SCS-C02 Timed Practice Test 2 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A company is migrating on-premises databases to Amazon RDS for MySQL. The security team requires that data be encrypted at rest and in transit. Which combination of steps should the team take to meet these requirements?

10 minute time limit — choose an answer to begin.

Accepted Answer

Enable encryption at rest on the RDS instance and set the rds.force_ssl parameter to 1 in the DB parameter group.. Enabling encryption at rest on the RDS instance (which can be done during creation or via a snapshot copy with encryption enabled) and requiring SSL for connections (by setting the rds.force_ssl parameter to 1 in the DB parameter group) ensures data is encrypted both at rest and in transit. Option A is incorrect because an RDS proxy with TLS termination does not enforce encryption for direct connections to the database, and encryption at rest alone does not cover in-transit. Option C is incorrect because using a client-side encryption library is not a standard RDS feature and would require application changes; it does not provide at-rest encryption managed by RDS. Option D is incorrect because configuring the security group to allow only HTTPS traffic is for HTTP-based services, not for MySQL connections; MySQL uses a different protocol, and HTTPS does not apply to database connections.

Answer

Use an RDS proxy with TLS termination and enable encryption at rest.

Answer

Enable encryption at rest on the RDS instance and use a client-side encryption library.

Answer

Enable encryption at rest and configure the security group to allow only HTTPS traffic.

Question 2

A company uses AWS Organizations with multiple accounts. The security team needs to ensure that all accounts have CloudTrail enabled and that logs are delivered to a central S3 bucket. A new member account is created and the security engineer wants to enforce this configuration automatically. Which approach meets these requirements with the least operational overhead?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS CloudFormation StackSets to deploy a CloudTrail template to all accounts in the organization.. AWS CloudFormation StackSets allows you to deploy a CloudTrail template across all accounts in an AWS Organization from a single administrative account. This approach ensures that every new member account automatically receives the CloudTrail configuration as part of the StackSet's automatic deployment to accounts added to the organization, providing a fully automated, infrastructure-as-code solution with minimal operational overhead.

Answer

Use AWS Config rules to detect accounts without CloudTrail and trigger a remediation via Systems Manager Automation.

Answer

Use an SCP to deny cloudtrail:StopLogging and cloudtrail:DeleteTrail actions.

Answer

Create an AWS Lambda function that runs periodically to check and enable CloudTrail in each account.

Question 3

A security team wants to grant a Lambda function access to read from a DynamoDB table in the same account. What is the most secure way to do this?

Accepted Answer

Create an IAM role with a policy that allows only the required DynamoDB actions (e.g., GetItem, Query) on the specific table and assign it to the Lambda function.. The most secure method is D because it follows the principle of least privilege by creating a custom IAM role that grants only the necessary DynamoDB actions (like GetItem, Query) on the specific table. This limits the Lambda function's permissions to only what is required. Option A is incorrect because a VPC endpoint allows network access to DynamoDB but does not grant IAM permissions; the Lambda function still needs an IAM role with appropriate permissions. Option B is incorrect because attaching the managed policy AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess grants full access to all DynamoDB resources, violating least privilege and increasing security risk. Option C is incorrect because storing database access keys in Lambda environment variables exposes credentials and is insecure; the recommended approach is to use an IAM execution role.

Answer

Create a VPC endpoint for DynamoDB and associate it with the Lambda function.

Answer

Attach the AWS managed policy AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess to the Lambda execution role.

Answer

Store the database access keys in the Lambda environment variables.

Question 4

A company wants to restrict access to an Amazon S3 bucket so that only objects uploaded with server-side encryption using AWS KMS (SSE-KMS) are allowed. Which bucket policy condition key should be used?

Accepted Answer

s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption. To enforce that all objects uploaded to an S3 bucket use SSE-KMS, you should use the bucket policy condition key `s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption` and set its value to `aws:kms`. This ensures the encryption header is `aws:kms` without requiring a specific KMS key. The key `s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption-aws-kms-key-id` is used only when you need to require a particular KMS key ARN.

Answer

s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption-customer-key

Answer

s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption-aws-kms-key-id

Answer

kms:EncryptionContext

Question 5

Refer to the exhibit. A security engineer runs the describe-instances command for an EC2 instance. The instance has a public IP address. The security group "allow-ssh-http" has inbound rules that allow SSH from 0.0.0.0/0 and HTTP from 0.0.0.0/0. The engineer wants to block SSH access from the internet while keeping HTTP access. Which change should be made?

Accepted Answer

Remove the inbound rule that allows SSH from 0.0.0.0/0 from the security group.. Security groups are stateful and support only allow rules; removing the inbound SSH rule from the security group effectively blocks SSH access from the internet (0.0.0.0/0) while the HTTP rule remains, allowing HTTP traffic. Since the instance already has a public IP address, removing the SSH rule is the simplest and most direct way to achieve the goal without affecting other traffic.

