System Hardening and Baselines

Key terms 1 of 3

What is Antispam technology used for?

To combat unsolicited junk e-mail, or spam.

What does Antivirus (AV) technology do?

It screens for and blocks the execution of viruses and other malware.

What is application hardening?

The steps taken to harden an application, mitigating vulnerabilities and reducing the exploitable surface.

What is the purpose of an application vulnerability scanner?

To scan applications for potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

What is a baseline in a security context?

A system or software as it is built and functioning at a specific point in time, serving as a foundation for comparison or measurement.

What does baselining refer to?

The process of establishing a system’s security state.

What are benchmarks in cybersecurity?

Guidance for setting up and operating systems to a secure level, understood and documented.

What does blacklisting mean?

The exclusion of items based on their being on a list (blacklist).

What is continuous monitoring?

A system that has monitoring built into it as an intrinsic aspect of the action.

What is desired state configuration?

A PowerShell-based approach to configuration management of a system.

What does elasticity refer to in IT?

The ability of a system to increase the workload using additional hardware resources dynamically added on demand.

What is a firmware update?

An update process that occurs when small software is loaded onto internal nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM).

What is a globally unique identifier (GUID)?

A unique reference number used as an identifier of an item in a system.

What is group policy in Microsoft environments?

A mechanism that allows for centralized management and configuration of computers and remote users in a Microsoft Active Directory environment.