SAA-C03 Design Secure Architectures Practice Test 7 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An EC2 instance in a private subnet must access an S3 bucket that contains regulated exports for a e-learning 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?

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

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 (interface or Gateway VPC endpoint). This ensures that only traffic routed through that endpoint can access the S3 bucket, meeting the security team's requirement for regulated exports.

Answer

A security group rule that allows HTTPS to S3

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A condition that matches aws:RequestedRegion to the bucket Region

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A deny statement for all IAM users except the EC2 role

Question 2

A company is encrypting sensitive S3 data for a healthcare document service with AWS KMS. Which two controls help prevent accidental use of the KMS key by unauthorized principals?

Accepted Answer

A key policy that limits key administrators and key users. A key policy in AWS KMS explicitly defines which principals (users, roles, or AWS services) are allowed to use the key for cryptographic operations. By restricting key usage to specific key users, you prevent unauthorized principals—even those with broad IAM permissions—from accidentally invoking the key. This is a critical control for sensitive data like healthcare documents, where compliance requires strict access boundaries.

Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration

Answer

A larger KMS key rotation period

Question 3

Developers for a B2B file exchange site need temporary elevated access to production resources for troubleshooting. The security team wants approvals, expiry, and audit logging. Which approach is best?

Accepted Answer

Use IAM Identity Center permission sets with time-bound access processes and CloudTrail auditing. IAM Identity Center (formerly AWS SSO) enables time-bound permission sets that grant temporary elevated access with automatic expiry, satisfying the security team's requirements for approvals and audit logging via AWS CloudTrail. This approach follows the principle of least privilege by providing just-in-time access rather than permanent permissions, and all actions are recorded in CloudTrail for compliance.

Answer

Attach AdministratorAccess permanently to every developer role

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Create shared administrator access keys for the team

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Disable CloudTrail during troubleshooting

Question 4

A IoT ingestion API stores audit logs in S3. The compliance team requires that logs cannot be overwritten or deleted for seven years. What should be configured?

Accepted Answer

S3 Object Lock in compliance mode with an appropriate retention period. S3 Object Lock with compliance mode provides a write-once-read-many (WORM) model that 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, as compliance mode enforces a legal hold that cannot be removed by any entity, including AWS support.

Answer

S3 lifecycle expiration after seven years

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S3 versioning only

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S3 server access logging

Question 5

A e-learning platform uses CloudFront in front of an S3 origin. Which two settings help keep users from bypassing CloudFront and accessing the bucket directly?

Accepted Answer

Configure Origin Access Control for the S3 origin. Origin Access Control (OAC) is the recommended way to restrict access to an S3 bucket so that it only accepts requests from a specific CloudFront distribution. By configuring OAC, CloudFront signs requests to S3 using a trusted identity, and the bucket policy denies any direct access that does not include that signature, effectively preventing users from bypassing CloudFront.

Answer

Enable CloudFront standard logging

Answer

Enable S3 static website hosting

Question 6

A company is encrypting sensitive S3 data for a IoT ingestion API with AWS KMS. Which two controls help prevent accidental use of the KMS key by unauthorized principals? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

IAM policies that grant kms:Decrypt only to required application roles. IAM policies can explicitly grant kms:Decrypt only to specific application roles, ensuring that only authorized principals (e.g., the IoT ingestion service role) can use the KMS key for decryption. This prevents unauthorized principals from accidentally or maliciously decrypting S3 objects, as the policy restricts the action to required roles without needing custom scripts.

Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration

Answer

A larger KMS key rotation period

Question 7

Developers for a e-learning platform need temporary elevated access to production resources for troubleshooting. The security team wants approvals, expiry, and audit logging. Which approach is best? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

Use IAM Identity Center permission sets with time-bound access processes and CloudTrail auditing. IAM Identity Center permission sets allow administrators to define time-bound access policies that grant temporary elevated permissions to specific users or roles. When combined with AWS CloudTrail, every API call made during the troubleshooting session is logged, providing full auditability. This approach meets the security team's requirements for approvals (via the permission set assignment process), expiry (via session duration settings), and audit logging without requiring custom scripts.

