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Security and Compliance Architecture Questions

Architecting systems to meet security requirements and regulatory and compliance obligations. Candidates should understand how to embed data classification, data governance, encryption, least privilege access, audit trails and logging, secure design patterns, and threat modeling into architectures. Expect discussion of how architectural choices affect obligations under common regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and System and Organization Controls frameworks. Topics include documenting architecture for compliance reviewers, retention and data residency considerations, denial of service mitigation and web application firewall strategies, and balancing security controls with usability and operational cost. Candidates should be able to describe when to engage legal and compliance teams and how to design for auditability and evidence capture.

MediumSystem Design
0 practiced
Design a DDoS mitigation plan for a globally distributed e-commerce platform that must remain available during sale spikes while protecting backend stateful services. Include CDN/edge defenses, autoscaling policies, scrubbing or scrubbing partners, network ACL strategies, and mechanisms to preserve session integrity or rehydrate state.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
Walk through how you would map a client's internal control set to SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria (security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, privacy). What artifacts will you produce (control matrix, process narratives, evidence collection plan) and how will you demonstrate control effectiveness across a 12-month reporting window?
MediumSystem Design
0 practiced
Design a logging and monitoring architecture for a fintech client that processes card payments and must meet PCI-DSS logging requirements. Assume tens of thousands of transactions per minute across regions. Specify log sources, aggregation strategy, tamper-evident storage, retention, indexing for forensic search, and RBAC for log access. Discuss trade-offs in storage cost versus retention and performance.
MediumSystem Design
0 practiced
Design an auditability-first architecture to support GDPR obligations: maintain a record of processing activities (Article 30) and support timely responses to Data Subject Requests (access, rectification, erasure). Include data flow diagrams, logging strategy, retention rules, and workflow automation for responding to DSRs.
MediumSystem Design
0 practiced
Explain how to design least-privilege access for microservices using service identities, mutual TLS (mTLS), and a centralized authorization service (policy engine). Describe how to manage role changes, emergency break-glass access, and how to audit and roll back policy changes.

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