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Difficulty: EasyMitigation Strategies and Enterprise Hardening Practices

A systems administrator is applying baseline security configurations to newly provisioned enterprise servers. To minimize the host attack surface, the administrator closes unneeded network ports and stops background services such as Telnet and FTP that are not required for business operations. Which of the following enterprise hardening practices is the administrator performing?

  1. Disabling unnecessary services and protocolsAnswer
  2. B
    Upgrading the edge firewall rules to filter incoming perimeter traffic
  3. C
    Installing physical server rack enclosure locks
  4. D
    Deploying an inline deception honeypot to block interactive administrative logins

Answer

Disabling unnecessary services and protocols
Disabling unnecessary services and protocols is a foundational enterprise host-hardening technique. By turning off legacy or unneeded services like FTP and Telnet, administrators eliminate potential attack vectors and minimize the system's exposed attack surface.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the primary threat mitigation objective in the scenario.
The goal is reducing the system attack surface on local server operating systems.
Every running service or open port creates potential vulnerability entry points.
2
Match the specific administrative action to standard host hardening controls.
Stopping unneeded daemons and closing unused ports corresponds directly to disabling unnecessary services and protocols.
Baseline host hardening guidelines mandate disabling non-essential features and legacy unencrypted protocols.

Key Concept

Disabling Unnecessary Services and Ports
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Topics

Mitigation Strategies and Enterprise Hardening Practices

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