KCNA Cloud Native Application Delivery Practice Question
In a CI pipeline, image scanning is integrated to detect vulnerabilities. What is the best practice when a critical vulnerability is found in a base image?
⚠ Common exam trap
KCNA often tests the misconception that pipelines should auto-patch images, when the correct practice is to fail fast and fix the base image at its source.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Fail the pipeline and notify the team to fix the base image
Failing the pipeline on a critical vulnerability in a base image enforces a secure software supply chain by preventing the vulnerable artifact from ever reaching a registry or production. It also triggers the team to remediate at the source — updating the base image tag or rebuilding on a patched parent — rather than masking the issue downstream. This is the standard 'shift-left' security practice recommended by CNCF projects like Trivy, Grype, and Clair.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Fail the pipeline and notify the team to fix the base image
Why this is correct
Failing the pipeline blocks the vulnerable image from progressing, forcing remediation of the base image before rebuild. This satisfies the stem's requirement for best practice on detecting a critical base-image vulnerability, preventing insecure artefacts reaching production.
- ✗
Deploy to production and patch later
Why it's wrong here
Deploying to production and patching later exposes live systems to a known critical exploit throughout the remediation window. It is tempting because rollback and hotfix workflows exist for low-risk findings, but critical base-image vulnerabilities demand blocking the pipeline until the image is rebuilt and rescanned.
- ✗
Automatically patch the image in the pipeline
Why it's wrong here
Automatically patching the base image inside the pipeline mutates the artefact without review, producing an untested, non-reproducible build whose provenance is lost. It is tempting because automation removes manual toil, and rebuilding an image from an updated base tag is correct, but silent in-pipeline patching bypasses validation.
- ✗
Ignore the vulnerability and proceed with deployment
Why it's wrong here
Ignoring a critical vulnerability leaves a known exploitable flaw in the deployed image, directly contradicting the scanner's purpose. It is tempting when deadlines pressure teams to ship, and deferring low-severity findings is acceptable, but critical base-image flaws require remediation before the pipeline proceeds.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This KCNA question is part of Courseiva's 930-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on KCNA
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A CI/CD pipeline includes image scanning. What is the primary security benefit of scanning container images in the CI phase?
medium- A.It reduces the time it takes to build images
- B.It automatically fixes vulnerabilities
- ✓ C.It prevents vulnerable images from being deployed to production
- D.It ensures that the image is built only once
Why C: Scanning images during CI catches known CVEs, misconfigurations, and embedded secrets before the artifact is pushed to a registry or promoted to production. By failing the pipeline on policy violations, teams create a gate that stops vulnerable images from ever reaching runtime environments, shifting security left. This is the core security value: prevention at the earliest feasible stage rather than detection after deployment.
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CNCF exam blueprint
This KCNA practice question is part of Courseiva's free CNCF certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the KCNA exam.