CompTIA Security+ Question F-100

Peter, a technician, is tasked with finding a way to test operating system patches for a wide variety of servers before deployment to the production environment while utilizing a limited amount of hardware resources. Which of the following would provide the BEST environment for performing this testing?

A. OS hardening
B. Application control
C. Virtualization
D. Sandboxing

Answer: C

Explanation:
Virtualization is used to host one or more operating systems in the memory of a single host computer and allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on the same hardware, reducing costs. Virtualization offers the flexibility of quickly and easily making backups of entire virtual systems, and quickly recovering the virtual system when errors occur. Furthermore, malicious code compromises of virtual systems rarely affect the host system, which allows for safer testing and experimentation.