DEA-C01 Data Security and Governance Practice Question
A company uses AWS Lake Formation to manage data lakes on Amazon S3. The data engineer needs to grant a data analyst access to query specific columns in a table using Amazon Athena, but deny access to columns containing personally identifiable information (PII). Which Lake Formation feature should be used?
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
✓
Column-level permissions in Lake Formation.
Lake Formation column-level permissions allow granting access to specific columns and denying access to others. This is the correct feature for restricting access to PII columns while allowing querying other columns. Row-level security (A) controls which rows are visible, not columns. Tag-based access control (C) is for resource categorization, not fine-grained column access. Cell-level security (D) is not a feature of Lake Formation or AWS Glue.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Row-level security filters.
Why it's wrong here
Row-level security filters rows, not columns.
- ✓
Column-level permissions in Lake Formation.
Why this is correct
Column-level permissions allow granting access to specific columns and denying others.
- ✗
Tag-based access control with Lake Formation tags.
Why it's wrong here
Tags control resource access, not column-level granularity.
- ✗
Cell-level security with AWS Glue.
Why it's wrong here
Cell-level security is not directly supported by Lake Formation.
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
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,711 original DEA-C01 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-C01 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 DEA-C01 exam.