mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped

A company uses AWS Organizations to centrally manage multiple AWS accounts. The security team requires a mechanism to prevent any IAM user or role in any member account from modifying Amazon S3 bucket policies to grant public access. The solution must be enforced centrally and cannot be overridden by account administrators. Which AWS feature should the company use?

Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →

A company uses AWS Organizations to centrally manage multiple AWS accounts. The security team requires a mechanism to prevent any IAM user or role in any member account from modifying Amazon S3 bucket policies to grant public access. The solution must be enforced centrally and cannot be overridden by account administrators. Which AWS feature should the company use?

Answer choices

Why each option matters

Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.

A

Distractor review

IAM permissions boundaries

IAM permissions boundaries limit the maximum permissions for an IAM user or role, but they are applied per entity and can be overridden by other policies within the account. They do not provide a centralized guardrail across all member accounts in an organization.

B

Best answer

Service control policies (SCPs)

SCPs are used in AWS Organizations to centrally manage permissions across all accounts. They define the maximum available permissions and can explicitly deny actions like modifying S3 bucket policies. SCPs apply to all principals in the account and cannot be bypassed by account administrators.

C

Distractor review

AWS Config conformance packs

AWS Config conformance packs contain a collection of AWS Config rules and remediation actions. They can evaluate resources against policies and trigger remediation, but they do not actively prevent actions; they detect and potentially fix noncompliant resources after the fact.

D

Distractor review

AWS CloudTrail Insights

AWS CloudTrail Insights analyzes management events to detect unusual activity, such as changes to S3 bucket policies. However, it is a monitoring and logging service; it does not prevent or block API calls.

Common exam trap

Common exam trap: ACLs stop at the first match

ACLs are processed top to bottom. The first matching entry wins, and an implicit deny usually exists at the end.

Technical deep dive

How to think about this question

ACL questions test precision: source, destination, protocol, port and direction. A generally correct ACL can still fail if it is applied on the wrong interface or in the wrong direction.

KKey Concepts to Remember

  • Standard ACLs match source addresses.
  • Extended ACLs can match source, destination, protocol and ports.
  • The first matching ACL entry is used.
  • There is usually an implicit deny at the end.

TExam Day Tips

  • Check inbound versus outbound direction.
  • Read the ACL from top to bottom.
  • Look for a broader permit or deny above the intended line.

Related practice questions

Related CLF-C02 practice-question pages

Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.

More questions from this exam

Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.

Question 1

A developer needs to launch a test server for a new application prototype. The developer logs into the AWS Management Console, selects an Amazon EC2 instance type, configures the security group, and starts the instance. The instance is running within two minutes, and the developer did not need to submit a formal request to the company's IT procurement team or wait for approval from a cloud administrator. Which essential characteristic of cloud computing does this scenario best demonstrate?

Question 2

A solutions architect is planning a new web application on AWS. The workload will include 3 Amazon EC2 instances (t3.medium) running 24/7, an Application Load Balancer, and an Amazon RDS for MySQL db.t3.small database. The architect needs to estimate the monthly cost for the first year, considering different purchasing options (On-Demand, 1-year All Upfront Reserved Instance, and Compute Savings Plan). Which AWS tool should the architect use to create this estimate?

Question 3

A company's development team frequently needs temporary test environments. A developer can log into the AWS Management Console, select an Amazon EC2 instance type, configure storage, and launch the instance within minutes without any interaction with the IT infrastructure team. This capability is an example of which essential characteristic of cloud computing?

Question 4

A company's finance team needs to analyze AWS spending in detail. They require a report that includes hourly cost data for each AWS service, each individual resource (e.g., a specific EC2 instance), and any cost allocation tags applied. The team plans to export this data to an Amazon S3 bucket and then import it into a custom business intelligence (BI) analytics dashboard. Which AWS tool should the finance team use to generate this level of detailed cost data?

Question 5

A company uses AWS for its development environment. The finance team wants to set a monthly budget of $10,000. They want to receive an email notification when the actual costs reach 80% of the budget ($8,000) and again when costs exceed the budget. The team needs a managed AWS service that can automatically send these alerts without requiring custom code or third-party tools. Which AWS service should the team use?

Question 6

A company uses AWS Organizations to manage multiple accounts. The security team needs to enforce a policy that restricts SSH access (port 22) from the internet (0.0.0.0/0) in all VPCs across all accounts. The team wants to centrally define the allowed rules and automatically apply them to newly created VPCs and security groups, while also automatically remediating any existing non-compliant security groups. Which AWS service should the team use?

FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this CLF-C02 question test?

Standard ACLs match source addresses.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Service control policies (SCPs) — Service control policies (SCPs) are a feature of AWS Organizations that allow you to define the maximum permissions for all accounts in an organization. SCPs can deny specific API actions, such as s3:PutBucketPolicy, across all member accounts, and they cannot be overridden by IAM permissions within the account. This makes SCPs the correct choice for centrally enforcing restrictions on modifying S3 bucket policies to prevent public access. IAM permissions boundaries limit the permissions of individual IAM entities but do not prevent actions if the entity's policy explicitly allows them; they are not enforced centrally across all accounts. AWS Config conformance packs can detect noncompliant bucket policies but cannot prevent them from being created. AWS CloudTrail Insights logs anomalous API activity but does not prevent actions.

What should I do if I get this CLF-C02 question wrong?

Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.

Discussion

Loading comments…

Sign in to join the discussion.