What should be developed for all system components to address vulnerabilities and align with industry-accepted hardening standards?

What should be developed for all system components to address vulnerabilities and align with industry-accepted hardening standards?

• A. Develop configuration standards for all system components that address known vulnerabilities and align with industry-accepted hardening standards.
• B. Use ad hoc, undocumented settings.
• C. Rely on vendor defaults as configuration standards.
• D. Ignore standards; focus only on firewall rules.

Answer: (A)

Developing configuration standards for all system components that address known vulnerabilities and align with industry-accepted hardening standards provides a reproducible, auditable baseline. When every component—from servers and workstations to network devices and applications—follows documented settings, you reduce the attack surface by disabling unnecessary services, applying secure defaults, and enforcing least privilege. Industry benchmarks (such as CIS Benchmarks, DISA STIGs, and NIST guidelines) offer vetted configurations that address common weaknesses, so aligning with them helps ensure you’re not leaving known issues unaddressed and makes remediation and validation more straightforward. Relying on vendor defaults often leaves gaps, ad hoc undocumented settings lack consistency and traceability, and focusing only on firewall rules misses host and application hardening. In short, a formal, standard-based configuration baseline strengthens overall security and supports ongoing compliance and risk management.

Developing configuration standards for all system components that address known vulnerabilities and align with industry-accepted hardening standards provides a reproducible, auditable baseline. When every component—from servers and workstations to network devices and applications—follows documented settings, you reduce the attack surface by disabling unnecessary services, applying secure defaults, and enforcing least privilege. Industry benchmarks (such as CIS Benchmarks, DISA STIGs, and NIST guidelines) offer vetted configurations that address common weaknesses, so aligning with them helps ensure you’re not leaving known issues unaddressed and makes remediation and validation more straightforward. Relying on vendor defaults often leaves gaps, ad hoc undocumented settings lack consistency and traceability, and focusing only on firewall rules misses host and application hardening. In short, a formal, standard-based configuration baseline strengthens overall security and supports ongoing compliance and risk management.