- A
Attach an identity-based policy in each account that denies CloudTrail changes.
Why wrong: Identity policies are easy to bypass if account admins can create other roles or policies within the same account.
- B
Use a service control policy on the sandbox organizational unit to deny the prohibited actions.
Service control policies are the correct governance mechanism for setting guardrails across multiple accounts in AWS Organizations. An SCP can explicitly deny sensitive actions such as disabling CloudTrail or deleting the audit bucket, and those denies apply even if administrators create local IAM policies that would otherwise allow the actions. SCPs do not grant permissions by themselves; they only constrain what account principals can ever do within the OU.
- C
Create an S3 bucket policy that allows only the audit team role to delete objects.
Why wrong: A bucket policy can protect the bucket itself, but it does not stop CloudTrail from being disabled in the account.
- D
Apply a permission boundary to each IAM user in the sandbox accounts.
Why wrong: Permission boundaries help control specific IAM principals, but they do not provide a broad account-level guardrail across all principals and services.
Quick Answer
The answer is a service control policy (SCP) applied to the sandbox organizational unit. This is correct because SCPs act as a centralized guardrail at the AWS Organizations level, setting maximum permissions for all accounts in an OU; an SCP that explicitly denies disabling CloudTrail or deleting the audit bucket will override any permissive IAM policies created later by an account administrator, ensuring the security team’s requirements are enforced. On the SAA-C03 exam, this tests your understanding of the difference between identity-based policies and account-level guardrails—a common trap is choosing an IAM policy, which can be overridden by a rogue admin, whereas an SCP cannot be bypassed from within the account. Remember the hierarchy: SCPs set a boundary, IAM policies grant permissions inside that boundary. For a memory tip, think “SCP = Security Ceiling Policy”—it caps what even an admin can do.
SAA-C03 Design Secure Architectures Practice Question
This SAA-C03 practice question tests your understanding of design secure architectures. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company uses AWS Organizations and has separate development, test, and production accounts. The security team wants to ensure that no one in the sandbox organizational unit can disable AWS CloudTrail or delete the central audit bucket, even if an account administrator creates permissive IAM policies later. Which control 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
Use a service control policy on the sandbox organizational unit to deny the prohibited actions.
Service control policies (SCPs) are the correct mechanism because they act as a centralized guardrail at the AWS Organizations level, setting maximum permissions for all accounts in an organizational unit (OU). Even if an account administrator creates permissive IAM policies later, an SCP that explicitly denies disabling CloudTrail or deleting the central audit bucket will override those permissions, ensuring the security team's requirements are enforced across the sandbox OU.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Attach an identity-based policy in each account that denies CloudTrail changes.
Why it's wrong here
Identity policies are easy to bypass if account admins can create other roles or policies within the same account.
- ✓
Use a service control policy on the sandbox organizational unit to deny the prohibited actions.
Why this is correct
Service control policies are the correct governance mechanism for setting guardrails across multiple accounts in AWS Organizations. An SCP can explicitly deny sensitive actions such as disabling CloudTrail or deleting the audit bucket, and those denies apply even if administrators create local IAM policies that would otherwise allow the actions. SCPs do not grant permissions by themselves; they only constrain what account principals can ever do within the OU.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Create an S3 bucket policy that allows only the audit team role to delete objects.
Why it's wrong here
A bucket policy can protect the bucket itself, but it does not stop CloudTrail from being disabled in the account.
- ✗
Apply a permission boundary to each IAM user in the sandbox accounts.
Why it's wrong here
Permission boundaries help control specific IAM principals, but they do not provide a broad account-level guardrail across all principals and services.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse service control policies with IAM permission boundaries or resource-based policies, thinking that a bucket policy or permission boundary can prevent service-level actions like disabling CloudTrail, when only an SCP can enforce such restrictions across all principals in an entire OU.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, SCPs are evaluated as an explicit deny that cannot be overridden by any allow within the account, following the AWS authorization model where an explicit deny always takes precedence. A common real-world scenario is when a developer in the sandbox account creates an IAM role with full administrator access; without an SCP, that role could disable CloudTrail, but with an SCP denying `cloudtrail:StopLogging` and `cloudtrail:DeleteTrail`, the action is blocked regardless of the role's permissions. SCPs do not grant permissions themselves; they only filter what is allowed by identity-based or resource-based policies.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SAA-C03 question test?
Design Secure Architectures — This question tests Design Secure Architectures — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use a service control policy on the sandbox organizational unit to deny the prohibited actions. — Service control policies (SCPs) are the correct mechanism because they act as a centralized guardrail at the AWS Organizations level, setting maximum permissions for all accounts in an organizational unit (OU). Even if an account administrator creates permissive IAM policies later, an SCP that explicitly denies disabling CloudTrail or deleting the central audit bucket will override those permissions, ensuring the security team's requirements are enforced across the sandbox OU.
What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This SAA-C03 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 SAA-C03 exam.
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