Cloud Security Alliance CCSK Exam Dumps - Actual Questions Answers

The correct answer is B. Customers retain control over their encryption keys.

Using customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) with a cloud Key Management Service (KMS) allows the customer to retain full control over the encryption keys used to encrypt their data. This is crucial in maintaining data sovereignty, privacy, and compliance with regulatory requirements.

Key Benefits of Customer-Managed Encryption Keys:

Key Ownership and Control: Unlike cloud provider-managed keys, CMEK ensures that the customer has full authority over the key's lifecycle, including creation, rotation, and deletion.

Enhanced Security: Customers can enforce strict access controls and audit who accesses the keys.

Compliance: Many regulations (like GDPR or HIPAA) mandate that data owners maintain control over encryption keys.

Data Privacy: Even though the data is stored on the cloud, the provider cannot access unencrypted data without the customer's permission.

Flexibility: Customers can choose when to revoke or rotate keys, which directly impacts data availability and access.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

A. Bypass the need for encryption: CMEK does not eliminate the need for encryption; it strengthens it by giving customers direct control.

C. Share encryption keys more easily: Sharing encryption keys can increase security risks, and CMEK is designed to restrict, not ease, key sharing.

D. Reduces computational load on the cloud service provider: CMEK does not impact the computational load. It focuses on key management and control rather than reducing processing overhead.

Real-World Example:

In AWS KMS, using CMEK allows customers to bring their own keys (BYOK) and manage them directly through AWS Key Management Service. Similar practices exist in Google Cloud KMS and Azure Key Vault, where customers can generate and control their own encryption keys.

Practical Use Case:

A healthcare provider using a cloud service to store patient records may use CMEK to ensure that sensitive data is encrypted under keys they control, ensuring compliance with regulations like HIPAA.

API Gateways enhance Platform as a Service (PaaS) security by regulating traffic into and out of PaaS components. They act as an intermediary between external requests and the PaaS applications, helping to enforce security policies such as authentication, authorization, rate limiting, input validation, and logging. API gateways help protect PaaS components by controlling which traffic is allowed to reach the services, thereby reducing exposure to potential attacks.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are used to detect potential threats in a network, but they don't specifically regulate traffic into PaaS components like API Gateways do. Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) are used for managing encryption keys and cryptographic operations but do not directly regulate traffic to PaaS components. Network Access Control Lists (NACLs) control traffic at the network layer but are generally used for controlling traffic to/from virtual machines or subnets rather than for PaaS components specifically.

One of the biggest challenges in cloud security risk assessment is the lack of transparency regarding cloud provider operations and security controls.

Key Issues with Limited Visibility:

Cloud providers manage infrastructure at a global scale:

Customers cannot directly inspect security implementations.

Rely on third-party attestations like SOC 2, ISO 27001, CSA STAR instead of direct assessments.

Multi-tenancy complexities:

Cloud customers share infrastructure with other tenants.

Data isolation mechanisms (e.g., virtual private clouds, encryption) must be trusted without direct verification.

Regulatory compliance challenges:

Organizations handling sensitive data (e.g., healthcare, finance) require strict controls.

Cloud providers may not offer sufficient audit logs or control over data residency and processing.

Incident response limitations:

In traditional IT, organizations control log access, forensic analysis, and recovery.

In the cloud, incident investigation depends on the provider’s logging and notification practices.

This visibility issue is extensively covered in:

CCSK v5 - Security Guidance v4.0, Domain 4 (Compliance and Audit Management)

ENISA’s Cloud Computing Risk Assessment (Limited visibility into cloud provider security policies)​