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Platform Security

Practise Kubernetes and Cloud Native Security Associate (KCSA, CNCF) (KCSA) Platform Security practice questions — original exam-style scenarios with answer choices, explanations, and analysis of common mistakes.

55 questions18 easy18 medium19 hard

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What this domain covers

What to know about Platform Security

Platform Security questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.

How the topic appears in realistic exam-style scenarios.

Which detail in the question changes the correct answer.

How to eliminate plausible but wrong options.

How to connect the question back to the wider exam objective.

Watch out for

Common Platform Security exam traps

  • Answering from memory before reading the full scenario.
  • Missing a constraint such as cost, availability, security, scope or command context.
  • Choosing a broad answer when the question asks for the most specific fix.
  • Ignoring why the wrong options are tempting.

Question index

All Platform Security questions (55)

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1

Which TWO practices are essential for securing container images against supply chain vulnerabilities? (Choose two)

Easy
2

Which TWO tasks are typically performed during container image vulnerability scanning? (Choose two)

Easy
3

Which THREE of the following practices are recommended when securing container images to prevent supply chain attacks in a Kubernetes environment? (Choose THREE)

Hard
4

Which TWO security features are provided by modern container runtimes like containerd or CRI-O? (Choose two)

Easy
5

An auditor is reviewing container image registries used by a Kubernetes cluster. They notice that public images are pulled directly without verification. Which security best practice should be implemented for image registries?

Easy
6

An enterprise cluster utilizes a service mesh with AuthorizationPolicies. You need to configure a policy that allows GET requests from service A to service B while explicitly denying DELETE requests on all paths. How are Istio AuthorizationPolicies evaluated when both allow and deny rules are present?

Hard
7

An administrator notices that a container in a Kubernetes cluster running containerd is attempting to write files to the root filesystem (/), which should be strictly immutable. Which configuration in the Pod's securityContext should be enforced to prevent this?

Medium
8

Which TWO features are typically provided by service mesh architectures to enhance platform security? (Choose two)

Medium
9

You are configuring an Ingress resource using the NGINX Ingress Controller to expose a sensitive internal application. To prevent unauthorized clients from connecting, you want to enable mutual TLS authentication at the ingress layer. Which annotation is required in the Ingress resource definition to specify the Kubernetes Secret containing the trusted Client CA certificate?

Hard
10

You need to ensure that an ingress controller processing TLS termination uses strong cryptographic ciphers and disables outdated protocols such as TLSv1.0 and TLSv1.1. Where are these TLS configuration settings typically managed in an NGINX Ingress deployment?

Medium
11

An enterprise Kubernetes cluster uses a service mesh with strict authorization policies configured. A developer complains that their frontend service cannot communicate with the backend database service. Upon inspecting the mesh configuration, you notice a PeerAuthentication resource set to STRICT mode. What does this setting enforce?

Hard
12

Which TWO actions should be taken when an image vulnerability scanner reports a critical CVE in a running production container? (Choose two)

Medium
13

What role does image scanning play in a shift-left security strategy for platform security?

Easy
14

An administrator wants to ensure that containers cannot execute any system calls related to module loading or debugging, such as 'init_module' or 'kexec_load'. Which security mechanism in Kubernetes allows applying a predefined system call filter to containers?

Hard
15

A security administrator wants to prevent container processes from writing to any part of their root filesystem except for designated ephemeral volumes. Which security context field should be configured?

Easy
16

What is the primary purpose of vulnerability scanning databases (such as Trivy, Grype, or Clair) when integrated into a container platform?

Easy
17

What is the primary function of a container runtime interface (CRI) security boundary in Kubernetes?

Easy
18

An administrator needs to enforce mTLS (Mutual TLS) across all microservices within a service mesh without modifying application code. Which component is automatically injected into each application pod to handle the encryption and decryption of traffic?

Easy
19

A platform engineer wants to configure a container runtime security tool that monitors system calls and sends alerts about potential threats in a Kubernetes cluster. Which component of the container runtime architecture intercepts these system calls?

Easy
20

Your organization requires that all container images deployed to the production cluster must be scanned for known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) before admission. Which component in a cloud-native architecture is primarily responsible for intercepting and blocking deployments if a vulnerability threshold is exceeded?

Easy
21

When configuring a Pod to run securely, which setting in the container's securityContext should be used to explicitly drop all default Linux capabilities and only retain required ones?

Easy
22

When configuring a container to run securely in a Kubernetes cluster, you want to ensure that the container process cannot gain any new privileges during its lifecycle, even if it runs as root or exploits a setuid binary. Which Linux kernel feature should be enabled in the container security context?

Easy
23

Which TWO methods can be used to restrict network traffic between services inside a service mesh? (Choose two)

Medium
24

Why should container images be built using multi-stage builds in Dockerfiles from a security perspective?

Easy
25

A platform engineer is hardening a container runtime setup on worker nodes. They want to ensure that containers cannot make unauthorized changes to network configurations or mount host filesystems. Which capability must be explicitly dropped from the default container capabilities set?

Hard
26

A security engineer is configuring a seccomp profile for a critical application pod running in a hardened Kubernetes cluster to restrict system calls. The pod requires access to the networking stack but must block module loading. Where must this custom JSON seccomp profile be placed on a worker node running containerd so that it can be referenced via the pod security spec?

Hard
27

You are configuring an Ingress object with TLS termination. The TLS certificate and private key are stored in a Kubernetes Secret. Which specific secret type must be used to ensure the ingress controller recognizes and validates the TLS credentials correctly?

