Mike’s Cereal Shack uses Vault to encrypt customer data to ensure it is always stored...

Comprehensive and Detailed in Depth Explanation:

The data.json file in this API request contains the data to be encrypted by the Transit secrets engine. The HashiCorp Vault documentation states: "When executing any call to the Vault API, data can be sent using an external file as shown above. In this case, the contents of the file would be cleartext customer data that needs to be encrypted by the transit secrets engine." Specifically, for the /transit/encrypt/ endpoint, it explains: "The API expects a JSON payload with a plaintext field containing the base64-encoded data to encrypt."

The documentation elaborates under "Encrypt Data": "The request body must include the plaintext parameter, which is the base64-encoded version of the data you want to encrypt. For example: {"plaintext": "base64-encoded-data"}." Here,D (Cleartext customer data to be encrypted)fits this requirement—customer data in cleartext, base64-encoded, sent for encryption.A (Transit config)is managed in Vault, not sent.B (Ciphertext)is the output, not input.C (Encryption key)is stored in Vault, not provided by the client. Thus, D is correct.