CCCS-203b CrowdStrike Certified Cloud Specialist Questions and Answers

CrowdStrike recommends enablingDrift Preventionwhen container workloads have beendesigned to be immutable. Immutable infrastructure is a core cloud-native principle where containers are not modified after deployment. Any change to a running container—such as installing packages or modifying files—indicates potential misconfiguration or malicious activity.

Drift Prevention enforces this principle by blocking or alerting on runtime changes that deviate from the original container image. This makes it highly effective for production environments where containers should run exactly as built and deployed.

In development or testing environments, containers often change dynamically, making Drift Prevention impractical due to excessive false positives. Similarly, containers that must download or install packages at startup inherently require runtime modification and are not suitable candidates for Drift Prevention.

Enabling Drift Prevention at the wrong time can disrupt legitimate workloads. Therefore, CrowdStrike guidance clearly states that Drift Prevention should be enabledonly after workloads are intentionally designed to be immutable, making optionCthe correct answer.

Cloud Groups in CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security are designed to logically segment cloud resources so users can focus only on what is relevant to their role or responsibility. The primary way cloud groups reduce noise is bynarrowing a user’s scope of analysis through filtered cloud resources.

By grouping resources based on criteria such as account, region, service, or tags, Cloud Groups ensure that analysts and responders only see findings related to the resources they own or manage. This minimizes alert fatigue, reduces unnecessary exposure to unrelated findings, and improves investigation efficiency.

Cloud Groups do not assign permissions directly; permissions are managed through Falcon RBAC roles. They also do not primarily function as exclusion mechanisms—although exclusions may be applied, their core purpose is scoping and contextualization.

CrowdStrike best practices emphasize Cloud Groups as a way to align security visibility with organizational structure, enabling teams to operate more efficiently and responsibly. Therefore, the correct answer isNarrow a user’s scope of analysis by filtering cloud resources.

When creating an Image Assessment policy exclusion in CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security, the recommended and most precise method to temporarily suppress a specific CVE isVulnerability ID & Exclude until 14 days.

This approach allows security teams to explicitly reference a known CVE (for example, CVE-2024-XXXX) and suppress enforcement for a defined time window. The 14-day exclusion period is commonly used to allow development teams time to rebuild images, validate patches, or address dependency constraints without permanently weakening security posture.

Broad exclusions based on recently published vulnerabilities or packages can unintentionally suppress unrelated risk and increase exposure. Indefinite exclusions are discouraged unless there is a strong, documented business justification.

CrowdStrike documentation and best practices emphasizetime-bound, CVE-specific exclusionsto balance operational flexibility with security rigor. Therefore, the correct and recommended option isVulnerability ID & Exclude until 14 days.

A valid and recommended reason for adding base images into Falcon Cloud Security is toreduce duplicate findings when a base image is used multiple times. Base images are commonly shared across many application images, meaning vulnerabilities, secrets, or detections present in the base layer can appear repeatedly across derived images.

By onboarding base images directly into Falcon Cloud Security, the platform can more efficiently track and correlate vulnerabilities at their source. This allows security teams to remediate issues once at the base image level rather than addressing the same findings across every downstream image. As a result, vulnerability management becomes more accurate, scalable, and operationally efficient.

The other options are incorrect and potentially dangerous assumptions. Base image CVEscan absolutely be exploitedby adversaries, and base image vulnerabilities are not inherently less risky than other CVEs. In many cases, unpatched base images are a primary attack vector in containerized environments.

CrowdStrike’s container image strategy emphasizes reducing noise, improving prioritization, and enabling faster remediation. Adding base images supports these goals by minimizing duplicate alerts and providing clearer insight into risk inheritance across image hierarchies. Therefore, the correct answer isReduce duplicates when a base image is used multiple times.

InCrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security, configuration policy breaches aligned to regulatory and security frameworks such asNISTare tracked asIndicators of Misconfiguration (IOMs). These findings represent deviations from best-practice configurations and compliance benchmarks.

To provide an auditable list of NIST-related configuration violations, the correct location isExport Cloud Posture – Indicators of misconfiguration. This export includes detailed records of misconfigured resources, associated benchmarks (NIST, CIS, etc.), affected cloud accounts, severity, and remediation guidance. It is specifically designed to support internal and external audit requirements.

