SAA-C03 Design Secure Architectures Practice Test 24 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a claims portal. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Enable S3 Block Public Access at the account or bucket level. S3 Block Public Access provides a definitive override that prevents any public access to S3 objects, even if a bucket policy or ACL later grants public access. This setting can be applied at the account or bucket level and ensures that all access is denied to anonymous users, meeting the requirement without custom scripts.

Answer

Create an IAM policy that denies s3:GetObject to anonymous users

Answer

Enable server access logging on the bucket

Answer

Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration

Question 2

A private application in two private subnets must download objects from S3 and read parameters from Systems Manager Parameter Store without routing traffic through the public internet. Which two components should the architect use? The implementation must work across routine deployments without manual intervention.

Accepted Answer

Interface VPC endpoint for Systems Manager. Interface VPC endpoints (AWS PrivateLink) for Systems Manager allow private subnets to access Systems Manager Parameter Store without traversing the internet, using private IP addresses within the VPC. Gateway VPC endpoints for S3 provide a highly available, redundant path to S3 via route table entries, ensuring traffic stays within the AWS network. Together, they eliminate the need for internet gateways or NAT gateways, meeting the requirement for no public internet routing.

Answer

Internet gateway attached to the VPC

Answer

NAT gateway in each Availability Zone

Question 3

A Lambda function for a order processing API needs to read a database password. The password must rotate automatically every 30 days and should not be stored in environment variables. Which service should be used? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

AWS Secrets Manager with rotation enabled. AWS Secrets Manager is the correct choice because it is purpose-built for securely storing and automatically rotating database credentials. It natively supports rotation every 30 days via a built-in Lambda rotation function, without requiring any custom operational scripts. This meets the requirement to avoid storing the password in environment variables and to automate rotation.

Answer

An encrypted object in Amazon S3

Answer

AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store SecureString without automation

Answer

A KMS-encrypted Lambda environment variable

Question 4

An EC2 instance in a private subnet must access an S3 bucket that contains regulated exports for a financial reporting platform. The security team requires access to be allowed only when traffic comes through a specific VPC endpoint. What should the architect add to the bucket policy? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

A condition that matches aws:sourceVpce to the endpoint ID. The bucket policy can use the `aws:sourceVpce` condition key to restrict access to requests originating from a specific VPC endpoint. This ensures that only traffic routed through that endpoint can access the S3 bucket, meeting the security team's requirement without custom scripts.

Answer

A security group rule that allows HTTPS to S3

Answer

A condition that matches aws:RequestedRegion to the bucket Region

Answer

A deny statement for all IAM users except the EC2 role

Question 5

A web application for a healthcare document service is behind an Application Load Balancer. The application must be protected from common SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks with minimum operational overhead. What should the architect deploy? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

AWS WAF associated with the Application Load Balancer. AWS WAF is a web application firewall that integrates directly with an Application Load Balancer to filter and monitor HTTP/HTTPS requests. It provides managed rules specifically designed to block common attack patterns like SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) without requiring custom scripts or manual rule maintenance, thus meeting the requirement for minimum operational overhead.

Answer

Security groups on the application instances

Answer

Network ACLs on the public subnets

Answer

AWS Shield Advanced only

Question 6

A partner company needs read-only access to reports in an S3 bucket for a B2B file exchange site. The partner has its own AWS account. What is the most secure scalable access pattern? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

Create a bucket policy that grants the partner role least-privilege access to the required prefix. It uses a bucket policy with a principal ARN for the partner's AWS account, granting read-only access to a specific prefix. This is secure (no public exposure), scalable (no per-user credentials to manage), and avoids custom scripts by leveraging native AWS IAM and S3 policy evaluation. The partner can use their own IAM roles to access the bucket without sharing long-term access keys.

Answer

Make the objects public and rely on difficult-to-guess object names

Answer

Create an IAM user in the company account and share the access keys

Answer

Copy the objects to a public website bucket

Question 7

A mobile banking backend uses Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. Application credentials must not be stored on the EC2 instances, and authentication should use short-lived credentials. What should the architect recommend? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

IAM database authentication for RDS with an EC2 instance role. IAM database authentication for RDS allows EC2 instances to authenticate to PostgreSQL using a short-lived token generated via the IAM instance profile, eliminating the need to store credentials on the instance. The token is obtained by calling the RDS generate_db_auth_token API with the instance's IAM role, and it is valid for 15 minutes by default. This approach satisfies the requirement for short-lived credentials and avoids custom operational scripts.

Answer

Store the database password in user data

Answer

Use a security group rule that allows only application instances

Answer

Embed the database password in the AMI

Question 8

A public API for a customer analytics portal is deployed on API Gateway. Clients must authenticate with standards-based tokens issued by an external OpenID Connect provider. Which authorization mechanism should be used? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

JWT authorizer configured for the OpenID Connect issuer. A JWT authorizer in API Gateway can validate tokens issued by an external OpenID Connect (OIDC) provider without requiring custom code. The JWT authorizer automatically verifies the token's signature, expiry, and issuer against the OIDC provider's JWKS endpoint, meeting the requirement for standards-based authentication and avoiding custom operational scripts.

