NSE Cloud Security & Virtualization Flashcards

What is 'lateral movement' in the context of a cloud environment compromise?

Answer: An attacker who has compromised one cloud resource using that access to pivot and compromise additional resources

After initial compromise of one cloud resource, an attacker uses its credentials and network access to move laterally into other services, accounts, or roles.

Which security framework is specifically designed to address adversary tactics and techniques targeting cloud environments?

Answer: MITRE ATT&CK for Cloud

MITRE ATT&CK for Cloud maps specific adversary tactics and techniques observed against cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP to help defenders detect and respond.

What does a hypervisor type-1 (bare-metal) differ from a type-2 (hosted) hypervisor in terms of security?

Answer: Type-1 hypervisors run directly on hardware with no host OS layer, reducing attack surface compared to type-2

Type-1 bare-metal hypervisors eliminate the host OS layer present in type-2, reducing the attack surface and potential privilege escalation paths to the hardware.

Which practice helps prevent 'noisy neighbor' security issues in shared cloud infrastructure?

Answer: Using dedicated instances or physical host isolation for sensitive workloads

Dedicated hosts or instances ensure sensitive workloads do not share physical processors or memory with potentially hostile or compromised neighboring tenants.

In cloud identity security, what is the risk posed by long-lived, unused IAM access keys that are never rotated?

Answer: They provide a persistent backdoor if stolen, as they never expire and may not be monitored

Stale, unrotated IAM access keys that are stolen give attackers indefinite access since there is no expiration, and low usage may mean the compromise goes undetected.

What is the purpose of a Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tool?

Answer: To continuously monitor cloud environments for misconfigurations and compliance violations

CSPM tools continuously assess cloud resource configurations against security best practices and compliance frameworks, alerting on drift and misconfigurations.