Elliott, a security professional, was appointed to test a newly developed application deployed over an organizational network using a Bastion host…

A victim machine is a specific type of bastion host designed to be expendable and non-reusable. It is intentionally configured to test newly developed applications, execute potentially insecure services, or analyze unknown security flaws in a highly controlled, isolated environment. Because the system is expected to be compromised, destabilized, or infected during the testing process, it is segregated from the production network and typically wiped or rebuilt entirely after the testing session concludes.

A. External services hosts: These are production bastion hosts designed to securely provide public-facing services (like HTTP or FTP) to external users, not for destructive testing.

C. One-box firewalls: This refers to a single-device firewall architecture used to filter network traffic, not an expendable host dedicated to testing insecure applications.

D. Non-routing dual-homed hosts: This is a firewall architecture with two network interfaces that prevents direct routing between networks, serving as a secure gateway rather than a testbed.

1. EC-Council, "Certified Cybersecurity Technician (CCT) Courseware," Version 1, Module 8: Network Defense, Section: Bastion Hosts and Firewalls.

2. Zwicky, E. D., Cooper, S., & Chapman, D. B. (2000). Building Internet Firewalls (2nd ed.). O'Reilly Media. (Chapter 10: Bastion Hosts).