Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide confidentiality, integrity, and authentication for network communications. Older versions of TLS, including TLS 1.2, are susceptible to downgrade attacks when not properly configured. In a downgrade attack, an attacker forces communicating parties to fall back to a weaker or less secure protocol version, enabling man-in-the-middle exploitation.
TLS 1.3 was specifically designed to mitigate these risks by removing insecure cryptographic algorithms, eliminating legacy handshake mechanisms, and enforcing stronger cipher suites. It also reduces the attack surface by simplifying the handshake process and providing built-in protections against downgrade attacks.
Option B is insufficient because monitoring alone does not prevent cryptographic weaknesses. Option C may improve general security posture but does not directly address protocol-level downgrade vulnerabilities.
Option D significantly weakens security and would increase exposure.
Cybersecurity best practices and operations documentation strongly recommend disabling outdated TLS versions and enforcing TLS 1.3 wherever possible to ensure robust protection against MITM and downgrade attacks.
Therefore, upgrading to TLS 1.3 or higher is the correct preventive action.

In cybersecurity, a threat is any potential malicious attack or event that can harm an organization, while a risk is the potential damage or loss that could occur if a threat exploits a vulnerability. Therefore, risk is considered the intersection of threats and vulnerabilities, representing the likelihood and impact of a threat materializing.

When a server is experiencing heavy CPU and memory load, the initial step is to identify the processes consuming the most resources. The command "ps -ef" provides a detailed view of all running processes, including their IDs, CPU, and memory usage, which helps in pinpointing the resource-intensive processes1234. References: This approach is supported by various resources on server management and troubleshooting, which recommend using the "ps -ef" command as a starting point for investigating high resource usage on servers