What does the Shared Responsibility Model clarify?

The Shared Responsibility Model clarifies the division of security responsibilities between the cloud service provider and the customer. In this model, specific aspects of the security landscape are delineated to ensure both parties understand their obligations in protecting data, applications, and infrastructure.

For instance, while the service provider is responsible for securing the underlying infrastructure that includes physical servers, networking, and data centers, the customer retains control over how they manage access to their applications, data protection, and configurations. This delineation helps organizations understand their role in maintaining security posture, allowing them to implement appropriate measures such as user access controls, data encryption, and compliance with relevant regulations.

In contrast, the other choices focus on elements unrelated to the core context of shared responsibilities in security. Client software roles encompass how different software components interact within a system, hardware vendor responsibilities emphasize the hardware side of technology infrastructure, and software licensing terms pertain to the legal agreements governing software use, none of which specifically address the security responsibilities shared between customers and service providers in a cloud environment.