MLA-C01 Practice Question: ML Solution Monitoring, Maintenance, and Security

A company has a SageMaker endpoint that serves a recommendation model. The security team wants to ensure that the model artifacts stored in Amazon S3 are encrypted at rest and that access to the S3 bucket is limited to the SageMaker execution role only. The team also wants to receive alerts if the bucket policy is changed. Which combination of actions should the machine learning engineer take?

⚠ Common exam trap

The trap here is assuming that server access logging or GuardDuty provides encryption and policy-change alerting, when they only log access or detect threats.

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 default encryption on the S3 bucket using AWS KMS, restrict the bucket policy to the SageMaker execution role, and enable AWS CloudTrail logging for S3 bucket policy changes with a CloudWatch alarm.

Encryption at rest is achieved with S3 default encryption using AWS KMS. Least privilege access is enforced by a bucket policy that allows only the SageMaker execution role. Alerting on bucket policy changes requires CloudTrail to log the event and a CloudWatch alarm to notify when the policy is modified.

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 Transfer Acceleration and restrict access using an IAM policy attached to the SageMaker execution role.
Why it's wrong here
S3 Transfer Acceleration speeds up uploads over long distances but does not encrypt data at rest or restrict bucket access. An IAM policy on the execution role grants permissions but does not prevent other principals from accessing the bucket if the bucket policy allows it, and it provides no alerting on policy changes.
✗
Enable S3 server access logging and use Amazon GuardDuty to monitor for unauthorized access to the bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Server access logging records requests to the bucket but does not encrypt data at rest or restrict access. GuardDuty detects suspicious activity but does not alert specifically on bucket policy changes, and it does not enforce encryption or least privilege access.
✗
Use S3 Object Lock in compliance mode and attach a bucket policy that denies all principals except the SageMaker execution role.
Why it's wrong here
S3 Object Lock prevents object deletion or modification for a retention period but does not encrypt data at rest or provide alerting on policy changes. While the bucket policy restricts access, Object Lock addresses immutability, not encryption, and no alerting mechanism is included.
✓
Enable default encryption on the S3 bucket using AWS KMS, restrict the bucket policy to the SageMaker execution role, and enable AWS CloudTrail logging for S3 bucket policy changes with a CloudWatch alarm.
Why this is correct
Enabling default encryption with AWS KMS ensures artifacts are encrypted at rest. Restricting the bucket policy to the SageMaker execution role enforces least privilege. CloudTrail logs S3 bucket policy changes, and a CloudWatch alarm on the relevant event pattern provides alerting when the policy is modified.

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

MLA-C01 Practice Question: ML Solution Monitoring, Maintenance, and Security

Why each option matters

Option-by-option breakdown

AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison

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