WGU Updated Managing-Cloud-Security Exam Questions and Answers by adelaide

TheDestroyphase of the cloud data life cycle is where information is permanently removed from systems. A common technique in cloud environments for this phase iscrypto-shredding(or cryptographic erasure). Rather than physically destroying the media, crypto-shredding involves deleting or revoking encryption keys used to protect the data. Once those keys are destroyed, the encrypted data becomes mathematically unrecoverable, even if the underlying storage media remains intact.

This method is particularly useful in cloud environments where storage is virtualized and hardware cannot easily be physically destroyed. Crypto-shredding provides compliance-friendly assurance that sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII), financial data, or healthcare records cannot be accessed after retention periods expire or contractual obligations end.

By incorporating crypto-shredding into theDestroyphase, organizations align with standards forsecure data sanitization. This ensures legal defensibility during audits and e-discovery and demonstrates proper lifecycle governance. The emphasis is on making data inaccessible while still maintaining operational efficiency and environmental responsibility.

The unplanned event described is adisruptionof service. In IT service management frameworks like ITIL, disruptions occur when an incident prevents normal service delivery. The goal of incident management is to restore service quickly and minimize impact on customers.

A bug refers to a software defect, which may cause disruptions but is not synonymous with the event itself. An error represents a fault, while change refers to deliberate modifications. Only disruption captures the unplanned nature of service unavailability.

Recognizing incidents as disruptions helps organizations apply structured processes such as escalation, root-cause analysis, and communication. It ensures resilience in cloud-based environments where uptime is a key performance indicator and customer trust is closely tied to availability.

Cryptographic erasure is a secure data sanitization technique that relies on encryption. The process involves encrypting the data, encrypting the keys with a second layer, and then destroying the encryption keys. Without the keys, the encrypted data becomes unreadable and is effectively destroyed, even though the storage media remains intact.

One-way hashing is used for password storage, not full data destruction. Degaussing is for magnetic media, and overwriting involves physically writing new data over existing sectors.

Cryptographic erasure is widely used in cloud environments where physical media cannot be easily destroyed or reclaimed by customers. It ensures compliance with data retention and privacy regulations while maintaining environmental sustainability by allowing reuse of storage hardware.

Resource pooling is one of the core characteristics of cloud computing defined by NIST. It refers to the provider’s ability to serve multiple customers by dynamically allocating and reallocating computing resources such as storage, processing, memory, and network bandwidth. These resources are abstracted using virtualization, ensuring that customers remain isolated from one another even though they share the same physical assets.

Rapid scalability describes elasticity, on-demand self-service allows users to provision resources without provider intervention, and measured service refers to metering usage. None of these concepts directly describe the multi-tenant model of shared resources.

Resource pooling improves efficiency, reduces costs, and provides flexibility, but it also introduces new security considerations such as data isolation and hypervisor security. Customers must ensure that providers implement strong controls to prevent data leakage or cross-tenant compromise.