SCS-C02 Threat Detection and Incident Response Practice Test 8 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Refer to the exhibit. A security engineer is analyzing a CloudTrail log entry for an EC2 RunInstances call. The engineer needs to determine if the instance launch was authorized by an IAM policy. Which field should the engineer check to identify the IAM policy that was used to authorize the action?

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

Accepted Answer

The 'userIdentity' field to identify the IAM user or role that made the call.. The 'userIdentity' field in a CloudTrail log entry contains details about the IAM user or role that made the API call, including the ARN and the access key ID. To identify the specific IAM policy that authorized the action, the security engineer must first know the identity (user/role) from the 'userIdentity' field, then cross-reference that identity with the IAM policies attached to it. The policy itself is not directly listed in the log entry, but the identity is the key to tracing authorization.

Answer

The 'vpcEndpointId' field to see if the call came through a VPC endpoint.

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The 'sourceIP' field to identify the IP address.

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The 'eventType' field to determine the type of event.

Question 2

Refer to the exhibit. A security engineer is analyzing a CloudTrail log entry for an EC2 RunInstances call. The engineer needs to determine if the instance launch was authorized by an IAM policy. Which field should the engineer check to identify the IAM policy that was used to authorize the action?

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

Accepted Answer

The first IP address in the log entry (srcaddr). In VPC Flow Logs, the `srcaddr` field records the source IP address of the traffic. Since the engineer is looking for which EC2 instances are initiating outbound SSH connections (port 22), the source IP in the flow log entry (srcaddr) directly identifies the instance that started the connection. The direction of the traffic is determined by the source and destination fields, not by the port numbers alone.

Answer

The second IP address (dstaddr)

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The first port number (srcport)

Answer

The second port number (dstport)

Question 3

A security engineer notices that an EC2 instance is sending outbound traffic to a known malicious IP address. The engineer needs to immediately block the traffic and capture a packet capture for forensic analysis. Which combination of actions should the engineer take?

Accepted Answer

Add a network ACL deny rule for the malicious IP, and enable VPC Traffic Mirroring.. A network ACL (NACL) is a stateless firewall that operates at the subnet level, allowing immediate blocking of traffic to/from a specific IP address without affecting the instance's security group rules. Enabling VPC Traffic Mirroring captures a full packet-level copy of the traffic for forensic analysis, which is superior to VPC Flow Logs (which only capture metadata). This combination provides both rapid containment and deep forensic data.

Answer

Use Amazon GuardDuty to block the IP and enable VPC Traffic Mirroring.

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Stop the EC2 instance and enable VPC Flow Logs.

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Modify the security group to deny outbound traffic to the IP, and enable VPC Flow Logs.

Question 4

A company uses AWS Organizations with multiple accounts. The security team wants to ensure that all CloudTrail trails are enabled and logging to a central S3 bucket. They need to detect any account that disables or modifies its CloudTrail trail. Which approach meets these requirements with the least operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Config rules with an aggregator in the management account to evaluate CloudTrail configuration across all accounts.. AWS Config rules with an aggregator in the management account can evaluate CloudTrail configuration across all accounts in AWS Organizations without deploying per-account resources. The aggregator collects configuration snapshots and changes from member accounts, allowing a single managed rule (e.g., cloud-trail-enabled) to detect when a trail is disabled or modified. This approach minimizes operational overhead because it uses native AWS services with no custom code or cross-account IAM roles to manage.

Answer

Enable CloudTrail Insights in all accounts to detect unusual activity.

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Enable IAM Access Analyzer in each account to monitor CloudTrail changes.

Answer

Create a Lambda function that periodically checks CloudTrail status in each account via the API.

Question 5

A security engineer is investigating a potential compromise of an EC2 instance. The engineer wants to capture memory and disk forensics without shutting down the instance. Which service should the engineer use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager. AWS Systems Manager (SSM) is the correct service because it provides the capability to perform forensic data collection on a running EC2 instance without shutting it down. Specifically, SSM Automation documents like AWS-RunShellScript or AWS-GatherEC2InstanceInfo can execute commands to capture memory (e.g., using LiME or fmem) and disk forensics (e.g., dd or volume snapshots) via the SSM Agent, which runs as a system service and does not require instance termination.

