Cloud Concepts, Architecture and Design

A retail analytics firm runs its workloads on a public IaaS platform, deploying virtual machines with its own guest operating systems and applications. Internal audit asks who is responsible for patching the guest operating system on those virtual machines. Under the shared responsibility model for IaaS, who holds that duty?

• AThe cloud provider, because it owns and maintains the physical hosts and the hypervisor beneath the virtual machines.
• BThe cloud provider, because guest operating system maintenance is always bundled into the managed platform services it sells.
• CThe cloud customer, because in IaaS the customer manages the guest operating system, its runtime, and the applications it hosts.check_circle Correct
• DA shared duty split evenly between provider and customer, with each applying half of the required operating system patches.

Why A is wrong: Tempting because the provider does patch the hypervisor and physical layer, but in IaaS the guest operating system sits above the provider's boundary and remains the customer's responsibility.

Why B is wrong: This describes a PaaS or managed arrangement, not raw IaaS; the absolute claim that provider maintenance is always bundled misstates the IaaS division of duties.

Why C is correct: Correct: IaaS gives the customer control of the guest OS upward, so patching that OS is a customer duty while the provider secures the hypervisor and hardware.

Why D is wrong: The model divides responsibility by layer, not by splitting a single layer in half; guest OS patching belongs wholly to the customer in IaaS.

Several credit unions with similar regulatory obligations jointly commission and govern a single shared cloud environment that only their organisations may use. Which cloud deployment model does this arrangement describe?

• ACommunity cloud, because the infrastructure is shared by several organisations with common concerns such as compliance requirements.check_circle Correct
• BPublic cloud, because the infrastructure is provisioned for open use and shared among many unrelated tenants over the internet.
• CPrivate cloud, because a single organisation provisions the environment exclusively for its own internal business units.
• DHybrid cloud, because two or more distinct deployment models are bound together to enable data and application portability.

Why A is correct: Correct: a community cloud is provisioned for exclusive use by a specific community of organisations that share concerns such as mission or regulatory requirements.

Why B is wrong: This is tempting because the environment is shared, but public cloud is open to the general public, whereas here access is limited to a defined set of organisations with a common concern.

Why C is wrong: A private cloud serves one organisation; the scenario involves several distinct credit unions sharing the environment, which exceeds the private model.

Why D is wrong: Hybrid combines separate deployment models such as private and public; the scenario describes one shared environment for a group with common concerns, not a composition of models.

A United States federal agency must select a cloud service that has undergone a standardised government security assessment and been granted an authorisation to operate. Which programme provides this authorisation model for federal cloud usage?

• ACommon Criteria, an international scheme for mutually recognised evaluation of IT product security assurance.
• BISO/IEC 27017, an international code of practice for cloud-specific information security controls.
• CFedRAMP, a United States government programme providing a standardised approach to authorising cloud services for federal use.check_circle Correct
• DFIPS 140-3, a United States standard for validating the cryptographic modules that protect sensitive information.

Why A is wrong: Common Criteria offers internationally recognised product evaluation, which sounds authoritative, but it assesses individual products against assurance levels rather than authorising a cloud service for federal agency use.

Why B is wrong: ISO/IEC 27017 provides cloud control guidance but is a voluntary international standard; it does not issue a government authorisation to operate for federal cloud procurement.

Why C is correct: Correct. FedRAMP standardises security assessment, authorisation and continuous monitoring for cloud services used by United States federal agencies, granting an authorisation to operate that agencies can reuse.

Why D is wrong: FIPS 140-3 validates cryptographic modules and is often referenced within federal requirements, but it is a module-level standard, not a service-wide cloud authorisation programme.

A regulated insurer wants to fine-tune a hosted foundation model on its historical claims records, which contain personal data, while ensuring individual claimants cannot be re-identified from the model's later responses. Which technique most directly addresses the risk that the trained model memorises and leaks individual training records?

• AEnabling transport encryption on the API endpoint that serves the fine-tuned model
• BPlacing the inference endpoint behind role-based access control and network segmentation
• CTraining the model with differential privacy so no single record materially changes the learned parameterscheck_circle Correct
• DSigning the model artefact and verifying its hash before each deployment

Why A is wrong: Transport encryption is necessary hygiene and protects data in transit, but it does nothing to stop a model that has memorised records from emitting them to an authorised caller, so it misses the stated risk.

Why B is wrong: Access control limits who can query the model, but an authorised user could still extract memorised personal data, so it does not remove the memorisation risk itself.

Why C is correct: Differential privacy bounds the influence any one record can have on the model, which directly limits memorisation and re-identification from outputs, matching the stated risk.

Why D is wrong: Integrity signing detects tampering with the model file, which is valuable for supply-chain assurance, but it has no bearing on whether the model leaks the records it was trained on.