After connecting to a secure payment server at https://pay.xyz.com, an auditor notices that the SSL certificate was issued to *.xyz.com. The auditor also notices that many of the internal…

Question

Options

• AGenerate a new public key on both servers.
• BReplace the SSL certificate on dev1.xyz.com.
• CGenerate a new private key password for both servers.
• DReplace the SSL certificate on pay.xyz.com.

• A
  22% (8)
• B
  6% (2)
• C
  8% (3)
• D
  64% (23)

Explanation

A wildcard certificate like *.xyz.com covers all subdomains, including the highly sensitive payment server (pay.xyz.com). When a USB drive containing the SSL certificate (and critically, the private key) is lost, the private key is considered compromised. This means any server using that certificate - especially the payment server - is at risk of man-in-the-middle attacks, where an attacker could impersonate the server using the stolen private key. The auditor should recommend replacing the certificate on pay.xyz.com FIRST because it is the highest-value, highest-risk target: it processes financial transactions and is subject to PCI-DSS and other compliance requirements. Once the payment server has a new certificate (with a new private key pair), the compromised certificate should be revoked and replaced on all other servers as well. Generating a new public key (A) or private key password (C) without revoking and replacing the certificate does not address the compromise. Replacing only dev1.xyz.com (B) leaves the most critical server exposed.

No community discussion yet for this question.