Question

Difficulty: Very hardCloud Architecture and Deployment Models

An enterprise financial institution is establishing a multi-tenant Community Cloud deployment model shared exclusively among partner credit unions to host a real-time collaborative fraud detection platform. The platform is constructed using managed Platform as a Service (PaaS) microservices that process customer transactions. The enterprise security architect must define control boundaries according to the cloud shared responsibility model and Zero Trust principles. Which of the following security responsibilities rests exclusively with the participating organization's security team?

  1. Defining granular application API authorization policies and managing customer data classification logicAnswer
  2. B
    Applying operating system security patches to the physical hypervisor and compute host infrastructure
  3. C
    Implicitly trusting all network traffic originating within the private inter-tenant dedicated circuit without application-level authentication
  4. D
    Configuring physical biometric access controls and environmental redundant power units within the shared data center

Answer

Defining granular application API authorization policies and managing customer data classification logic is the sole responsibility of the tenant organization.
Under the cloud shared responsibility model for Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Community Cloud environments, the cloud service provider manages physical facilities, hypervisors, and runtime infrastructure. The participating customer organizations remain exclusively responsible for securing their data, defining data classification schemes, and configuring application-level access control and API authorization policies.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the cloud deployment model (Community Cloud) and service model (Platform as a Service - PaaS).
PaaS abstracts the underlying operating systems, runtime engines, and hardware infrastructure, assigning their maintenance to the cloud service provider.
Understanding the abstraction layer isolates tenant responsibilities from provider responsibilities.
2
Evaluate the cloud shared responsibility boundary for PaaS environments.
The customer is always responsible for data governance, application-layer identity/access management (IAM), data classification, and API security policies.
Regardless of deployment model, customer data and application access controls never shift to the cloud service provider.
3
Align responsibility allocation with architectural constraints (Zero Trust and regulatory requirements).
Defining explicit application authorization logic enforces data isolation across multi-tenant community boundaries.
Proper control placement ensures data protection without misassigning infrastructure duties.

Key Concept

Cloud Shared Responsibility Model in PaaS and Community Cloud Deployments
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