Cloud Indicators of Attack focus on threat activity, not compliance. Remediation status reports focus on fix progress rather than raw policy violations. The Cloud Posture dashboard provides a high-level summary but does not deliver the detailed, exportable list required for audits.

Therefore,Export Cloud Posture – Indicators of misconfigurationis the correct and documented source.

When creating animage groupin CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security, valid attributes must align with how container images are uniquely identified and organized. The supported attributes includerepository and image tags, which together allow precise grouping of related images.

Therepositorydefines the image namespace or project within a registry, whileimage tagsrepresent versions or variants such as latest, prod, or semantic versions. Using these attributes enables security teams to target policies and assessments consistently across image versions without relying on static names.

Options involvingimage nameare incorrect because Falcon does not use a standalone image name field for grouping. Image identity is derived from registry, repository, and tag combinations. Registry can be used in some grouping contexts, but for image groups specifically, repository and tag are the valid selectable attributes.

Therefore, the correct answer isRepository and Image tags.

To reduce operational overhead and help security teams remediate cloud misconfigurations efficiently, CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security recommends enablingCloud posture remediation. This CSPM capability is designed to streamline and automate remediation workflows for cloud control plane misconfigurations identified through Indicators of Misconfiguration (IOMs).

Cloud posture remediation provides guided, cloud-native remediation instructions and, in supported scenarios, automated fixes that align with provider best practices (such as AWS IAM, logging, and networking controls). This is particularly valuable when internal teams lack deep cloud expertise or when remediation is outsourced to third parties, as it reduces back-and-forth communication and manual investigation.

Other options do not directly remediate issues.Scheduled reportsandJSON exportsare reporting mechanisms only. TheSIEM Connectorforwards telemetry but does not resolve misconfigurations. Cloud posture remediation directly addresses the root problem by accelerating corrective actions and reducing mean time to remediation (MTTR).

Therefore, the correct answer isCloud posture remediation.

To secure an AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) cluster running on Amazon Linux 2–based EC2 instanceswith container-level visibility, CrowdStrike Falcon documentation identifies theFalcon Container Sensor for Linuxas the correct solution. This sensor is part of Falcon Cloud Security and is purpose-built to protect Kubernetes and containerized workloads.

The Falcon Container Sensor for Linux is deployed as a container (commonly as a DaemonSet) on each Kubernetes worker node. It integrates with the underlying Linux kernel to observe container runtime activity while maintaining Kubernetes awareness. This allows CrowdStrike to deliver deep visibility into container processes, file system activity, network connections, and inter-container behavior—capabilities that are not available with host-only sensors.

TheFalcon Sensor for Linuxprotects the EC2 host operating system but does not provide container-aware telemetry or Kubernetes context. TheFalcon Kubernetes Admission Controlleris a pre-runtime control used to enforce image and deployment policies at admission time, not to provide runtime detection.Image Assessment at Runtimeis a feature for evaluating container images and is not a deployable sensor.

Because the requirement explicitly includesruntime protection and container-level visibility within EKS, the Falcon Container Sensor for Linux is the only option that fully satisfies these needs according to CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security architecture and documentation.

InFalcon Cloud Security image assessment policies, exclusions can be created to temporarily suppress enforcement or blocking of specific vulnerabilities. To block or exclude a vulnerability for auser-defined duration, the exclusion must be scoped using aVulnerability ID (CVE).

Using a Vulnerability ID allows precise control over a single, known issue and enables time-bound exclusions aligned with remediation plans or operational constraints. This approach ensures security teams can balance risk with business requirements while maintaining auditability and control.

Other options are too broad and do not support precise, time-based exclusions. Grouping vulnerabilities by publication date, exploit availability, or fix status lacks the granularity required for targeted policy enforcement.

Therefore,Vulnerability IDis the correct and documented mechanism for blocking a specific vulnerability for a defined period.

