Architecture & Design Flashcards

A developer stores secrets such as API keys and database passwords directly in application configuration files checked into source control. Which secure design practice should be enforced instead?

Answer: Use environment variables or a secrets management vault

Secrets should be stored in a dedicated secrets manager or injected via environment variables, never hardcoded in source-controlled files.

Which software development concept involves running an application with only the permissions it needs to perform its function and no more?

Answer: Principle of least privilege

The principle of least privilege limits an application's permissions to the minimum required, reducing the blast radius if the application is compromised.

A company's serverless functions are triggered by events and execute in ephemeral containers. Which cloud security concept describes ensuring these workloads are protected even though they have no persistent OS to harden?

Answer: Serverless security / function-level isolation

Serverless security focuses on securing function code, permissions, and event sources rather than the underlying OS, which is managed by the provider.

An organization uses containers for its microservices. A security review finds that all containers run as root. Which remediation BEST reduces risk?

Answer: Run containers with a non-root user and read-only filesystem

Running containers as non-root with a read-only filesystem limits the damage an attacker can do if they exploit a vulnerability inside the container.

A security engineer recommends enabling Secure Boot on all enterprise endpoints. What threat does Secure Boot primarily mitigate?

Answer: Bootkit and rootkit infections that persist below the OS

Secure Boot uses cryptographic signatures to verify that the bootloader and OS kernel have not been tampered with, preventing bootkits from loading before the OS.

Which architecture pattern improves resilience by designing systems to continue operating in a degraded but functional state when a component fails, rather than failing completely?

Answer: Graceful degradation

Graceful degradation ensures that a system continues to provide core functionality even when non-critical components fail.

A company uses Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to provision cloud resources. Which security practice should be integrated into the IaC pipeline to catch misconfigurations before deployment?

Answer: Static analysis / policy-as-code scanning of IaC templates

Static IaC scanning (policy-as-code) analyzes templates before deployment to catch misconfigurations such as open S3 buckets or overly permissive IAM policies.