SOA Certified Professional Cloud Technology Lab - C90-03A

Cloud X (owned by Cloud Provider X) provides Physical Server A which hosts Virtual Servers A and B. Virtual Server B hosts Ready-Made Environments A and B. Cloud Service Consumer A uses Virtual Server A as part of an IaaS leasing agreement in which Cloud Consumer A is charged a fixed monthly fee for unlimited access. Cloud Service Consumers B and C use Ready-Made Environments A and B respectively as part of a PaaS leasing agreement based on per-minute usage fees. In both cases, access is monitored via Pay-For-Use Monitor A, which keeps track of log-in and log-out times in order to calculate the usage charges that are billed to Cloud Consumers B and C.
Virtual Server A begins generating a series of exceptions. Soon thereafter, Virtual Server B becomes destabilized, resulting in further exceptions being raised in Ready-Made Environments A and B. Cloud Service Consumers B and C receive a series of error messages until both of their connections are dropped Finally, Physical Server A shuts down completely. A subsequent investigation reveals that Virtual Server A was the victim of a security attack performed by a malicious cloud service consumer, the attacker generated increased loads of external communication requests on Virtual Server A and the underlying network, causing Physical Server A (along with Virtual Server B) to eventually shut down.

Which of the following statements accurately identifies the type of security threat that corresponds to the described attack - and -provides a solution that can directly mitigate this type of security threat within Cloud X?

• A. Virtual Server A was subjected to an insufficient authorization attack that can be mitigated by implementing the digital signature and hardened virtual server image mechanisms.
• B. Virtual Server A was subjected to a denial of service attack that can be mitigated by implementing the hardened virtual server image and identity and access management mechanisms.
• C. Virtual Server A was subjected to a denial of service attack that can be mitigated by implementing the encryption and digital signature mechanisms.
• D. Virtual Server A was subjected to an insufficient authorization attack that can be mitigated by implementing the single sign-on mechanism.

Cloud Service Consumer A accesses Cloud Service A (1) that resides in Cloud X. a private cloud owned by the same organization acting as Cloud Consumer A. Cloud Service A processes the message from Cloud Service Consumer A and then sends back a response with the requested data (2). Next, Cloud Service Consumer A sends a message containing some of this data to Cloud Service B (3), which resides in public Cloud Y that is owned by Cloud Provider Y. After processing the message. Cloud Service B sends back a response with additional data to Cloud Service Consumer A (4). Finally, Cloud Service Consumer A writes the data it collected from Cloud Services A and B to Database A (5).
Recently, Cloud Service Consumer A has been required to access Cloud Services A and B at a significantly higher rate, sometimes over 1,000 times within a given workday. This increased usage has not affected Cloud Service B' s performance. Cloud Service A, however, has been generating runtime exceptions, and responses to Cloud Service Consumer A have become increasingly slow and unreliable. It is determined that this decline in performance is due to infrastructure limitations within private Cloud X' s environment. Instead of investing in new infrastructure for Cloud X, it is decided to explore the feasibility of moving Cloud Service A to Cloud Y instead.

Which of the following statements describe valid financial considerations that can be taken into account for assessing the feasibility of this move?

• A. Moving Cloud Service A to Cloud Y will result in the need for Cloud Service A to undergo integration testing to determine how well it can function within Cloud Y and what changes may need to be made to Cloud Service A in order for it to behave as expected. The integration testing and the subsequent changes required for Cloud Service A to function correctly within Cloud Y will incur integration costs that need to be budgeted for.
• B. Because, in this scenario, the cost of capital is comprised of the up-front costs added to the ongoing costs, the cost of capital required to move Cloud Service A to Cloud Y will be higher than upgrading Cloud X to accommodate Cloud Service A' s increased usage.
• C. By moving Cloud Service A to Cloud Y, there may be a decrease in operational governance control over the Cloud Service A implementation. This can increase locked-in costs because Cloud Consumer A may be forced to form dependencies upon proprietary tools used to configure and maintain the Cloud Service A implementation.
• D. If the existing infrastructure that currently resides in private Cloud X was purchased specifically in support of Cloud Service A, then there may be a financial loss resulting frommoving Cloud Service A out of Cloud X. This can be considered sunk costs that need to be evaluated.

Cloud X (owned by Cloud Provider X) provides Physical Server A which hosts Virtual Servers A and B. Virtual Server B hosts Ready-Made Environments A and B. Cloud Service Consumer A uses Virtual Server A as part of an IaaS leasing agreement in which Cloud Consumer A is charged a fixed monthly fee for unlimited access. Cloud Service Consumers B and C use Ready-Made Environments A and B respectively as part of a PaaS leasing agreement based on per-minute usage fees. In both cases, access is monitored via Pay-For-Use Monitor A, which keeps track of log-in and log-out times in order to calculate the usage charges that are billed to Cloud Consumers B and C.

Physical Server A begins to become unstable. Over the course of a 24 hour period, the server shuts down three times, taking down Virtual Servers A and B with it. This causes numerous problems for Cloud Service Consumers A, B and C, which lose connections and encounter a variety of exceptions.
A subsequent investigation of the log files generated by Pay-For-Use Monitor A reveals that the three server crashes coincided with the usage periods of Ready-Made Er n'ronment B b> Cloud Service Consumer B. De 'elopers at the Cloud Consumer 3 organization confirm they did not actually log in during those periods, which leads Cloud Provider X to discover that another cloud service consumer has been posing as Cloud Service Consumer B in order to maliciously access Ready-Made Environment B, Virtual Server B, and Physical Server B on Cloud X. The investigation concludes that the malicious cloud service consumer was able to carry out the attack successfully by obtaining a weak password being used by developers from Cloud Consumer B.
Which of the following statements accurately identifies the type of security threat that corresponds to the described attack - and -provides a solution that can directly mitigate this type of security threat within Cloud X?

• A. Ready-Made Environment B. Virtual Server B and Physical Server B were subjected to a weak authentication attack that can be mitigated by implementing the encryption and digital signature mechanisms.
• B. Ready-Made Environment Virtual Server B and Physical Server B were subjected to a malicious intermediary attack that can be mitigated by implementing the cloud-based security groups and hardened virtual server images mechanisms.
• C. Ready-Made Environment B, Virtual Server B and Physical Server B were subjected to a virtualization attack that can be mitigated by implementing the encryption and digital signature mechanisms.
• D. Ready-Made Environments, Virtual Server B and Physical Server B were subjected to an attack that succeeded due to overlapping trust boundaries. This type of attack can be mitigated by implementing the single sign-on mechanism.