CKS System Hardening Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✓

  Install Falco, then configure rules, then deploy as DaemonSet, then monitor alerts, then tune rules

  Why this is correct

  This is the correct order because Falco must be installed first, then configured with appropriate rules, deployed as a DaemonSet to monitor all nodes, followed by monitoring alerts, and finally tuning rules based on observed events.

• ✗

  Install Falco, then deploy as DaemonSet, then configure rules, then monitor alerts, then tune rules

  Why it's wrong here

  Deploying Falco as a DaemonSet before any rule configuration is done means the agent starts with the default bundled rules, which are not tailored to your workload or threat model and may generate excessive noise or miss container-specific behavior. Rule changes after deployment require a restart or reload of the agent, so any events captured between the initial rollout and rule application are evaluated against the wrong policy. The correct order is to define the rule set (including custom rules and exceptions) and then roll out the DaemonSet so that the first monitored events are already analyzed with the intended configuration, making this sequence invalid.

• ✗

  Install Falco, then configure rules, then monitor alerts, then deploy as DaemonSet, then tune rules

  Why it's wrong here

  This sequence is invalid because 'monitor alerts' presupposes a running Falco agent; installing and configuring rules on a host without deploying the DaemonSet does not produce any alert stream, since no syscall analysis is being performed anywhere. Even if you intended to monitor later, this ordering forces monitoring to occur before the deployment that would generate alerts, which is impossible. Furthermore, tuning rules before observing real alerts is premature; you would lack the performance metrics and false-positive data needed to adjust rule priorities, append exceptions, or suppress noisy conditions, so tuning must follow meaningful monitoring.

• ✗

  Install Falco, then tune rules, then configure rules, then deploy as DaemonSet, then monitor alerts

  Why it's wrong here

  Tuning rules before they even exist as a configured set is logically incoherent, because tuning refers to modifying rule parameters such as priorities, output fields, exceptions, or condition macros based on observed behavior, and with no initial rule set there is nothing to tune. The sequence also places tuning before monitoring, which is backwards: you need a period of runtime monitoring to see which legitimate actions trigger alerts and then refine the rules to reduce false positives and improve detection of actual intrusions. A valid workflow always starts with installation, then rule authoring, then DaemonSet deployment, then alert observation, and finally iterative tuning; this order violates that chain.

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