A technician wants to decrease the overall attack surface of the servers in a data center through decreasing the number of open network ports on each server. Which of the following could the technicia

Host-based intrusion detection software (HIDS) monitors for suspicious activity but does not block network ports or prevent connections from being established.

A software firewall operates at the host level, allowing a technician to explicitly configure rules that block incoming and outgoing connections on specific ports, thereby directly reducing the number of open network ports and decreasing the server's attack surface.

NTFS is a file system that provides permissions for files and folders, and it does not control network port access or network traffic.

While ACLs (Access Control Lists) are used in network devices and operating systems for various permissions, "Software firewall" is the specific and most direct tool for controlling network ports on a server to decrease its attack surface.