Answer

AWS Config

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EC2 Instance Connect

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Amazon CloudWatch Logs

Question 6

A company uses Amazon GuardDuty and AWS Security Hub. The security team wants to automatically remediate high-severity GuardDuty findings that indicate an EC2 instance is communicating with a known command and control (C&C) server. The remediation should isolate the instance by modifying the security group to deny all inbound and outbound traffic. Which solution is the most efficient?

Accepted Answer

Send Security Hub findings to Amazon EventBridge, which triggers a Lambda function to modify the security group.. It leverages Security Hub as a central aggregation point for GuardDuty findings, then uses EventBridge to trigger a Lambda function that modifies the security group. This is the most efficient architecture as Security Hub normalizes findings from multiple sources, and EventBridge provides reliable, low-latency event routing to Lambda for custom remediation logic without requiring direct GuardDuty-to-security-group integration.

Answer

Use Amazon CloudWatch Events to directly modify the security group when a GuardDuty finding is published.

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Configure GuardDuty to automatically update the security group when a finding is generated.

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Create an AWS Config rule that triggers a Lambda function when a security group change is detected.

Question 7

A security engineer needs to detect suspicious API calls across multiple AWS accounts. The engineer has enabled AWS CloudTrail in each account and is sending logs to a central S3 bucket. Which additional step should the engineer take to analyze the logs for potential threats?

Accepted Answer

Enable Amazon GuardDuty in each account.. Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior, including suspicious API calls, by analyzing CloudTrail management and data events, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS logs. By enabling GuardDuty in each account, the security engineer can automatically detect potential threats across all accounts without manual log analysis. This directly addresses the need to analyze CloudTrail logs for suspicious API calls at scale.

Answer

Enable AWS Config rules to monitor CloudTrail configuration.

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Enable AWS Trusted Advisor in the management account.

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Enable VPC Flow Logs in each account.

Question 8

A company's security policy requires that all S3 bucket access logs be delivered to a central S3 bucket in the security account. A security engineer notices that some buckets are not delivering logs. The engineer needs to identify which buckets are not logging and ensure compliance. Which service should the engineer use to continuously monitor and report on S3 bucket logging?

Accepted Answer

AWS Config. AWS Config is the correct service because it provides continuous monitoring and evaluation of AWS resource configurations against desired policies. By using an AWS Config managed rule like `s3-bucket-logging-enabled`, the security engineer can automatically detect S3 buckets that do not have logging enabled and receive compliance notifications, ensuring ongoing adherence to the security policy.

Answer

Amazon Macie

Answer

Amazon S3 Inventory

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AWS CloudTrail

Question 9

A security engineer is designing an incident response plan for a containerized application running on Amazon ECS with Fargate. The engineer needs to ensure that if a container is compromised, the incident response team can capture a memory dump and disk snapshot for forensic analysis. The containers are stateless and use ephemeral storage. Which approach provides the necessary forensic data?

Accepted Answer

Use ECS Exec to access the container and capture a memory dump; snapshot the task's ephemeral storage.. ECS Exec allows interactive access to a running container without stopping it, enabling the capture of a memory dump (e.g., via `gcore` or `/proc/kcore`). Additionally, the task's ephemeral storage can be snapshotted while the container is still running, preserving disk state for forensic analysis. This approach aligns with incident response best practices for stateless containers on Fargate, where traditional host-level forensics are unavailable.

Answer

Configure the container to stream /dev/mem to CloudWatch Logs.

Answer

Enable ECS task memory dumps to CloudWatch Logs.

Answer

Stop the task and create a new task from the same image.

