Maintaining system backups for management components is the correct choice because it is the least critical control to prioritize when hardening the administrative plane of a cloud deployment.

Maintaining system backups for management components is important for recovery and business continuity but it does not directly prevent unauthorized access or compromise of administrative functions and controls. Backups help restore state after an incident but they do not reduce the immediate risk of credential theft, interception, or privileged misuse.

The primary hardening priorities are controls that prevent compromise and limit blast radius. Those protections reduce attack surface and stop attackers from gaining or abusing administrator privileges, and they therefore deserve higher priority than recoverability measures alone.

Enforcing encrypted channels for management traffic is critical because encryption protects credentials and management data in transit and prevents eavesdropping and tampering of administrative sessions. This control directly stops common interception attacks and is therefore a high priority.

Isolating management networks from production networks is critical because network isolation reduces the attack surface and prevents lateral movement into management systems. Segmentation and dedicated management paths make it much harder for an attacker to reach administrative interfaces.

Implementing strict role based access controls for administrators is critical because RBAC enforces least privilege and limits what administrators can do. Proper role separation and privilege restrictions reduce the impact of compromised accounts and improve auditability.

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