ANS-C01 Network Security, Compliance and Governance Practice Question
A security team is designing a network architecture that must meet PCI DSS compliance. They have a VPC with multiple subnets and need to ensure that all traffic between subnets is inspected by a stateful firewall. The solution must also support scalability and high availability. Which AWS service should they use?
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
✓
AWS Network Firewall
AWS Network Firewall provides stateful inspection, scales automatically, and supports high availability, making it suitable for PCI DSS compliance. Option B (security groups) is wrong because security groups are stateful but operate at the instance level and do not provide centralized traffic inspection between subnets. Option C (AWS WAF) is wrong because it focuses on web application layer (HTTP/S) traffic, not network-layer inspection. Option D (Network ACLs) is wrong because they are stateless and only provide basic allow/deny rules without stateful inspection.
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 Network Firewall
Why this is correct
AWS Network Firewall provides stateful inspection, scales automatically, and supports high availability, making it suitable for PCI DSS compliance.
- ✗
Security groups on each subnet
Why it's wrong here
Security groups are stateful but operate at the instance level and do not provide centralized traffic inspection between subnets.
- ✗
AWS WAF
Why it's wrong here
AWS WAF is wrong because it focuses on web application layer (HTTP/S) traffic, not network-layer inspection.
- ✗
Network ACLs on each subnet
Why it's wrong here
Network ACLs are wrong because they are stateless and only provide basic allow/deny rules without stateful inspection.
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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.