A PCI assessment should be conducted prior to the deployment of a new application that contains SPI (Sensitive Personal Information). A PCI assessment is an evaluation of how well an organization complies with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which is a set of requirements for protecting cardholder data. PCI DSS applies to any organization that stores, processes, or transmits cardholder data, such as credit card numbers, expiration dates, or security codes4. A PCI assessment can help identify and remediate any gaps or weaknesses in the security controls of an application that handles cardholder data.

The company is transferring the risk for the vulnerability to the software vendor. Risk transfer is a risk treatment strategy that involves shifting the potential loss or impact of a risk to a third party, such as an insurance company or a vendor. Risk transfer does not eliminate the risk, but it reduces the organization's exposure or liability for the risk1. In this scenario, the company is transferring the risk for the vulnerability in the out-of-support database software to the software vendor by signing an extended support contract. The extended support contract means that the software vendor will continue to provide security patches and updates for the software until the company can complete the software update. This reduces the likelihood and impact of a potential exploit of the vulnerability.

Automated security controls testing is a method that uses tools or scripts to verify that the security controls of a system or device are configured correctly and comply with the organization's policies and standards. Performing automated security controls testing of expected configurations prior to production would help prevent a recurrence of the risk exposure caused by missing antivirus, unnecessary ports enabled, and insufficient password complexity. Performing password-cracking attempts, Nmap scans, or antivirus scans on all devices before they are released to production are other methods that can help detect some security issues, but they are not as comprehensive or efficient as automated security controls testing. Reference: https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2017/04/28/sp800-115.pdf

Output encoding is a technique that converts user-generated input in a web form before it is displayed by the browser. Output encoding is a form of data sanitization that prevents cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, which occur when malicious scripts are injected into web pages and executed by unsuspecting users4. Output encoding works by replacing special characters in user input, such as <, >, ", ', &, etc., with their HTML-encoded equivalents, such as <, >, ", ', &, etc. This prevents the browser from interpreting the user input as HTML or JavaScript code and executing it.

SaaS stands for Software as a Service, which is a cloud model that allows users to access software applications over the internet without installing or maintaining them on their own devices. SaaS will allow all data to be kept on the third-party network, because the software applications and the data they generate or process are stored on the cloud provider's servers. VDI, CASB, and FaaS are other terms related to cloud computing or security, but they do not match the description of keeping all data on the third-party network. Reference: https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/software-as-a-service