3 Security Architecture and Network Design Free Online FlashCards

What is a security boundary?

A security boundary is a point where traffic, identities, or data move between areas with different trust levels.

How should a DMZ limit risk to internal databases?

Place public-facing services in a DMZ. Allow only required connections from those services to internal systems, and deny direct internet access to sensitive systems such as databases.

What does network segmentation help achieve?

Segmentation divides a network into zones and controls traffic between them, helping restrict unauthorized access and lateral movement. It does not replace securing the systems within each zone.

How does least privilege apply to network traffic?

Allow only the source, destination, protocol, and port required for a documented purpose; deny other traffic by default where feasible.

Why is a VLAN alone not a security boundary?

A VLAN separates Layer 2 broadcast domains, but does not by itself guarantee security. Routing or other controls may still allow traffic between VLANs.

What is microsegmentation?

Microsegmentation applies fine-grained controls, often between individual workloads or services, to reduce unnecessary east-west communication.

What is the core principle of zero trust?

Zero trust removes implicit trust based solely on network location or ownership. Access decisions verify the user and device, consider relevant context, and authorize access to a particular resource.

How does customer control generally differ across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS?

IaaS generally gives customers more control over operating systems and network configuration; PaaS shifts more platform management to the provider; SaaS has the provider operate the application.

Why is a compromised hypervisor a serious risk?

A compromised hypervisor or management plane can affect multiple virtual machines. Harden and patch hypervisors, restrict and monitor management access, and separate management traffic from ordinary workload traffic.

What does resilience mean in system architecture?

Resilience is the ability to continue essential operations, withstand disruption, and recover.

What can undermine the value of redundancy?

Redundancy provides alternate paths, power, hardware, or service instances. It helps only if the components do not share a failure point that could disable them all.

Why should failover be tested?

High availability and failover detect a component failure and shift service to a standby system. Test failover rather than assuming it works.