What is the main risk of using the Instana REST API without securing its tokens?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Treat a token as a credential. If it's readable, you've exposed the access it carries. Anyone who gets it can use it as an unauthorised route into the monitoring platform.
Full Explanation
The correct answer is the option stating that anyone who obtains the token gains the access it carries, so an exposed token is an unauthorised route into the monitoring platform. Tokens authenticate without any further check, so a token found in a repository, a log or a shared script is usable by whoever finds it, with whatever scope it was granted. The option saying unsecured tokens expire faster is wrong because storage location does not affect expiry. The option saying the API rejects tokens not stored in a secret manager is wrong because the API cannot know how a token was stored. The option saying exposure degrades query performance is wrong because exposure is a security problem, not a performance one. For the exam, treat API tokens as credentials: scoped, stored securely, rotated and revocable.