DOP-C02 Security and Compliance Practice Question
A company uses AWS KMS to encrypt data in S3. The security team requires that the key material be rotated every 90 days. What should be done to meet this requirement?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates assume automatic rotation can be configured to any interval, but AWS KMS only supports automatic rotation with a fixed 365-day period for customer managed keys, so a 90-day requirement forces manual rotation.
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 a customer managed key and manually rotate it every 90 days.
AWS KMS customer managed keys support manual rotation, which allows you to rotate the key material every 90 days as required. Automatic key rotation for customer managed keys is only available with a minimum rotation period of 365 days (yearly), so it cannot meet a 90-day requirement. Manual rotation creates a new backing key while retaining the old one for decryption of previously encrypted data, ensuring compliance with the 90-day rotation policy.
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 a customer managed key and enable automatic yearly rotation.
Why it's wrong here
Automatic rotation for customer managed keys is fixed at an annual cadence (approximately 365 days) and the frequency cannot be configured. Enabling yearly rotation would leave the key unchanged for far longer than the required 90-day cycle, so this option fails the compliance requirement. To meet a 90-day rotation policy, you must rotate the key manually, because KMS does not support shorter automatic rotation intervals.
- ✗
Use an AWS managed key (SSE-S3) and enable rotation.
Why it's wrong here
AWS managed keys, including the aws/s3 key used for SSE-S3, rotate automatically only about every three years, and you cannot enable or adjust rotation on them. Additionally, SSE-S3 typically refers to S3-managed keys rather than KMS-managed keys, and neither provides a configurable 90-day rotation. This option therefore cannot satisfy the security requirement.
- ✗
Use a custom key store with imported key material and enable automatic rotation.
Why it's wrong here
A custom key store backing an AWS KMS customer managed key with imported key material does not support automatic rotation at all; KMS explicitly disables rotation for imported key material. You could only rotate such a key by creating a new key and manually importing new material, which is not 'enabling automatic rotation.' This approach fails to meet the 90-day rotation mandate.
- ✓
Create a customer managed key and manually rotate it every 90 days.
Why this is correct
Customer managed keys are the only KMS key type that supports manual rotation, allowing you to create a new key and update aliases as needed at any time. By manually rotating every 90 days, the company can enforce its required rotation policy while keeping the same alias or key ID for applications. This gives full control over rotation frequency, unlike automatic rotation which is fixed at yearly.
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 DOP-C02 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 DOP-C02 exam.