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Difficulty: EasyMitigation Strategies and Enterprise Hardening Practices

An IT security team is establishing baseline endpoint hardening configurations for newly deployed employee workstations. Which TWO of the following technical measures directly reduce the local host attack surface?

  1. Disabling unnecessary operating system services and unneeded network protocolsAnswer
  2. B
    Deploying inline honeypot servers at the network edge to filter inbound workstation traffic
  3. Removing default user accounts and enforcing least privilege for local administrator permissionsAnswer
  4. D
    Relying on perimeter firewall rules to inspect and control local workstation process execution

Answer

The correct measures are disabling unnecessary operating system services/protocols and removing default accounts while enforcing least privilege on local administrator permissions.
Host hardening involves applying configurations that decrease systemic vulnerability on individual endpoints. Disabling unnecessary default services and network protocols removes unused software pathways that attackers could exploit. Concurrently, removing default accounts and restricting local administrative privileges ensures that even if a user or system is compromised, execution rights are heavily constrained.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the primary objective
The requirement asks for technical controls that directly reduce the attack surface of a local endpoint host.
Host hardening focuses on minimizing vulnerabilities directly on the system operating environment.
2
Evaluate local host hardening techniques
Disabling unused services/protocols removes active entry paths, and enforcing least privilege/removing default accounts limits system exploitation capabilities.
These controls directly restrict local software exposure and administrative privileges.
3
Eliminate misclassified or external boundary controls
Honeypots serve network deception/detection purposes, and perimeter firewalls cannot manage local internal process execution.
Network-level and deception controls do not alter or harden the internal system configuration of the endpoint itself.

Key Concept

Host Hardening and Attack Surface Reduction
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Topics

Mitigation Strategies and Enterprise Hardening Practices

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