Medium
28

An organization mandates that all traffic entering the service mesh must be decrypted at the ingress gateway, inspected by a Web Application Firewall (WAF), and then re-encrypted using mTLS before reaching backend pods. What is this architectural pattern called within service mesh security?

Hard
29

You are configuring a runtime security agent that uses Falco to detect unexpected shell execution inside containers. The security rule triggers when a process spawns a shell binary (e.g., bash or sh) inside a container namespace. Which underlying Linux kernel mechanism allows Falco to detect this event with minimal overhead?

Hard
30

Which THREE advanced container runtime or image security features help prevent container breakout exploits? (Choose three)

Hard
31

You are troubleshooting a service mesh traffic split policy where telemetry shows that unauthorized external clients are bypassing the service mesh ingress gateway and directly accessing backend services via NodePort services. Which Kubernetes feature should you configure to prevent direct NodePort access to these sensitive pods?

Hard
32

Which THREE configurations should be applied to a Kubernetes Pod Security Standard 'restricted' profile compliance checklist? (Choose three)

Hard
33

An organization requires that all container images pulled into a Kubernetes cluster are cryptographically signed and verified before execution. Which tool integrates with Kubernetes admission control to enforce signature verification using Cosign?

Medium
34

A security engineer wants to inspect container runtime logs for potential security violations or runtime errors. Which log file or mechanism on a worker node managed by systemd and containerd provides container lifecycle events?

Medium
35

An Ingress controller is deployed in a cluster, and security auditors request that incoming traffic must be restricted to specific trusted external CIDR blocks. Which standard Ingress annotation is commonly supported by popular Ingress controllers (such as ingress-nginx) to achieve IP-based allowlisting?

Medium
36

Your team is implementing image caching and proxying to protect against external container registry rate limits and security incidents. Which upstream project acts as a CNCF-compliant registry proxy and caching mechanism?

Medium
37

A security engineer is hardening a Kubernetes cluster and wants to ensure that all container images are pulled only from an approved internal container registry (e.g., registry.internal.corp). Which Kubernetes mechanism can enforce this restriction across all namespaces?

Medium
38

What is the primary security benefit of implementing Ingress TLS termination at the ingress controller rather than inside the application pods?

Easy
39

An external penetration tester managed to achieve remote code execution inside a container. They attempt to query the Kubernetes API server using the service account token mounted inside the container. To minimize the blast radius of such an attack, which setting should be explicitly configured on the Pod spec?

Medium
40

You are troubleshooting a container image vulnerability scan report that flagged a high-severity CVE in a base image layer. The development team wants to ensure that vulnerable container images are automatically prevented from being deployed to any namespace in the cluster. Which Kubernetes mechanism should you implement?

Medium
41

Which THREE mechanisms are used in a zero-trust platform security model for cloud-native applications? (Choose three)

Hard
42

Which TWO components are involved when an Ingress controller routes external HTTPS traffic to a backend service in Kubernetes? (Choose two)

Medium
43

An administrator needs to configure an Ingress resource to route traffic securely to a backend service using HTTPS (TLS between the ingress controller and the backend pod). Which NGINX Ingress annotation enables this backend HTTPS communication?

Medium
44

An administrator needs to restrict a container from accessing any devices on the host system via device nodes. By default, how does Docker or containerd handle device access for containers when no custom security profile is applied?

Hard
45

Why is running containers as the root user discouraged in Kubernetes platform security best practices?

Easy
46

Which TWO actions help secure Ingress traffic in a Kubernetes cluster? (Choose two)

Easy
47

A platform engineer needs to secure an Ingress resource using TLS termination, ensuring that sensitive private keys are stored securely within the cluster and referenced safely. Which Kubernetes resource should be created to store the TLS certificate and private key pair?

Hard
48

Which TWO of the following mechanisms are standard methods used by container runtimes (such as containerd or CRI-O) to isolate container workloads from the host kernel and other containers? (Choose TWO)

Medium
49

A security engineer is configuring a service mesh using Istio to ensure that all east-west traffic between microservices is mutually authenticated and encrypted. Which custom resource must be configured with a STRICT mTLS mode to enforce this requirement cluster-wide?

Hard
50

Which THREE of the following features or configurations are associated with securing Ingress traffic in a Kubernetes cluster? (Choose THREE)

Hard
51

Which THREE practices are critical for securing container registries and image distribution pipelines? (Choose three)

Hard
52

Your security team has discovered that an application container image contains outdated packages with known remote code execution vulnerabilities. Which phase of the software development lifecycle is the most effective place to initially scan and remediate these vulnerabilities?

Medium
53

Which THREE security controls can be enforced by admission webhook policy engines (like Kyverno or OPA Gatekeeper) regarding container images? (Choose three)

Hard
54

You are reviewing a security alert indicating that a container running in your Kubernetes cluster attempted to modify host kernel parameters via /proc/sys. Which security configuration was likely missing or misconfigured for this container?

Medium
55

Which TWO configuration practices improve container runtime security on Kubernetes nodes? (Choose two)

Easy

Frequently asked questions

What does the Platform Security domain cover on the KCSA exam?
Platform Security questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.
How many questions are in this domain?
This page lists all 55 Platform Security questions in the KCSA question bank. The actual exam draws from this domain proportionally to its weighting in the official exam blueprint.
What is the best way to practise this domain?
Start with a short focused session (10 questions) to identify gaps, then work through explanations. Repeat with a longer session once the weak areas feel solid.
Can I practise only Platform Security questions?
Yes — the session launcher on this page filters questions to this domain only. Choose any session length for inline explanations and scoring.
cncf-kcsa CNCF-KCSA platform security Practice Questions