ANS-C01 Network Security, Compliance and Governance Practice Question
A company is using AWS Shield Advanced to protect against DDoS attacks. They want to receive notifications when an attack is detected. Which AWS service should they integrate with to receive 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 CloudWatch and Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
AWS Shield Advanced sends metrics to CloudWatch, and you can create CloudWatch alarms to trigger SNS notifications. Option A (SQS) is for queuing. Option B (Lambda) can be triggered but SNS is simpler. Option D (Kinesis) is for streaming.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
Why it's wrong here
SQS is a message queue; not directly for notifications.
- ✗
AWS Lambda
Why it's wrong here
AWS Lambda is a compute service that executes code in response to triggers, but it cannot natively receive or route notifications from AWS Shield Advanced. The correct service, Amazon SNS, publishes attack alerts to subscribers via topics, whereas Lambda would require an intermediary like SNS to invoke it. This option is tempting because Lambda can process event-driven responses to DDoS events, such as automatically updating security groups, if first integrated with SNS as the notification target.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch and Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Why this is correct
Shield metrics in CloudWatch can trigger SNS notifications.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Why it's wrong here
Kinesis is for real-time streaming, not notifications.
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.