Which would result in the GREATEST import following a breach to a cloud environment?
Correct Answer: A
The factor that would result in the greatest impact following a breach to a cloud environment is the hypervisor host is poorly secured. A cloud environment is a type of computing environment that provides on-demand access to shared and scalable resources, such as servers, storage, networks, or applications, over the internet. A cloud environment can be deployed using different service models, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). A cloud environment can also be deployed using different deployment models, such as public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, or community cloud. A hypervisor host is a physical or virtual machine that runs a software layer, called a hypervisor, that enables the creation and management of multiple virtual machines, called guests or instances, on the same host. A hypervisor host is a critical component of a cloud environment, especially for IaaS and PaaS service models, as it provides the virtualization and isolation of the cloud resources. The hypervisor host is poorly secured is a factor that would result in the greatest impact following a breach to a cloud environment, because it means that the attacker can gain access to the hypervisor host, and compromise the security, functionality, or performance of all the virtual machines and cloud resources running on the host. The attacker can also use the hypervisor host as a pivot point to launch further attacks on other hosts or cloud environments, or to exfiltrate or destroy the data stored on the cloud. The hypervisor host is poorly secured can also expose the cloud environment to various threats, such as malware, denial of service, unauthorized access, or data leakage. References: CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, Eighth Edition, Chapter 4: Communication and Network Security, page 202;
[Official (ISC)2 CISSP CBK Reference, Fifth Edition, Chapter 4: Communication and Network Security, page
276]