This correctly defines the core relationship: a vulnerability is the flaw or weakness (e.g., an unpatched software bug), and an exploit is the active mechanism (e.g., a piece of code) that leverages that flaw to compromise the system. Understanding this distinction is fundamental to cybersecurity.

Preventive controls are designed to stop an attack or security incident from occurring in the first place. Blocking traffic based on known malicious patterns (like signatures or threat intelligence) at the network perimeter is a classic example of a preventive control, aligning with the ‘Block’ phase of the Palo Alto Networks prevention-focused framework.

In the context of a phishing attack, the ‘Delivery’ phase involves transmitting the weaponized payload to the victim. Sending the malicious email with the embedded link is the act of delivering the attack mechanism. Weaponization (creating the fake page) happens earlier, and Exploitation (the victim clicking and entering data) happens if the delivery is successful.

In the IaaS model, the cloud provider is responsible for the security ‘of’ the cloud (physical infrastructure, hypervisor, network fabric). The customer is responsible for security ‘in’ the cloud, which includes managing the guest OS, applications, data, and firewall configurations on their provisioned virtual machines.

This is the standard and correct analogy. The IP address gets traffic to the correct host (building), and the port number (e.g., port 80 for HTTP, port 443 for HTTPS) directs that traffic to the correct service or application (apartment/suite) running on that host.

Threat Prevention capabilities, which use up-to-date threat intelligence feeds containing known malicious IP addresses, domains, and URLs, are responsible for identifying and blocking or alerting on traffic to/from these known-bad entities. The scenario describes traffic to a known-bad IP, which is a core function of Threat Prevention.

The core tenet of ‘Never trust, always verify’ mandates that every access request must be authenticated and authorized based on all available data points (user identity, device health, location, etc.) before granting access. This is the principle of ‘Explicit Verification.’ Least privilege is a related concept about granting minimal necessary access.

A gateway is a network node that connects two disparate networks, often using different protocols. A firewall positioned between a trusted internal network and an untrusted external network acts as a security gateway. While it may perform routing, its primary defining role in this context is that of a secured gateway.

While defense-in-depth is critical, from a recovery and business continuity perspective, having recent, isolated, and tested backups is the most effective way to recover from a ransomware infection without paying the ransom. It directly mitigates the primary impact of ransomware: data encryption and unavailability.

This correctly defines the core relationship: a vulnerability is the flaw or weakness (e.g., an unpatched software bug), and an exploit is the active mechanism (e.g., a piece of code) that leverages that flaw to compromise the system. Understanding this distinction is fundamental to cybersecurity.0