CCSK Exam Dumps - Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge v5 (CCSKv5.0)

In the context of server-side encryption handled by cloud providers, the data is encrypted after transmission to the cloud using either provider-managed keys or customer-managed keys. The cloud provider takes responsibility for encrypting the data when it is stored in the cloud, ensuring that the data at rest is protected.

Server-side encryption typically uses symmetric encryption for performance reasons, but this attribute is not what defines the encryption process. Also, server-side encryption focuses on protecting data once it's in the cloud, not before transmission. Encryption in transit is typically handled separately from server-side encryption and applies to data as it moves between the client and the cloud.

Compliance inheritance refers to the practice in cloud compliance where a customer leverages a set of pre-approved regulatory or standards-based controls that have been established and validated by a compliant cloud provider. Essentially, the cloud provider implements these controls, and the customer inherits the provider's compliance framework to meet their own regulatory requirements. This allows customers to benefit from the provider’s compliance efforts without having to implement everything themselves.

Automated compliance refers to automating compliance tasks and processes but does not describe the practice of inheriting compliance controls. Attestation inheritance is not a standard term used in cloud compliance; attestation typically refers to formally certifying or declaring compliance. Audit inheritance would relate to the inheritance of audit reports or records, but it doesn't describe the broader process of inheriting compliance controls.

Passwordless authentication removes the reliance on traditional passwords and instead relies on strong, cryptographic-based login mechanisms. The primary technology behind passwordless authentication is the use of local tokens or certificates, particularly implemented through protocols like FIDO2 and WebAuthn.

These mechanisms work by storing a private key on the user’s device (like a hardware security module or TPM), while the public key is stored with the cloud service. When a login attempt is made, the system uses asymmetric cryptography to verify the user—without ever transmitting a secret like a password.

“Passwordless authentication is enabled by mechanisms such as biometric verification and secure local credentials like hardware-bound certificates or tokens. The use of cryptographic authenticators (such as FIDO2) is becoming the cornerstone of secure, phishing-resistant authentication.”

— Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing v4.0, Domain 12: Identity, Entitlement, and Access Management

Also supported by the Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) under IAM-12:

“Utilize multifactor authentication or strong authentication mechanisms such as cryptographic tokens or certificates for user access to cloud services.”

— Cloud Controls Matrix v3.0.1 (IAM-12)

Access policies in cybersecurity are critical for managing and controlling how users and devices access resources within a network or cloud environment. These policies are primarily concerned with defining permissions and rules that govern access to resources. They help organizations implement role-based access control (RBAC) or attribute-based access control (ABAC), which specify who can access what resources and under what conditions.

In the context of cloud computing, access policies are typically enforced using Identity and Access Management (IAM) tools and services, which allow administrators to define and manage the permissions associated with user identities. Access policies include various rules that specify allowed or denied actions based on roles, user attributes, device types, or network conditions.

For example, in the AWS environment, access policies are written in JSON and define permissions for services like EC2, S3, or RDS. Similarly, Azure uses Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to manage resource access policies.

Access policies are not concerned with real-time monitoring (option A), user authentication methods (option B), or encryption protocols (option C). Instead, they explicitly focus on defining access permissions and controlling how resources are utilized.

Application security in the cloud must be viewed as a shared responsibility. Providers deliver basic security features, but custom configurations and additional controls are often needed to meet organizational requirements.

From CSA Security Guidance v4.0 – Domain 10: Application Security:

“Cloud consumers should not assume default security settings are sufficient. Security features provided by cloud service providers often require additional configuration and hardening. Custom security controls may be needed to address specific organizational risks and compliance needs.”

(CSA Security Guidance v4.0, Domain 10)

Differential privacy is a strategy designed to protect data confidentiality by ensuring that the output of a machine learning model does not expose sensitive information about individual data points. In the context of model inversion attacks, where attackers try to infer confidential data from the model, differential privacy introduces noise into the model’s output in a way that prevents attackers from accurately reconstructing the input data. This helps safeguard against attacks that threaten the privacy of the data used to train the model.

Secure multi-party computation is useful for enabling collaborative computation on encrypted data but does not specifically address model inversion attacks. Encryption is important for securing data at rest or in transit but does not directly protect against model inversion attacks. Model hardening refers to general measures to make models more robust to adversarial attacks, but it does not directly mitigate the specific risk of model inversion attacks related to data confidentiality.