Free CompTIA Network+ N10-009 Practice Question

Disabling all unused ports on a switch effectively reduces the number of entry points available to a potential attacker, thus decreasing the device's attack surface. Disabling services that are not needed has a similar effect by removing potential targets for exploitation that are not required for business operations. Other options like harmonizing traffic rates or encrypting management data, although beneficial for overall security, do not specifically align with the goal of reducing the attack surface through managing device configurations as directly as disabling unused ports and unnecessary services does.