SCS-C02 Practice Test 3 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A company stores sensitive data in Amazon S3 and wants to ensure that all objects are encrypted at rest. The security team has enabled default encryption on the S3 bucket using SSE-S3. However, an audit reveals that some objects are stored with SSE-KMS. How can the company enforce that only SSE-S3 is used for all future uploads, while still allowing existing SSE-KMS objects to be read?

Accepted Answer

Apply a bucket policy that denies s3:PutObject unless the x-amz-server-side-encryption header is AES256.. Option C is correct because it uses a bucket policy to deny s3:PutObject unless the x-amz-server-side-encryption header is set to AES256, which is the value for SSE-S3. This enforces that all future uploads use SSE-S3, while existing SSE-KMS objects remain readable because the policy only applies to write operations. The condition key s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption checks the encryption header value, and the Deny effect overrides any Allow, ensuring compliance.

Answer

Configure a bucket policy that denies s3:PutObject with s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption-aws:kms.

Answer

Use an S3 Lifecycle policy to transition existing SSE-KMS objects to SSE-S3.

Answer

Disable SSE-KMS in the AWS KMS key policy to prevent its use.

Question 2

A financial services company uses AWS KMS to encrypt sensitive data. The security team has a requirement to rotate the CMK every 90 days and to maintain a record of all previous key versions for decryption of historical data. The team creates a new CMK every 90 days and manually updates applications to use the new key. This process is error-prone and causes downtime. What is the MOST operationally efficient solution that meets the requirements?

Accepted Answer

Create a new CMK every 90 days and update the alias to point to the new key. Applications reference the alias.. Option B is correct because it uses aliases to decouple the key identifier from the application configuration. By creating a new CMK every 90 days and updating the alias to point to the new key, applications that reference the alias automatically use the new key without code changes, eliminating downtime. AWS KMS aliases are mutable pointers that can be reassigned to different CMKs, and the old key versions remain available for decryption of historical data.

Answer

Enable automatic key rotation on the existing CMK.

Answer

Use a CMK with imported key material and rotate the material every 90 days.

Answer

Continue creating new CMKs but use a script to update the application configuration files.

Question 3

A security engineer is designing a centralized logging solution for a multi-account AWS environment. They need to ensure log files are tamper-proof and cannot be deleted or modified by anyone, including the root user of any account. Which configuration meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Enable S3 Object Lock in Governance mode with a retention period, and use a separate account to manage the retention settings.. Option D is correct because S3 Object Lock in Governance mode prevents any user, including the root user, from deleting or overwriting objects until the retention period expires. By storing the logs in a separate account that manages the retention settings, the security engineer ensures that even if an attacker compromises the source account, they cannot modify or delete the logs because the lock is enforced by the destination account's S3 configuration.

Answer

Create a bucket policy that denies s3:DeleteObject and s3:PutObject to all principals.

Answer

Enable MFA Delete on the S3 bucket and configure CloudTrail to log to that bucket.

Answer

Enable CloudTrail log file validation and store logs in a separate account.

Question 4

A company uses AWS Organizations with multiple accounts and wants to ensure that all newly created S3 buckets have encryption enabled. The Security team needs a solution that automatically remediates non-compliant buckets without manual intervention. What should they do?

Accepted Answer

Apply a service control policy (SCP) that denies the s3:PutBucketPublicAccessBlock and s3:PutBucketEncryption actions unless the bucket has encryption enabled.. Option A is correct because a service control policy (SCP) that denies the s3:PutBucketEncryption action unless the bucket already has encryption enabled effectively prevents creation of unencrypted buckets. SCPs operate at the AWS Organizations level and apply to all accounts, ensuring that any attempt to create or modify a bucket without encryption is denied, providing automated, organization-wide governance without manual intervention.

Answer

Use an S3 bucket policy that denies PutObject unless the request includes the x-amz-server-side-encryption header.

Answer

Enable AWS Config with the s3-bucket-server-side-encryption-enabled rule and set up automatic remediation using Systems Manager Automation.

Answer

Create an IAM role with permissions to enforce encryption and attach it to all accounts in the organization.

Question 5

Refer to the exhibit. A role has two policies attached. The custom policy includes an Allow for s3:PutObject. An IAM user assumes this role and tries to upload a file to S3. What happens?