Answer

Add a network ACL rule to deny SSH inbound from 0.0.0.0/0.

Answer

Disassociate the public IP address from the instance.

Answer

Modify the security group to add a deny rule for SSH from 0.0.0.0/0.

Question 6

A company has enabled Amazon GuardDuty in multiple AWS accounts. The security team wants to centralize GuardDuty findings into a single account for analysis. Which THREE steps are required to achieve this? (Choose THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Invite member accounts to join the GuardDuty master account.. In Amazon GuardDuty, to centralize findings from multiple accounts, you must designate a master account and then invite member accounts to join. The invitation process establishes a trusted relationship where the master account can aggregate and analyze findings from all member accounts. Without this step, the master account cannot receive findings from other accounts.

Answer

Configure CloudWatch Logs cross-account subscription to aggregate findings.

Answer

Create an EventBridge rule to forward findings to the master account.

Question 7

A security team needs to audit all changes to security group rules across multiple AWS accounts in an organization. Which combination of services should be used to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

AWS Config and AWS CloudTrail.. AWS Config continuously records changes to resource configurations, including security group rules, and can evaluate them against desired configurations. AWS CloudTrail captures API activity, so it logs the actual API calls that modify security groups (e.g., AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress). Together, Config provides the configuration change history and CloudTrail provides the who, what, when, and from where for each change. This combination is the standard AWS approach for auditing security group modifications across multiple accounts, especially when centralized via AWS Organizations and a delegated administrator.

Answer

Amazon CloudWatch Logs and AWS CloudTrail.

Answer

Amazon GuardDuty and AWS Security Hub.

Answer

AWS Trusted Advisor and AWS Config.

Question 8

A company wants to allow an IAM user to manage only their own password in the AWS Management Console. Which IAM policy action should be used?

Accepted Answer

iam:ChangePassword. The correct IAM policy action to allow a user to manage only their own password is iam:ChangePassword. This action enables the user to change their password in the AWS Management Console. Option A is correct. Option B (iam:ListUsers) is used to list IAM users, not relevant to password management. Option C (iam:CreateAccessKey) creates access keys, which is unrelated. Option D (iam:DeactivateMFADevice) deactivates MFA devices, also not relevant. Therefore, only iam:ChangePassword is appropriate.

Answer

iam:ListUsers

Answer

iam:CreateAccessKey

Answer

iam:DeactivateMFADevice

Question 9

A security engineer notices that an IAM user has been performing suspicious actions in an AWS account. The engineer needs to generate a credential report to identify the age of the user's access keys. Which AWS CLI command should the engineer run?

Accepted Answer

aws iam generate-credential-report && aws iam get-credential-report. The AWS CLI command to generate and retrieve an IAM credential report is a two-step process: first run 'aws iam generate-credential-report' to trigger report generation, then run 'aws iam get-credential-report' to retrieve it. The report includes access key age, password age, MFA status, and other credential metadata for all IAM users, which is exactly what the engineer needs.

Answer

aws iam get-account-authorization-details

Answer

aws iam generate-service-last-accessed-details

Answer

aws iam list-access-keys --user-name suspectUser

Question 10

A company has a multi-account AWS environment with 50 accounts. The security team uses AWS CloudTrail to log management events in each account and delivers logs to a centralized S3 bucket in the security account. Recently, the team noticed that some CloudTrail logs are missing from the central bucket for a few accounts. The logs appear to be delivered intermittently. The security engineer checks the CloudTrail configuration in one of the affected accounts and sees that the trail is configured to deliver to the central bucket. The bucket policy in the security account allows CloudTrail to write from all accounts. The engineer also checks the CloudTrail console and sees that the trail status is 'Logging'. What is the MOST likely cause of the intermittent log delivery?

Accepted Answer

The CloudTrail trail is using Kinesis Data Firehose for delivery, which has a throughput limit.. The most likely cause is that the CloudTrail trail is configured to deliver logs via Kinesis Data Firehose, which has a throughput limit. If the volume of log data exceeds the Firehose stream's capacity, some logs may fail to be delivered, resulting in intermittent missing logs. Option A is incorrect because S3 default encryption (SSE-S3) does not interfere with CloudTrail writes; CloudTrail can write to encrypted buckets. Option B is incorrect because a lifecycle policy deletes objects after they are stored, not during delivery, so it would not cause intermittent missing logs. Option D is incorrect because CloudTrail does not use SQS for log delivery; it delivers directly to S3 or via Firehose.

Answer

The S3 bucket has default encryption enabled, which interferes with CloudTrail writes.

Answer

The S3 bucket has a Lifecycle policy that deletes objects prematurely.

Answer

The CloudTrail trail in each account is not associated with an SQS queue, causing delivery failures.