ANS-C01 Network Security, Compliance and Governance Practice Question
A company is using AWS Shield Advanced to protect against DDoS attacks. The security team wants to receive notifications when an attack is detected. Which service should be used to send these notifications?
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
✓
Amazon SNS
AWS Shield Advanced integrates with Amazon CloudWatch to publish metrics and events. These events can be routed via Amazon EventBridge to trigger an Amazon SNS topic, which then sends notifications (e.g., email, SMS) to the security team. Option A (AWS Lambda) is a compute service, not a notification service. Option B (AWS Config) is used for configuration auditing and compliance, not notifications. Option C (Amazon SQS) is a message queue service; although it can receive events, it is not the service used to send direct notifications to subscribers. Only Amazon SNS (Option D) provides push-based notifications to endpoints like email, SMS, and mobile devices.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS Lambda
Why it's wrong here
Lambda can process events but does not directly send notifications.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
Config is for evaluating resource configurations, not for notifications.
- ✗
Amazon SQS
Why it's wrong here
SQS is a message queue, not a notification service.
- ✓
Amazon SNS
Why this is correct
SNS can send notifications via email, SMS, etc., triggered by CloudWatch Events.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This ANS-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 ANS-C01 exam.