A junior technician receives an email with an unfamiliar executable and is asked to analyze its behavior without risking the corporate laptop or the production network. According to virtualization best practices, which primary purpose of a virtual machine addresses this requirement?
Encrypt all user files transparently to prevent data leakage
Increase the laptop's physical RAM by sharing unused memory pages
Replace the host operating system with a lightweight kernel to shorten boot times
Operate as a sandboxed environment for isolated testing
Running the executable inside a virtual machine creates a sandboxed environment that is logically separated from the host operating system and network. If the file is malicious, any harmful changes remain confined to the virtual disk and virtualized hardware, protecting the real system. Virtual machines are routinely used for such isolated testing. Replacing the host OS, encrypting user files, or increasing physical RAM are not core purposes of virtual machines in this context.
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