Palo Alto Networks (PANW) Certified Cybersecurity Entry-level Technician (PCCET) Practice Exam

In which cloud computing service model does a provider secure the physical computers running the virtual environment?

1. Platform as a Service (PaaS)

2. Software as a Service (SaaS)

3. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

4. Public Cloud

The correct answer is: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

In the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model, the provider is responsible for securing the physical hardware and infrastructure that supports the virtual environments. This includes servers, storage, networking equipment, and the data center facilities themselves. Users can rent these physical resources in a virtualized form, gaining control over the operating system and applications while the provider ensures the underlying hardware is secure and functional. The IaaS model allows organizations to focus on managing their applications and data without needing to handle the complexities of physical infrastructure management, which is taken care of by the service provider. This separation of responsibilities is a key feature of cloud computing, providing flexibility and scalability to users while ensuring security at the foundational hardware level. In contrast, other models like PaaS and SaaS offer different levels of abstraction. In PaaS, the provider secures the underlying infrastructure but also manages the platform (like runtime and middleware) that developers use to build applications. SaaS provides a complete software application hosted on the provider's infrastructure, where users simply access the software and do not have any control or visibility over the physical machines it runs on. The public cloud is a broader category encompassing various service models, including IaaS, but does not specifically focus on the responsibilities