Question

Difficulty: MediumCloud Architecture and Deployment Models

A regional financial institution migrates its customer ticketing platform to a public cloud provider under a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. During an architectural security review, the team evaluates operational duties under the cloud shared responsibility model. Which of the following security controls remains the sole responsibility of the financial institution?

  1. Managing user identity lifecycles, access role assignments, and data classification policiesAnswer
  2. B
    Patching and applying security updates to the application software and host operating systems
  3. C
    Configuring hypervisor security settings and physical host network infrastructure
  4. D
    Granting implicit trust and unrestricted access to requests originating from the internal enterprise network

Answer

Managing user identity lifecycles, access role assignments, and data classification policies remains the sole responsibility of the institution.
Under the cloud shared responsibility model for Software as a Service (SaaS), the cloud service provider manages all lower-tier components including physical security, infrastructure hardware, hypervisors, operating systems, and application code. The customer maintains full responsibility for managing their own data, classifying sensitivity levels, and configuring identity and access management (IAM) policies.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the cloud deployment and service model
The scenario specifies a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.
Service models dictate how control responsibilities are divided between provider and subscriber.
2
Delineate responsibilities for SaaS environments
The Cloud Service Provider (CSP) manages physical facilities, hardware, hypervisors, OS patching, and application runtime code.
SaaS abstracts all underlying infrastructure and application maintenance away from the customer.
3
Determine customer-owned operational boundaries
The customer is always responsible for data governance, data classification, device security, and user access management regardless of service model.
Identity and data remain customer responsibilities across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

Key Concept

Cloud Shared Responsibility Model in SaaS
Estimated Time:1m 15s
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