easyMultiple Choice
MLA-C01 Practice Question: A company stores its model training data in…
A company stores its model training data in Amazon S3. To meet compliance requirements, all data in transit between the S3 bucket and SageMaker must be encrypted. What should the company enforce?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse encryption at rest (SSE-S3) with encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS), leading them to select Option D when the question explicitly asks about data in transit.
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
✓
Enforce HTTPS for all S3 access
Enforcing HTTPS for all S3 access ensures that data in transit between the S3 bucket and SageMaker is encrypted using TLS. This meets the compliance requirement for encrypting data in transit, as HTTPS uses TLS to protect data as it travels over the network.
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 versioning
Why it's wrong here
Versioning retains object revisions; it does not encrypt traffic, so plaintext HTTP transfers between S3 and SageMaker persist. It is tempting because versioning protects against accidental overwrites and deletion, and would be correct for data durability and recovery requirements rather than transport confidentiality.
- ✗
Enable S3 access logging
Why it's wrong here
Access logging records requests made to the bucket but leaves the data itself unencrypted in transit. It is tempting because logging supports audit trails and forensic investigation, and would be correct when the requirement is monitoring who accessed objects rather than enforcing encryption.
- ✓
Enforce HTTPS for all S3 access
Why this is correct
Enforcing HTTPS via an S3 bucket policy with aws:SecureTransport denies any request not using TLS, so all traffic between S3 and SageMaker is encrypted in transit. This satisfies the compliance constraint, whereas SSE-KMS or SSE-S3 encrypt data at rest only.
- ✗
Use S3 server-side encryption (SSE-S3)
Why it's wrong here
SSE-S3 encrypts data at rest within the bucket, not data in transit between S3 and SageMaker. It is tempting because it satisfies encryption-at-rest compliance for stored objects, and would be the right control when the requirement is protecting data on disk rather than enforcing TLS on the wire.
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 MLA-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 MLA-C01 exam.