What best describes the goal of hardening cloud environments?

The primary goal of hardening cloud environments is to secure the environment against unauthorized access and vulnerabilities. Hardening involves implementing a series of measures to reduce potential attack surfaces, enhance security controls, and eliminate unnecessary services or open ports that could be exploited by malicious actors. This can include configuring security settings, applying patches, using firewalls, and implementing encryption and access control policies.

By focusing on these actions, organizations can protect sensitive data, ensure compliance with regulations, and maintain the integrity of their applications. While increasing performance, reducing costs, and ensuring software compatibility can be important considerations in cloud management, they do not directly align with the primary aim of hardening, which centers on enhancing security and minimizing vulnerabilities within the cloud infrastructure.