Accepted Answer

The upload succeeds because the custom policy allows s3:PutObject. The upload succeeds because IAM evaluates policies in a default-deny environment, and the custom policy attached to the role explicitly allows s3:PutObject. When a user assumes the role, the effective permissions are the union of all attached policies; the managed policy's read-only restriction does not block the explicit allow for s3:PutObject. Since there is no explicit deny for s3:PutObject, the allow from the custom policy grants the action.

Answer

The upload fails because the managed policy only allows read

Answer

The upload is denied by default because no explicit allow

Answer

The upload fails because the managed policy overrides the custom policy

Question 6

A security engineer needs to be alerted when an IAM user attempts to modify an S3 bucket policy. Which method is the MOST efficient?

Accepted Answer

Create an Amazon CloudWatch Events rule that matches the PutBucketPolicy API call and triggers an SNS notification. Option C is correct because Amazon CloudWatch Events (now Amazon EventBridge) can directly capture the PutBucketPolicy API call as a real-time event and trigger an SNS notification without any additional compute or polling. This is the most efficient method as it requires no log parsing, no custom code, and no additional infrastructure, providing immediate alerting with minimal overhead.

Answer

Enable VPC Flow Logs and analyze for S3 API traffic

Answer

Configure an AWS Config rule to detect changes and invoke a Lambda function

Answer

Enable S3 server access logs and parse them for PutBucketPolicy entries

Question 7

A company uses Amazon GuardDuty and wants to suppress low-severity findings that are known false positives. What is the recommended approach?

Accepted Answer

Create a GuardDuty filter to suppress the findings. GuardDuty filters allow you to automatically suppress low-severity findings that are known false positives by setting the filter action to 'ARCHIVE'. This prevents the findings from appearing in the active findings list without disabling detection or deleting data. Filters are the recommended approach because they are purpose-built for this use case and preserve the audit trail.

Answer

Configure a CloudWatch Events rule to ignore the findings

Answer

Manually delete the findings from the GuardDuty console

Answer

Disable the GuardDuty detector for the affected accounts

Question 8

A company stores sensitive data in Amazon S3 and wants to detect and alert on any public read access to objects. Which combination of services provides the most comprehensive solution?

Accepted Answer

Enable S3 server access logging and use Amazon Athena to query logs, with CloudWatch Events to alert on specific patterns. Option C is correct because S3 server access logs capture detailed records of all requests made to a bucket, including the requester, bucket name, request time, action, and response status. By using Amazon Athena to query these logs and CloudWatch Events to trigger alerts on patterns indicating public read access (e.g., a specific HTTP method like GET from an anonymous principal), you can detect and alert on unauthorized public reads comprehensively. This combination provides granular, queryable logging with event-driven alerting, covering both current and historical access patterns.

Answer

Enable VPC Flow Logs and analyze for S3 traffic

Answer

Use AWS Config rules to check for public bucket policies and alert via SNS

Answer

Enable S3 event notifications for all object-level events and send to Amazon SNS

Question 9

A company wants to use AWS CloudTrail to log all API activity across multiple accounts in AWS Organizations. Which configuration meets the requirement of centralized logging with minimal operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Create an organization trail in the management account that applies to all accounts. Option D is correct because creating an organization trail in the management account automatically applies to all accounts in AWS Organizations, centralizing CloudTrail logs into a single S3 bucket without requiring per-account configuration. This approach minimizes operational overhead by leveraging the Organizations integration, which handles log delivery from member accounts transparently.

Answer

Create a CloudTrail trail in each account and aggregate logs to a common S3 bucket

Answer

Enable CloudTrail in each account and use cross-account roles to centralize logs

Answer

Use AWS Config to record API calls and send to CloudWatch Logs

Question 10

A company uses AWS Config to record resources. Which TWO actions can be taken to automatically remediate non-compliant resources detected by AWS Config rules?

Accepted Answer

Configure AWS Config rules to invoke an AWS Lambda function for remediation. Option A is correct because AWS Config rules can be configured with remediation actions that invoke an AWS Lambda function. When a resource is evaluated as non-compliant, the rule triggers the Lambda function, which can execute custom logic to modify or fix the resource, such as adjusting security group rules or enabling encryption. This provides automated, programmable remediation directly integrated with AWS Config's evaluation lifecycle.

Answer

Configure AWS Config rules to send notifications to an SNS topic

Answer

Use AWS CloudTrail to log non-compliant events

Answer

Use Amazon CloudWatch Events to trigger an AWS Step Functions state machine