Question 1hardmultiple choice
Full question →hardmultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A developer is building an application that needs to read a secret API key from AWS Secrets Manager. The application runs on an EC2 instance that is part of an Auto Scaling group. The developer wants to ensure that only this application can retrieve the secret. Which set of steps should the developer take?
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
Store the secret in Secrets Manager, create an IAM user with a policy to read the secret, and embed the user's credentials in the application code
Incorrect. Embedding credentials in code is a security risk; they can be exposed. Also, IAM users have long-term credentials, which are less secure than using roles with temporary credentials.
B
Best answer
Store the secret in Secrets Manager, attach an IAM role to the EC2 instance that grants permission to read the secret, and configure the application to retrieve the secret using the AWS SDK
Correct. This follows the least privilege principle and uses temporary credentials from the instance profile, which are automatically rotated, providing a secure and scalable solution.
C
Distractor review
Store the secret as an environment variable in the EC2 user data
Incorrect. User data is visible in the EC2 console and logs, and environment variables can be exposed through the operating system. This is not secure.
D
Distractor review
Store the secret in a configuration file on the instance and restrict file permissions
Incorrect. Storing secrets in files on disk, even with restrictive permissions, is less secure than using AWS Secrets Manager with IAM roles because it requires managing file distribution and rotation manually.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Store the secret in Secrets Manager, attach an IAM role to the EC2 instance that grants permission to read the secret, and configure the application to retrieve the secret using the AWS SDK — The best practice is to attach an IAM role to the EC2 instance (via an instance profile) that includes a policy granting permission to call secretsmanager:GetSecretValue on the specific secret. The application uses the AWS SDK to retrieve the secret, which automatically obtains temporary credentials from the instance metadata. This eliminates the need to hardcode credentials and ensures that only the instances with that role can access the secret.
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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