CLF-C02 Security and Compliance Practice Question
Which AWS service provides a centrally managed firewall policy that can be applied to multiple AWS accounts and VPCs across an organization?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse AWS WAF (a per-resource firewall) with Firewall Manager (a multi-account policy management service), because both involve firewall rules, but Firewall Manager is specifically designed for centralized governance across an organization.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
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AWS Firewall Manager
AWS Firewall Manager is the correct service because it provides a centralized firewall policy management across multiple accounts and VPCs within an AWS Organization. It allows you to deploy AWS WAF rules, AWS Shield Advanced protections, and VPC security group rules consistently across your entire organization, ensuring a uniform security posture without manual per-account configuration.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
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AWS WAF
Why it's wrong here
AWS WAF is a web application firewall that filters and monitors HTTP(S) traffic to protect web applications from exploits such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting, using rule statements attached to specific resources like CloudFront, ALB, or API Gateway. However, AWS WAF by itself cannot apply these rules consistently across multiple accounts in an AWS Organization; that cross-account policy management is precisely the role of AWS Firewall Manager. Firewall Manager can manage multiple WAF rule sets centrally and automatically remediate noncompliant web ACLs.
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Amazon GuardDuty
Why it's wrong here
Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously analyzes AWS log sources — including VPC Flow Logs, DNS queries, and CloudTrail management events — to identify malicious activity and unauthorized behavior, then generates security findings. It acts as a detective control: it monitors and alerts, but it does not have the ability to deploy, modify, or enforce firewall policies or security group configurations. Centralizing firewall policy management across accounts is outside its scope and is performed by AWS Firewall Manager.
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AWS Firewall Manager
Why this is correct
AWS Firewall Manager is the correct answer because it provides a central place to configure and maintain firewall rules and web application protection policies across all accounts and resources within an AWS Organization. You can use it to govern AWS WAF rules, AWS Shield Advanced protections, security groups, and AWS Network Firewall policies, and it automatically enforces these policies on new and existing resources. This central management ensures consistent security baselines without needing to configure each account individually.
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AWS Security Hub
Why it's wrong here
AWS Security Hub is a cloud security posture management service that aggregates findings from multiple AWS services and third-party tools into a unified console, providing a comprehensive view of security alerts and compliance status. It does not deploy or manage firewall policies, security group rules, or network protections — it only collects and correlates event data. To centrally enforce firewall rules across accounts, you need AWS Firewall Manager, not Security Hub.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CLF-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CLF-C02 exam.