CLF-C02 Security and Compliance Practice Test 8 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company uses AWS CloudTrail to log all API calls in their AWS account for compliance and security auditing. Their compliance officer needs to prove to an external auditor that the CloudTrail log files have not been altered or deleted after they were created. The company must use the most cost-effective and built-in AWS feature to detect any tampering with the log files. What should the company enable?

Accepted Answer

Enable CloudTrail log file integrity validation. CloudTrail log file integrity validation uses a hash chain (SHA-256) to create a digest file that is signed with a private key, allowing you to verify that log files have not been modified, deleted, or tampered with after delivery. This is a built-in, no-cost feature that directly meets the compliance officer's requirement to prove log integrity to an external auditor without additional services or costs.

Answer

Enable server-side encryption for the CloudTrail log file S3 bucket using SSE-KMS

Answer

Configure CloudTrail to send logs to CloudWatch Logs and set a metric filter for changes

Answer

Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) delete on the S3 bucket

Question 2

A company has 50 IAM users in a single AWS account. The security policy requires that every IAM user must have a virtual MFA device enabled for AWS Management Console access. The company wants to automatically detect any user who disables or has an inactive MFA device and immediately revoke that user's ability to access AWS resources by disabling their access keys. The solution must be fully managed, require no custom scripts, and use native AWS services. Which AWS service should the company use to define the compliance rule and automatically trigger the remediation action?

Accepted Answer

AWS Config. AWS Config is the correct service because it provides managed rules (such as the `iam-user-mfa-enabled` managed rule) that continuously evaluate IAM user configurations against compliance policies. When a user disables or has an inactive virtual MFA device, AWS Config can detect the non-compliant resource and automatically trigger a remediation action via AWS Systems Manager Automation, which can disable the user's access keys without any custom scripts.

Answer

AWS Shield

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS WAF

Question 3

A company hosts a critical e-commerce web application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The security team is concerned about Layer 7 attacks, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). They also want to automatically block traffic from known malicious IP addresses. The company needs a managed web application firewall that integrates directly with the ALB. Which AWS service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

AWS WAF. AWS WAF is a managed web application firewall that protects web applications from common Layer 7 attacks, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS), by inspecting HTTP/HTTPS requests. It integrates directly with an Application Load Balancer (ALB) to allow you to create custom rules that block or allow traffic based on request patterns, including automatically blocking traffic from known malicious IP addresses using managed IP reputation lists.

Answer

AWS Shield Advanced

Answer

Amazon GuardDuty

Answer

AWS Firewall Manager

Question 4

A company stores sensitive customer data in Amazon S3. The security policy requires that all objects be encrypted at rest using an encryption key that is automatically rotated every 12 months. The company must retain full control over the key, including the ability to immediately revoke access to the key if a security incident occurs. The security team also needs to audit every use of the key through AWS CloudTrail. Which key management solution should the company choose to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use an AWS KMS customer managed key (CMK) with automatic key rotation enabled.. AWS KMS customer managed keys (CMKs) allow you to enable automatic annual key rotation (every 12 months) and retain full control over the key, including the ability to immediately revoke access by disabling or deleting the key. CloudTrail integration is inherent with KMS, logging every use of the key via the `Decrypt` and `GenerateDataKey` API calls, meeting the audit requirement. This combination satisfies all stated security policy needs: encryption at rest, automatic rotation, full control, immediate revocation, and auditability.

Answer

Use an AWS KMS AWS managed key with automatic key rotation.

Answer

Use Amazon S3 server-side encryption with SSE-S3.

Answer

Use AWS CloudHSM to generate and manage the key.

Question 5

A company uses AWS Organizations to centrally manage multiple AWS accounts. The security team requires a mechanism to prevent any IAM user or role in any member account from modifying Amazon S3 bucket policies to grant public access. The solution must be enforced centrally and cannot be overridden by account administrators. Which AWS feature should the company use?

