CLF-C02 Security and Compliance Practice Question
A company's security team wants to automatically remediate non-compliant AWS Config rules, such as automatically enabling S3 server-side encryption on any bucket found without it. Which AWS Config feature enables this?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse AWS Config's compliance reporting (Option A) with its remediation capabilities, assuming that reporting alone can fix issues, or they mistakenly think Security Hub (Option C) or GuardDuty (Option D) can perform automated compliance remediation, when in fact those services are for aggregation and threat detection, not for executing configuration changes.
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
✓
AWS Config Rules with Automatic Remediation using SSM Automation
AWS Config Rules with Automatic Remediation using SSM Automation (Option B) is the correct feature because it allows you to associate an SSM Automation document with a non-compliant AWS Config rule. When a resource is evaluated as non-compliant, Config can automatically invoke the SSM Automation runbook to remediate the issue—for example, enabling S3 server-side encryption on a bucket that lacks it. This directly satisfies the security team's requirement for automated, policy-driven remediation without manual intervention.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS Config rule compliance reporting only
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config rule compliance reporting alone is a passive audit function: it evaluates resources against managed or custom rules and flags non-compliant ones, but it does not alter those resources. Without an attached remediation action, any corrective step—such as enabling encryption on an S3 bucket or configuring security groups—must be performed manually by an engineer, meaning compliance gaps persist until someone intervenes.
- ✓
AWS Config Rules with Automatic Remediation using SSM Automation
Why this is correct
AWS Config Rules with Automatic Remediation is the correct approach because it closes the loop between detection and correction. When a rule evaluates a resource as non-compliant, Config can invoke an AWS Systems Manager Automation document—for instance, one that enables S3 default encryption or turns on VPC Flow Logs—as an automatic response. This remediation runs without human intervention, so configuration drift is fixed continuously, ensuring resources remain aligned with corporate compliance policies.
- ✗
AWS Security Hub findings export to S3
Why it's wrong here
Exporting Security Hub findings to S3 is purely a data-delivery mechanism: it copies aggregated security findings—including those from Config rules, GuardDuty, and Inspector—into an S3 bucket for long-term storage, analysis, or integration with tools like Athena. While this enables security teams to query or visualize non-compliance trends, it does not trigger any modification to the flagged resources. The export itself neither evaluates resources nor executes corrective actions, so non-compliant configurations stay non-compliant unless another automation is separately built.
- ✗
Amazon GuardDuty threat response
Why it's wrong here
Amazon GuardDuty is a threat-detection service that uses machine learning and anomaly detection on data such as VPC Flow Logs, DNS logs, and CloudTrail events to identify malicious activity like reconnaissance or unauthorized access. It has no awareness of AWS Config rule definitions and lacks any direct capability to remediate configuration drift—for example, it cannot enable a disabled encryption setting or adjust a overly permissive IAM policy. Therefore, while GuardDuty is valuable for security incident response, it doesn't address the compliance-focused, automated remediation described in the scenario.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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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.