SSCP Systems and Application Security Practice Question
A company uses Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for its production workloads. According to the shared responsibility model, which of the following security tasks is the customer responsible for?
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
✓
Patching the guest operating system
In IaaS, the provider secures the physical infrastructure and hypervisor, while the customer secures the operating system, applications, and data. The customer is responsible for OS patch management. The provider handles physical security, hypervisor patching, and network infrastructure.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Patching the hypervisor
Why it's wrong here
The cloud provider manages hypervisor patching.
- ✗
Physical security of data centers
Why it's wrong here
Physical security is the provider's responsibility.
- ✗
Securing the network infrastructure
Why it's wrong here
Network infrastructure security is typically the provider's responsibility in IaaS.
- ✓
Patching the guest operating system
Why this is correct
The customer manages OS patches on their VMs.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SSCP practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 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 SSCP exam.