Accepted Answer

Service control policies (SCPs). Service control policies (SCPs) are the correct choice because they allow AWS Organizations to centrally define permission guardrails that apply to all IAM users and roles across member accounts. SCPs can explicitly deny actions like s3:PutBucketPolicy to prevent any account administrator from modifying S3 bucket policies to grant public access, and these restrictions cannot be overridden by any IAM entity within the member account.

Answer

IAM permissions boundaries

Answer

AWS Config conformance packs

Answer

AWS CloudTrail Insights

Question 6

A company's compliance officer needs to provide an external auditor with copies of AWS SOC 2 reports and a PCI DSS attestation of compliance. The officer needs a self-service portal to download these documents directly, without contacting AWS Support. The solution must provide the most current versions of these reports. Which AWS service should the officer use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Artifact. AWS Artifact is the correct service because it provides a self-service portal for on-demand access to AWS compliance reports, including SOC 2 reports and PCI DSS attestations of compliance. It ensures the most current versions are always available without needing to contact AWS Support, directly meeting the compliance officer's requirement for a self-service download solution.

Answer

AWS Audit Manager

Answer

Amazon Inspector

Answer

AWS Config

Question 7

A company's security team manages AWS accounts for multiple business units using AWS Organizations. The security team needs a single place to view and prioritize all security alerts, including findings from Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, and AWS IAM Access Analyzer. The team also wants to automatically run continuous compliance checks against industry standards such as the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark. The solution must provide a consolidated dashboard with automated findings aggregation and compliance score tracking. Which AWS service should the security team choose?

Accepted Answer

AWS Security Hub. AWS Security Hub is the correct choice because it provides a single, consolidated dashboard that aggregates security findings from multiple AWS services, including Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, and AWS IAM Access Analyzer. It also performs automated continuous compliance checks against industry standards like the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark and tracks compliance scores over time, meeting all the stated requirements.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

Amazon Detective

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 8

A company stores sensitive financial data in an Amazon S3 bucket. The security policy requires that all data must be encrypted in transit. The security administrator discovers that some automated scripts are using HTTP instead of HTTPS to upload files. The administrator must enforce that any request that does not use HTTPS is denied by the S3 bucket policy. Which condition key should the administrator include in the bucket policy to enforce this requirement?

Accepted Answer

aws:SecureTransport. Option C is correct because the `aws:SecureTransport` condition key in an S3 bucket policy evaluates whether the request was sent over HTTPS (TLS). Setting it to `false` denies any request that uses HTTP, enforcing encryption in transit as required by the security policy.

Answer

aws:SourceIp

Answer

aws:Referer

Answer

s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption

Question 9

A company runs a web application behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB) in a VPC. The application must comply with a security standard that requires encryption in transit for all web traffic. The company needs a service to centrally manage SSL/TLS certificates, automatically renew them, and deploy them to the ALB without manual intervention. Which AWS service should the company use to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM). AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) is the correct service because it provides centralized management of SSL/TLS certificates, supports automatic renewal for certificates issued by ACM, and can seamlessly deploy these certificates to an Application Load Balancer (ALB) without any manual intervention. This directly meets the requirement for encryption in transit and compliance with the security standard.

Answer

AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)

Answer

AWS Secrets Manager

Answer

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Question 10

A company runs an e-commerce website on AWS and expects a high volume of traffic during Black Friday. The security team is concerned about potential DDoS attacks overwhelming the infrastructure. The company wants a managed service that provides always-on detection and automatic inline mitigation of DDoS attacks at the network and transport layers (layer 3 and 4), as well as cost protection against scaling charges due to DDoS attacks. Which AWS service should the company use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Shield Advanced. AWS Shield Advanced is the correct choice because it provides always-on detection and automatic inline mitigation of DDoS attacks at layers 3 and 4 (network and transport layers), such as SYN floods and UDP reflection attacks. Additionally, it offers cost protection against scaling charges incurred due to DDoS-related usage spikes, which directly addresses the company's concern about financial impact from attack-induced scaling.

