DEA-C01 Data Security and Governance Practice Question
A data engineer is designing a data lake on Amazon S3 with AWS Lake Formation. The data lake contains personally identifiable information (PII). The company has a policy that only users who have completed data privacy training can access the PII data. The training status is stored in an external identity provider (IdP) as an attribute. The data engineer needs to enforce this policy using Lake Formation. Which THREE steps should the data engineer take? (Choose THREE.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse column-level filters (Option C) with tag-based access control, not realizing that column-level filters cannot dynamically evaluate external IdP attributes, whereas LF-tags with SAML assertions can enforce attribute-based policies.
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
✓
Create an LF-tag called 'trainingCompleted' with values 'true' and 'false'. Grant 'SELECT' permission on the LF-tag 'trainingCompleted=true' to the federated users.
LF-tags allow Lake Formation to manage access based on metadata attributes. By creating an LF-tag 'trainingCompleted' with values 'true' and 'false', and granting SELECT permission on the tag value 'true' to federated users, the data engineer can enforce that only users with the training attribute can access the tagged resources. This approach decouples access control from IAM roles and leverages tag-based authorization, which is the recommended method for attribute-based access control (ABAC) in Lake Formation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Create an LF-tag called 'trainingCompleted' with values 'true' and 'false'. Grant 'SELECT' permission on the LF-tag 'trainingCompleted=true' to the federated users.
Why this is correct
This allows users with the tag to access data associated with that tag.
- ✓
Configure SAML-based federation between the IdP and AWS to pass the training status attribute in the SAML assertion.
Why this is correct
This allows Lake Formation to receive the attribute.
- ✗
Create a column-level filter on the PII columns that limits access based on the user's training attribute.
Why it's wrong here
Column-level filters do not support attributes; they filter by column name.
- ✗
Create an IAM role for each user and attach a policy that allows 'lakeformation:GetDataAccess' only if the user has the training attribute.
Why it's wrong here
IAM roles cannot be granted LF-tag permissions; Lake Formation manages grants.
- ✓
Associate the LF-tag 'trainingCompleted=true' with the PII columns in the tables.
Why this is correct
This marks the PII columns as accessible only to users with that tag.
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 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.