A server administrator just installed a new physical server and needs to harden the applications on the server. Which of the following best describes a method of application hardening?

Application hardening involves securing an application to reduce its attack surface. Installing the latest patches is a fundamental and critical method of application hardening. Patches are released by vendors to fix security vulnerabilities, bugs, and other flaws discovered in the software. By applying these patches, an administrator directly closes known security holes in the applications, making them more resilient to exploits. The other options provided are forms of system or firmware hardening, which secure the underlying hardware and boot process, but do not directly harden the applications themselves.

B. Disable unneeded hardware: This is a system hardening technique that reduces the physical attack surface, not a method for securing software applications.
C. Set the boot order: This is a BIOS/UEFI hardening measure to prevent unauthorized booting from external media, which is a form of system hardening.
D. Enable a BIOS password: This secures access to the firmware configuration settings and is a system-level hardening control, not an application-level one. ---

1. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). (2008). Special Publication 800-123: Guide to General Server Security.

Section 5.3

"Patch Management

" states

"Flaw remediation is the process of mitigating vulnerabilities in a server’s OS and applications... The most common method of flaw remediation is to install a patch—a replacement set of files or instructions—from the software vendor." This directly identifies patching as a key security measure for applications.

2. Microsoft Corporation. (2023). Windows Security Baselines. Microsoft Docs.

In the documentation for security baselines for Windows Server

a core principle is maintaining system health and security through regular updates. The section on "Windows Update" policies emphasizes

"Keeping computers in your organization current with the latest updates is a critical part of your security infrastructure." This applies to both the OS and installed Microsoft applications.

3. University of California

Berkeley

Information Security Office. (2023). Minimum Security Standards for Servers.

Requirement 3

"Install Patches

" mandates

"Install all vendor-released security patches for the server operating system and all application software." This explicitly categorizes patching as a standard for securing both the OS and applications on a server.