over service organizations.

ISAE 3402 provides assurance to international customers that cloud providers or service organizations meet rigorous standards for security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. This builds global trust and interoperability in compliance frameworks.