Answer

AWS Shield Standard

Answer

AWS WAF

Answer

Amazon GuardDuty

Question 11

A company's compliance team needs to enforce a policy that all Amazon S3 buckets must have 'Block all public access' enabled. If a bucket is created without this setting, the company wants the policy to be automatically remediated within minutes without manual intervention. The solution must check for compliance continuously and apply the fix automatically. Which AWS service should the company use to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS Config with an AWS Config rule and an automatic remediation action. AWS Config can continuously evaluate the configuration of S3 buckets against a managed rule like 's3-bucket-public-read-prohibited' or 's3-bucket-public-write-prohibited'. When a noncompliant bucket is detected, AWS Config can automatically trigger a remediation action using an AWS Systems Manager Automation document (e.g., 'AWS-DisableS3BucketPublicReadWrite') to enable 'Block all public access' within minutes, without manual intervention.

Answer

Amazon GuardDuty

Answer

AWS CloudTrail

Answer

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Question 12

A financial services company is preparing for an annual third-party audit. The auditor has requested a copy of the AWS SOC 2 Type II report to evaluate the security controls of the AWS infrastructure. The company needs to retrieve the report as quickly as possible without raising a support ticket. Which AWS service should they use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Artifact. AWS Artifact is the correct service because it provides on-demand, self-service access to AWS compliance reports, including SOC reports, PCI reports, and ISO certifications, without needing to open a support ticket. The auditor's request for a SOC 2 Type II report is exactly the use case AWS Artifact is designed for, allowing the company to download the report immediately from the AWS Management Console or via the AWS CLI.

Answer

AWS Security Hub

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Question 13

A company has a security policy that requires all Amazon EBS volumes attached to production Amazon EC2 instances to be encrypted at rest using customer-managed encryption keys. The policy also mandates that the encryption keys must be automatically rotated every 365 days. The company wants to minimize operational overhead by using a managed AWS service for key management and automatic rotation. Which AWS service should the company use to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS). AWS KMS is the correct choice because it provides managed customer master keys (CMKs) that can be used to encrypt EBS volumes at rest, and it supports automatic annual key rotation (every 365 days) with no additional operational overhead. KMS integrates directly with EBS to enforce encryption using customer-managed keys, meeting both the encryption and rotation requirements.

Answer

AWS CloudHSM

Answer

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM)

Answer

AWS Secrets Manager

Question 14

A company manages multiple AWS accounts under a single AWS Organizations organization. The security team wants to implement a preventive control that blocks any action that would disable AWS CloudTrail or delete CloudTrail log files across all accounts, including the management account. The solution must be centrally managed and must not require changes to individual account permissions. Which AWS feature should the security team use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Service Control Policies (SCPs). AWS Service Control Policies (SCPs) are the correct choice because they allow the security team to define preventive guardrails at the AWS Organizations root, OU, or account level that apply to all principals, including the management account. An SCP can explicitly deny any action that would disable CloudTrail (e.g., cloudtrail:StopLogging, cloudtrail:DeleteTrail) or delete log files (e.g., s3:DeleteObject on the CloudTrail S3 bucket), and because SCPs are inherited by all accounts in the organization, no individual account permission changes are required.

Answer

IAM permission boundaries

Answer

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles with a trust policy

Answer

AWS Config conformance packs

Question 15

A company wants to automatically detect potential security threats such as compromised credentials, unauthorized access attempts, and communication with known malicious IP addresses across its AWS environment. The company has enabled AWS CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS logs. Which AWS service should the company use to continuously analyze these logs and generate actionable security findings without requiring manual setup of data sources?

Accepted Answer

Amazon GuardDuty. Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously analyzes AWS CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS logs using machine learning and anomaly detection to identify compromised credentials, unauthorized access, and communication with known malicious IP addresses. It operates without requiring manual setup of data sources because it automatically ingests these logs once enabled, generating actionable security findings.

Answer

AWS Config

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor

Answer

Amazon Inspector