DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A data engineer is building a data lake on Amazon S3 and must enforce that all objects containing personally identifiable information are encrypted with a customer managed AWS KMS key, while allowing automatic key rotation and audit of key usage. Objects must remain readable by an AWS Glue job and an Amazon Athena workgroup. Which configuration should the engineer choose?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is treating any KMS-based encryption as equivalent, when only a customer managed key provides configurable rotation and a key policy that can be audited and restricted.
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
✓
SSE-KMS with a customer managed key, key rotation enabled, and bucket policy enforcing the key
A customer managed KMS key with SSE-KMS satisfies control, rotation, and auditability: the key policy scopes who may use it, automatic rotation can be enabled, and CloudTrail logs every Encrypt, Decrypt, and GenerateDataKey call. A bucket policy that denies noncompliant uploads enforces the standard, and granting the Glue role and Athena workgroup decrypt permissions keeps analytics working. AWS managed keys and SSE-S3 cannot meet the customer control and rotation requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Client-side encryption with an application managed key stored in the application code
Why it's wrong here
Client-side encryption means S3 stores already encrypted bytes and cannot enforce key usage or provide KMS audit trails. Storing the key in application code is a serious security weakness and prevents automatic rotation through AWS KMS. Glue and Athena would need custom decryption logic, which is not natively supported for cataloged tables. This approach fails the customer managed KMS key, rotation, and audit requirements.
- ✗
SSE-KMS with the AWS managed key aws/s3 and default bucket encryption
Why it's wrong here
The AWS managed key aws/s3 encrypts objects and is visible in CloudTrail, but the customer cannot manage its key policy, cannot control rotation timing, and cannot restrict its use to specific principals. It is shared across the account for S3, so it does not satisfy the requirement for a customer managed key dedicated to PII data with controlled rotation.
- ✓
SSE-KMS with a customer managed key, key rotation enabled, and bucket policy enforcing the key
Why this is correct
SSE-KMS with a customer managed key gives the organization control over the key policy, enables automatic annual rotation, and records every cryptographic operation in AWS CloudTrail for audit. A bucket policy that denies uploads not using the specified key enforces consistency. Granting the Glue role and Athena workgroup kms:Decrypt and kms:GenerateDataKey permissions allows both services to read and write objects.
- ✗
SSE-S3 with bucket versioning enabled
Why it's wrong here
SSE-S3 uses S3 managed keys and encrypts objects at rest, but it provides no customer control over the key, no configurable rotation policy, and no CloudTrail visibility into individual key usage. Auditors cannot verify which key protected which object or when rotation occurred. This meets baseline encryption but fails the requirement for a customer managed KMS key with rotation and usage auditing.
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 |
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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.