MEAN MEAN Stack Security and Deployment 5

Question 1

What is the recommended way to store sensitive configuration values (e.g., JWT secrets, DB passwords) in a MEAN stack production deployment?

Accepted Answer

Use environment variables loaded at runtime, never committed to source control

Answer

Sensitive values should be stored as environment variables (e.g., via dotenv locally, secrets managers in production) and never committed to version control.

Question 2

In an Angular application deployed to production, what does the '--configuration production' flag do during the build?

Accepted Answer

Enables AOT compilation, tree-shaking, and minification for optimized output

Answer

The production configuration enables Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation, minification, dead code elimination, and other optimizations that reduce bundle size.

Question 3

What is the purpose of a reverse proxy like Nginx in front of a Node.js/Express application?

Accepted Answer

It handles SSL termination, load balancing, and serves static files efficiently

Answer

Nginx acts as a reverse proxy to handle SSL/TLS termination, distribute traffic across Node.js instances, and efficiently serve static assets without burdening Node.

Question 4

Which bcrypt function parameter directly controls how computationally expensive password hashing is?

Accepted Answer

The salt rounds (cost factor)

Answer

The salt rounds (cost factor) determines the number of iterations (2^rounds) bcrypt performs, making brute-force attacks exponentially harder as the value increases.

Question 5

When configuring CORS in Express for a production MEAN stack app, what is the security risk of setting 'origin: *'?

Accepted Answer

It allows any domain to make cross-origin requests to your API, including malicious sites

Answer

Setting origin: '*' permits any website to call your API, which can enable cross-origin attacks; production apps should whitelist only trusted domains.

MEAN - Stack Development Practice Test

MEAN - Stack Development Practice Test

MEAN MEAN Stack Security and Deployment 5