SAA-C03 Design Secure Architectures Practice Question
An EC2 instance in a private subnet must access an S3 bucket that contains regulated exports for a customer analytics portal. The security team requires access to be allowed only when traffic comes through a specific VPC endpoint. What should the architect add to the bucket policy? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse security group rules with bucket policies, or assume that restricting by IAM user or region is sufficient to enforce network-level control, when in fact only the `aws:sourceVpce` condition key directly ties access to a specific VPC endpoint.
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
✓
A condition that matches aws:sourceVpce to the endpoint ID
The bucket policy can use the `aws:sourceVpce` condition key to restrict access exclusively to traffic originating from a specific VPC endpoint ID. This ensures that only requests sent through that VPC endpoint are allowed, meeting the security team's requirement without requiring custom scripts or additional infrastructure.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A security group rule that allows HTTPS to S3
Why it's wrong here
Security groups do not attach to S3 buckets and cannot enforce S3 bucket access.
- ✗
A condition that matches aws:RequestedRegion to the bucket Region
Why it's wrong here
RequestedRegion limits API calls by Region but does not prove traffic used the endpoint.
- ✗
A deny statement for all IAM users except the EC2 role
Why it's wrong here
This controls identity but does not enforce the network path through the endpoint.
- ✓
A condition that matches aws:sourceVpce to the endpoint ID
Why this is correct
The aws:sourceVpce condition restricts S3 access to requests that arrive through the specified VPC endpoint.
Visual reference
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 |
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.