Which of the following vulnerabilities would cause an automatic failure?

Which of the following vulnerabilities would cause an automatic failure?

• A. Cross-site scripting (XSS) flaws
• B. Directory traversal on web server
• C. Default or built-in accounts with default passwords
• D. Rootkits

Answer: (C)

Automatic failure happens when a vulnerability reveals a baseline security control failure that is universally unacceptable. Default or built-in accounts with default passwords are such a case because those credentials are widely known and easily exploited across many systems. PCI DSS requires disabling or changing default accounts and using unique, strong passwords, so having defaults present means the environment is immediately insecure and fails the assessment regardless of other issues. The other vulnerabilities are serious and require fixes, but they depend on context and remediation steps; they aren’t universally disqualifying in the same automatic way as default credentials.

Automatic failure happens when a vulnerability reveals a baseline security control failure that is universally unacceptable. Default or built-in accounts with default passwords are such a case because those credentials are widely known and easily exploited across many systems. PCI DSS requires disabling or changing default accounts and using unique, strong passwords, so having defaults present means the environment is immediately insecure and fails the assessment regardless of other issues.

The other vulnerabilities are serious and require fixes, but they depend on context and remediation steps; they aren’t universally disqualifying in the same automatic way as default credentials.