Question

Difficulty: MediumCloud Architecture and Deployment Models

A healthcare organization deploys a microservice backend utilizing a serverless Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) architecture on a public cloud platform to ingest patient telemetry. Under the cloud shared responsibility model, which TWO of the following security tasks remain the responsibility of the organization rather than the cloud service provider?

  1. Defining granular execution roles and access permissions within the cloud identity and access management frameworkAnswer
  2. Performing static code analysis and enforcing input validation logic within the serverless function source codeAnswer
  3. C
    Patching security vulnerabilities in the host operating system and serverless container runtime environment engine
  4. D
    Configuring network perimeter firewalls and maintaining physical security across host compute hardware

Answer

The organization is responsible for defining granular identity and access management policies for function execution roles and performing code-level security mitigations within the serverless application source code.
In serverless (FaaS) architectures, the cloud service provider abstracts and manages the underlying server hardware, operating systems, and runtime execution engines. The customer retains full responsibility for security 'in' the cloud—specifically writing secure application code, sanitizing input data, and defining granular access permissions and identity policies for execution roles.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the cloud service model (FaaS/Serverless).
Identify that the provider abstracts server hardware, OS patching, and runtime engine management.
Serverless architectures offload infrastructure provisioning and runtime operational duties to the cloud service provider.
2
Differentiate customer security duties from provider responsibility.
Determine that application logic, source code security, data validation, and IAM role access rights remain customer obligations.
Under the shared responsibility model, security 'in' the cloud (code, data, and access configurations) belongs to the customer, while security 'of' the cloud belongs to the provider.

Key Concept

Shared Responsibility Model in Serverless (FaaS) Architectures
Rate this question