Answer

API keys only

Answer

IAM authorization for all internet users

Answer

A VPC endpoint policy

Question 9

A order processing API stores audit logs in S3. The compliance team requires that logs cannot be overwritten or deleted for seven years. What should be configured? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

S3 Object Lock in compliance mode with an appropriate retention period. S3 Object Lock in compliance mode prevents any user, including the root user, from overwriting or deleting objects for the specified retention period. This meets the compliance requirement of a seven-year immutable audit log without custom scripts. Compliance mode enforces a legal hold that cannot be removed by any user, ensuring logs remain intact.

Answer

S3 server access logging

Answer

S3 lifecycle expiration after seven years

Answer

S3 versioning only

Question 10

A Lambda function for a mobile banking backend needs to read a database password. The password must rotate automatically every 30 days and should not be stored in environment variables. Which service should be used? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

AWS Secrets Manager with rotation enabled. AWS Secrets Manager is the correct choice because it natively supports automatic rotation of secrets on a configurable schedule (e.g., every 30 days) without requiring custom scripts. It also provides fine-grained access control and integrates directly with Lambda via the AWS SDK, keeping the password out of environment variables and code.

Answer

An encrypted object in Amazon S3

Answer

AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store SecureString without automation

Answer

A KMS-encrypted Lambda environment variable

Question 11

An EC2 instance in a private subnet must access an S3 bucket that contains regulated exports for a customer analytics portal. The security team requires access to be allowed only when traffic comes through a specific VPC endpoint. What should the architect add to the bucket policy? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

A condition that matches aws:sourceVpce to the endpoint ID. The bucket policy can use the `aws:sourceVpce` condition key to restrict access exclusively to traffic originating from a specific VPC endpoint ID. This ensures that only requests sent through that VPC endpoint are allowed, meeting the security team's requirement without requiring custom scripts or additional infrastructure.

Answer

A security group rule that allows HTTPS to S3

Answer

A condition that matches aws:RequestedRegion to the bucket Region

Answer

A deny statement for all IAM users except the EC2 role

Question 12

A web application for a IoT ingestion API is behind an Application Load Balancer. The application must be protected from common SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks with minimum operational overhead. What should the architect deploy? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

AWS WAF associated with the Application Load Balancer. AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect web applications from common web exploits like SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). By associating an AWS WAF web ACL with the Application Load Balancer, you can filter and monitor HTTP(S) requests based on rules that match malicious patterns, with no custom scripts or operational overhead. This is the most efficient and managed solution for the stated requirements.

Answer

Network ACLs on the public subnets

Answer

Security groups on the application instances

Answer

AWS Shield Advanced only

Question 13

A claims portal uses Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. Application credentials must not be stored on the EC2 instances, and authentication should use short-lived credentials. What should the architect recommend? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

IAM database authentication for RDS with an EC2 instance role. IAM database authentication for RDS PostgreSQL allows EC2 instances to authenticate using short-lived credentials (tokens) obtained via the IAM instance profile role, eliminating the need to store long-term credentials on the instance. The EC2 instance assumes an IAM role, which grants permission to generate an authentication token (valid for 15 minutes) using the AWS CLI or SDK, and that token is used as the password for the database connection. This approach satisfies the requirements of no stored credentials, short-lived authentication, and no custom operational scripts.

Answer

Store the database password in user data

Answer

Embed the database password in the AMI

Answer

Use a security group rule that allows only application instances

Question 14

A public API for a image sharing application is deployed on API Gateway. Clients must authenticate with standards-based tokens issued by an external OpenID Connect provider. Which authorization mechanism should be used? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

JWT authorizer configured for the OpenID Connect issuer. C is correct because the scenario requires standards-based token authentication from an external OpenID Connect (OIDC) provider, and API Gateway's JWT authorizer natively validates JWTs issued by OIDC providers without requiring custom code. This authorizer verifies the token's signature, expiry, and issuer against the OIDC discovery endpoint, meeting the requirement to avoid custom operational scripts.

Answer

A VPC endpoint policy

Answer

API keys only

Answer

IAM authorization for all internet users

Question 15

A company hosts a B2B file exchange site on EC2. Administrators must connect without opening SSH or RDP ports to the internet. What should the architect use? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager with the required instance role. AWS Systems Manager Session Manager allows administrators to establish secure shell access to EC2 instances without opening inbound SSH or RDP ports, using the Systems Manager agent and an IAM instance role. This meets the requirement for no internet-exposed ports and avoids custom operational scripts because Session Manager is a fully managed AWS service.

Answer

A bastion host with SSH open to 0.0.0.0/0

Answer

A public Elastic IP address on each instance

Answer

An internet gateway attached to the private subnet