Question 1hardmultiple choice
Full question →hardmultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company has an AWS Lambda function that processes sensitive financial data. The function uses environment variables to store database connection strings. A security audit requires that all sensitive data be encrypted at rest and in transit. The developer must ensure that the environment variables are encrypted with a customer-managed key that is rotated quarterly. What should the developer do?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
Use AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store with a SecureString parameter using an AWS managed key
Parameter Store does not support automated rotation of secret values; you would have to implement manual rotation, which does not meet the automatic quarterly requirement.
B
Best answer
Store the connection string in AWS Secrets Manager and enable automatic rotation with a custom Lambda function
Secrets Manager supports automatic rotation with custom Lambda functions, allowing you to rotate the secret every 90 days using a customer-managed KMS key.
C
Distractor review
Encrypt the environment variables using the Lambda service key
The Lambda service key is AWS-managed and cannot be used for customer-scheduled rotation. Also, environment variables are not ideal for frequent rotation.
D
Distractor review
Use AWS KMS to encrypt the environment variables and set a manual rotation policy
Manual rotation does not satisfy the requirement for automatic quarterly rotation.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Related practice questions
Related DVA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A developer is building a REST API using Amazon API Gateway that will serve static content from an Amazon S3 bucket. The API should cache responses for frequently accessed objects to reduce latency. Which API Gateway feature should the developer enable?
Question 2
A developer is running a web application on multiple Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application needs to store user session state that must be available across all instances. The session data is small and temporary but must survive individual instance failures. Which AWS service should the developer use to store this session state?
Question 3
A developer has an AWS Lambda function that processes messages from an Amazon SQS standard queue. The function is idempotent and currently has a batch size of 10. The developer wants to increase throughput and increases the batch size to 100. After the change, CloudWatch metrics show a significant increase in throttles and the queue backlog is growing. The function's reserved concurrency is set to 10. What is the most effective action to resolve the throttling and improve throughput?
Question 4
A developer is managing an application running on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. Users report that the application becomes unresponsive after several hours, and restarting the instance temporarily fixes the issue. The developer suspects a memory leak but cannot add custom instrumentation. Which AWS service can collect memory utilization metrics and help identify the memory leak with minimal configuration?
Question 5
A developer is building a serverless web application using AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB. The application needs to perform complex aggregations on data stored in DynamoDB. Which AWS service should the developer use to perform these aggregations efficiently without reading all the data into Lambda?
Question 6
A developer has an Amazon S3 bucket containing private user documents. The application must generate a time-limited URL for users to download their own documents without requiring the users to have AWS credentials. Which solution should the developer use?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this DVA-C02 question test?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Store the connection string in AWS Secrets Manager and enable automatic rotation with a custom Lambda function — AWS Secrets Manager allows you to store secrets (e.g., database connection strings) and configure automatic rotation with a custom Lambda function. You can set the rotation interval to 90 days (quarterly) and use a customer-managed KMS key for encryption. This meets all requirements: encryption at rest (via KMS), encryption in transit (Secrets Manager uses TLS), and automatic quarterly rotation. Systems Manager Parameter Store does not support custom rotation schedules out-of-the-box. Using Lambda service keys or manual rotation does not fulfill the automatic quarterly rotation requirement.
What should I do if I get this DVA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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