Leveraging Rapid Elasticity for Improved Security

D.

The rapid elasticity characteristic of a virtual environment is the ability to dynamically allocate and de-allocate computing resources based on demand. This allows the environment to scale up or down as needed, which can help mitigate various security risks.

Out of the given options, the BEST security risk mitigated by rapid elasticity is D. Denial of service attacks. Denial of service (DoS) attacks are a type of attack that floods a system or network with traffic, causing it to become unavailable to users.

The rapid elasticity characteristic allows the virtual environment to quickly allocate additional resources to handle the increased traffic, mitigating the impact of the attack. This elasticity also allows for quick resource reallocation to minimize the effects of the DoS attack on other services running on the same virtual environment.

While rapid elasticity can provide some benefits for data confidentiality (A), it is not the BEST solution for this particular security risk. Data confidentiality is better addressed by encryption, access controls, and proper data handling policies.

Virtual Machine (VM) escape attacks (B) are attacks that enable an attacker to break out of a virtual machine and access the underlying host system. While rapid elasticity may provide some isolation between virtual machines, it is not a primary mechanism for mitigating VM escape attacks. Other measures such as properly configuring virtualization platforms, access control policies, and hypervisor security are more effective.

Finally, rapid elasticity can provide redundancy (C) by allowing for the quick allocation of additional computing resources. However, this alone is not a comprehensive solution for ensuring redundancy in the virtual environment. Other measures such as clustering, load balancing, and data replication are also important for achieving high availability and redundancy.