Answer

Disable CloudTrail during troubleshooting

Answer

Attach AdministratorAccess permanently to every developer role

Answer

Create shared administrator access keys for the team

Question 8

A claims portal must ensure that only encrypted EBS volumes can be created in the account. What is the strongest preventive control? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

Use an SCP that denies ec2:CreateVolume when the encrypted condition is false. An SCP (Service Control Policy) at the AWS Organizations level can deny the ec2:CreateVolume API call when the encryption condition (aws:RequestTag/Encrypted or ec2:Encrypted) is false. This is a preventive control that blocks the creation of unencrypted volumes before they exist, and it requires no custom operational scripts, aligning with the design constraint.

Answer

Tag encrypted volumes after creation

Answer

Enable VPC Flow Logs

Answer

Run a daily Lambda function to encrypt unencrypted volumes

Question 9

A company hosts a image sharing application 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 secure shell access to EC2 instances without opening inbound ports (SSH 22 or RDP 3389) to the internet. It uses the AWS Systems Manager agent and an IAM instance role to establish a bidirectional connection via the AWS API, eliminating the need for a bastion host or public IP. This meets the requirement of avoiding custom operational scripts because Session Manager is a fully managed service with no additional configuration beyond the agent and role.

Answer

An internet gateway attached to the private subnet

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A public Elastic IP address on each instance

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A bastion host with SSH open to 0.0.0.0/0

Question 10

A financial reporting platform uses CloudFront in front of an S3 origin. Which two settings help keep users from bypassing CloudFront and accessing the bucket directly? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

Use an S3 bucket policy that allows access only from the CloudFront distribution. An S3 bucket policy that explicitly denies access to any principal except the CloudFront distribution's origin access identity (OAI) or origin access control (OAC) ensures that direct requests to the S3 bucket endpoint are rejected. This policy leverages the aws:SourceArn or aws:SourceIp condition key to restrict access solely to CloudFront, preventing users from bypassing the CDN and hitting the bucket directly.

Answer

Enable CloudFront standard logging

Answer

Enable S3 static website hosting

Question 11

A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a healthcare document service. 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.

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, regardless of bucket policies or ACLs. By enabling this setting at the account or bucket level, the architect ensures that even if a developer later attaches an overly permissive bucket policy, the objects remain inaccessible to anonymous users. This meets the requirement without requiring custom operational scripts.

Answer

Enable server access logging on the bucket

Answer

Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration

Answer

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

Question 12

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 security team requires the decision to be auditable.

Accepted Answer

Interface VPC endpoint for Systems Manager. Interface VPC endpoints (AWS PrivateLink) allow private subnets to access Systems Manager Parameter Store without traversing the internet, using private IP addresses within the VPC. This meets the requirement for private, auditable access because all traffic stays within the AWS network and can be logged via VPC Flow Logs.

Answer

Internet gateway attached to the VPC

Answer

NAT gateway in each Availability Zone

Question 13

A partner company needs read-only access to reports in an S3 bucket for a e-learning platform. 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 resource-based bucket policy that grants the partner's IAM role cross-account read-only access to a specific prefix, adhering to the principle of least privilege. This approach is secure (no public exposure), scalable (no manual key rotation), and requires no custom scripts, as AWS handles the cross-account trust automatically via the bucket policy's Principal element referencing the partner's AWS account ID.

Answer

Copy the objects to a public website bucket

Answer

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

Answer

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

Question 14

A company is encrypting sensitive S3 data for a order processing API with AWS KMS. Which two controls help prevent accidental use of the KMS key by unauthorized principals? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

A key policy that limits key administrators and key users. A KMS key policy explicitly defines which principals (IAM users, roles, or AWS accounts) are allowed to administer or use the key. By restricting key users to only the required application roles, you prevent unauthorized principals from accidentally invoking KMS operations on the key, even if they have broad IAM permissions. This is a fundamental access control that does not require custom scripts.

Answer

A larger KMS key rotation period

Answer

S3 Transfer Acceleration

Question 15

Developers for a financial reporting platform need temporary elevated access to production resources for troubleshooting. The security team wants approvals, expiry, and audit logging. Which approach is best? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.

Accepted Answer

Use IAM Identity Center permission sets with time-bound access processes and CloudTrail auditing. IAM Identity Center permission sets allow granting time-bound, least-privilege access to production resources. Combined with CloudTrail auditing, this provides full logging of all actions taken during the elevated access period. The solution meets the security team's requirements for approvals (via the permission set request workflow), expiry (via session duration or time-bound assignments), and audit logging (via CloudTrail), without requiring custom operational scripts.

Answer

Disable CloudTrail during troubleshooting

Answer

Create shared administrator access keys for the team

Answer

Attach AdministratorAccess permanently to every developer role