Question 10

A security engineer is investigating a potential data breach. The engineer needs to identify which IAM user accessed a specific S3 object and when. Which AWS service should the engineer use?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudTrail. AWS CloudTrail is the correct service because it records API activity for all AWS services, including S3 object-level operations such as GetObject, PutObject, and DeleteObject. By enabling data events on the specific S3 bucket, CloudTrail logs the IAM user, source IP, timestamp, and the exact object key accessed, providing the precise identity and time needed for breach investigation.

Answer

AWS Config

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Amazon S3 server access logs

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Amazon CloudWatch Logs

Question 11

A company uses Amazon GuardDuty and has enabled EKS audit logs as a data source. The security team wants to detect potential container escape attempts. Which TWO findings would indicate a container escape attempt? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

PrivilegeEscalation:EKS/KubernetesAPICallFromContainer. The PrivilegeEscalation:EKS/KubernetesAPICallFromContainer finding specifically detects when a container makes Kubernetes API calls that indicate an attempt to escalate privileges, such as creating pods with elevated permissions or accessing cluster-admin roles. This is a direct indicator of a container escape attempt, as the container is interacting with the Kubernetes control plane to gain unauthorized access to the host or other resources.

Answer

Execution:ECS/SuspiciousCommand

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UnauthorizedAccess:EC2/SSHBruteForce

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CryptoCurrency:EC2/BitcoinTool.B

Question 12

A security engineer is configuring automated incident response for Amazon GuardDuty findings. The engineer wants to isolate a compromised EC2 instance by changing its security group and stopping the instance. Which THREE services should the engineer use together to achieve this? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager. AWS Systems Manager (SSM) is correct because it provides the Automation runbook capability that can be used to stop an EC2 instance and modify its security groups as part of an incident response workflow. SSM Automation can be triggered by an EventBridge rule and can invoke Lambda functions or run commands directly on the instance to isolate it. This allows the security engineer to automate the isolation and stopping of the compromised instance without manual intervention.

Answer

Amazon EC2

Answer

AWS Config

Question 13

A company wants to detect and respond to potential security threats in near real-time. Which TWO services should the company use together to achieve this? (Choose TWO.)

Accepted Answer

AWS Security Hub. AWS Security Hub (D) aggregates security findings from multiple AWS services, including Amazon GuardDuty, and provides a comprehensive view of security alerts and compliance status. Amazon GuardDuty (E) is a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior using machine learning and integrated threat intelligence. Together, they enable near real-time detection and response by centralizing findings from GuardDuty in Security Hub, which can trigger automated remediation workflows via Amazon EventBridge.

Answer

AWS Config

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Amazon Inspector

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AWS CloudTrail

Question 14

Refer to the exhibit. A security engineer runs the AWS CLI command to look up console login events. The output shows two successful login events for user1 within 5 minutes. What should the engineer suspect?

Accepted Answer

The user's credentials may be compromised.. Two successful console login events for the same user within 5 minutes, especially from different source IP addresses or user agents, is a strong indicator of credential compromise. An attacker who has obtained the user's password can log in while the legitimate user is also active, creating overlapping sessions. AWS CloudTrail records the `ConsoleLogin` event with details like `sourceIPAddress` and `userAgent`, which the engineer should examine to confirm whether the logins originated from different locations or devices.

Answer

The user created a new access key.

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The user's account is being used by multiple users.

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The user has disabled multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Question 15

Refer to the exhibit. A security engineer is reviewing an S3 bucket policy. The policy is intended to allow access only from the corporate network (10.0.0.0/8). What is a potential security issue with this policy?

Accepted Answer

The policy allows anonymous access from the specified IP range.. The policy's `Principal: "*"` element allows anonymous access from any IP address, and the `Condition` block only restricts the source IP to 10.0.0.0/8. This means any unauthenticated request originating from within the corporate network (10.0.0.0/8) is permitted, effectively granting anonymous access to the S3 bucket. The intended goal of restricting access to authenticated corporate users is not achieved, as no `aws:userid` or `aws:username` condition is enforced.

Answer

The policy grants access to all actions, not just GetObject.

Answer

The policy resource is incorrect; it should be the bucket ARN without the /*.

Answer

The policy does not include a condition to require MFA.