ISC2 CISSP Practice Question

The correct answer is To prevent credential stuffing and brute force attacks. While rate limiting can have multiple benefits, its primary security purpose is to prevent automated attacks like credential stuffing, brute force attempts, and denial of service by limiting the number of requests a client can make in a given timeframe. This makes these attacks much more time-consuming and likely to be detected. Rate limiting restricts how frequently authentication attempts or other sensitive operations can be performed, thereby protecting against automated attack tools.

To reduce bandwidth costs is incorrect because while rate limiting may have cost benefits by reducing bandwidth usage, this is an operational benefit rather than its primary security purpose. Cost reduction would be a secondary benefit.

To improve response times is incorrect because improving response times is typically addressed through scaling, caching, and optimization rather than rate limiting. In fact, rate limiting introduces additional processing overhead that could slightly degrade response times.

To ensure equal access is incorrect because ensuring equal access is about fairness in resource allocation rather than security. While rate limiting can help prevent a single user from consuming excessive resources, its security purpose is to prevent attacks rather than ensure equitable access.