According to CrowdStrike Falcon documentation regardingFalcon Cloud Security (FCS)andContainer Security, the method used to deploy sensors significantly impacts how updates are managed. When Linux hosts are part of a Kubernetes cluster and the Falcon sensor is deployed as aDaemonSet, the standard "Sensor Update Policy" configured in the Falcon Console does not automatically trigger a version change in the same way it does for a standard Windows or Linux workstation.

In aDaemonSet deployment, the sensor version is typically tied to the specificcontainer image tagor the version defined in theHelm chartor YAML manifest used during deployment. If the manifest specifies a static version or if the orchestration layer (Kubernetes) is not instructed to pull a newer image and rollout a restart of the DaemonSet pods, the hosts will remain on their current version regardless of the "n-2" policy set in the console.

Furthermore, CrowdStrike documentation notes that forLinux Sensor Update Policies, the "n-2" setting dictates which version isassignedto the host, but the mechanism of delivery must be supported. In containerized environments, the "Auto-update" feature is often bypassed by the immutable nature of the deployment. To resolve this, the administrator must update the DaemonSet configuration to point to the newer sensor image, allowing Kubernetes to perform a rolling update across the nodes.

To identify issues related to anoverprivileged cloud identity, CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security directs users toCloud Indicators of Misconfiguration (CIM). These indicators focus specifically on risky configurations, including excessive permissions, overly broad IAM roles, and violations of least-privilege principles.

By filtering Cloud Indicators of Misconfiguration for the specific identity, security teams can quickly identify misaligned permissions such as wildcard actions, unused privileges, or access that exceeds the role’s intended function. This view is purpose-built for identifying configuration risk—not active attacks or behavioral anomalies.

Cloud Indicators of Attack (CIA)are used to detect suspicious or malicious activity, not static permission risk.Investigate User Searchfocuses on observed behavior rather than permission design.Falcon Users Roles and Permissionsapplies to Falcon console access, not cloud-provider IAM identities.

Therefore, the correct and CrowdStrike-aligned approach is to reviewCloud Indicators of Misconfigurationfor the identity in question.

The most efficient and CrowdStrike-recommended way to stop seeing vulnerabilities for older images is to use the“Stop assessing images older than (number) of days”setting in Image Assessment configuration.

This setting prevents Falcon Cloud Security from continuing to assess images beyond a defined age threshold—90 days in this case. By stopping assessment at the source, Falcon reduces noise, conserves assessment capacity, and focuses findings on images that are actively used or likely to be deployed.

Other approaches are inefficient or risky. Fusion workflows and manual hiding add operational overhead and do not stop assessments from occurring. Deleting images from registries may disrupt workflows and is outside Falcon’s control.

CrowdStrike best practices favorassessment-scoping controlsover post-processing suppression. Therefore, the correct answer isUse the Stop assessing images older than (number) of days setting.

To notify your team when anew executable is downloaded and executed inside a running container, you must use aruntime-focused triggerin Falcon Fusion. The correct selection isContainer detection > Container runtime detection.

Container runtime detections monitor live container behavior, including process execution, file writes, network activity, and binary downloads. When an executable is introduced and run at runtime, this represents potential malicious activity or policy violation that cannot be detected during image assessment.

Image Assessmenttriggers apply only to pre-runtime image scanning and cannot detect runtime execution.Container drift detectionfocuses on changes to container state relative to the original image but does not specifically target execution-based detections.

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security documentation clearly distinguishes runtime detections as the correct signal source for SOAR automation involving live container behavior. Therefore, the correct trigger configuration isContainer detection > Container runtime detection.

To blockprivileged containers before they are executed, CrowdStrike recommends deploying theKubernetes Admission Controller. This component operates atadmission time, intercepting Kubernetes API requests and enforcing security policies before workloads are allowed to run.

Privileged containers represent a significant security risk because they can bypass isolation boundaries and access host resources. The Kubernetes Admission Controller can enforce policies that explicitly deny deployments using privileged flags, hostPath mounts, or other high-risk configurations.

Other options do not provide enforcement. Runtime sensors and agents can detect or alert on risky behaviorafter execution, but they cannot prevent the workload from starting. Image assessment evaluates image content but does not enforce Kubernetes runtime constraints.

Therefore, to proactively block privileged containers, the correct and CrowdStrike-recommended solution is theKubernetes Admission Controller.