MLS-C01 Data Engineering Practice Question
A financial services company needs to build a data lake on Amazon S3 that meets regulatory requirements for data retention and encryption. Data must be encrypted at rest and in transit, and access must be audited. The data lake will be queried by Amazon Athena and Amazon Redshift Spectrum. Which combination of actions should be taken?
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
✓
Enable S3 default encryption with SSE-KMS and enable AWS CloudTrail for S3 data events.
S3 default encryption with SSE-KMS provides encryption at rest with customer-managed keys, and enabling AWS CloudTrail for S3 data events provides comprehensive auditing of access to the data lake. This combination meets the regulatory requirements for data retention, encryption, and audit. Option B is incorrect because SSL/TLS only ensures encryption in transit, and versioning does not provide encryption at rest or auditing. Option C is incorrect because IAM policies control access but do not provide encryption. Option D is incorrect because SSE-S3 does not allow key management control, which may be required, and S3 access logs are less detailed than CloudTrail for auditing.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Enable S3 default encryption with SSE-KMS and enable AWS CloudTrail for S3 data events.
Why this is correct
SSE-KMS provides encryption with managed keys; CloudTrail logs data events for auditing.
- ✗
Use IAM policies to control access and enable S3 server access logging.
Why it's wrong here
IAM policies control access but do not encrypt data.
- ✗
Use SSL/TLS for all connections and enable S3 versioning.
Why it's wrong here
Versioning helps with retention but not encryption at rest.
- ✗
Enable S3 default encryption with SSE-S3 and use S3 access logs.
Why it's wrong here
SSE-S3 does not provide customer-managed keys, and access logs are not as detailed as CloudTrail.
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 |
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This MLS-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 MLS-C01 exam.