SAA-C03 Design Secure Architectures Practice Question
A solutions architect is designing an S3 bucket for a healthcare document service. The objects must never be publicly accessible, even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy. What should the architect configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates think an IAM policy can block anonymous users, but IAM policies never apply to unauthenticated requests—only bucket policies and S3 Block Public Access can control anonymous access.
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
✓
Enable S3 Block Public Access at the account or bucket level
S3 Block Public Access provides a definitive override that prevents any public access to objects, regardless of bucket policies or object ACLs. When enabled at the account or bucket level, it blocks all public access settings, ensuring that even if a developer later adds an overly broad bucket policy, the objects remain inaccessible to anonymous users. This is essential for compliance with healthcare regulations like HIPAA, where data must never be publicly exposed.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable server access logging on the bucket
Why it's wrong here
Server access logging captures detailed records of each request made to the bucket, including IP addresses and request types, which is useful for auditing after an incident. However, it operates as a passive observability feature and does not alter or override the bucket's access control settings. As a result, enabling logging cannot prevent a public ACL or bucket policy from exposing the healthcare documents.
- ✗
Enable S3 Transfer Acceleration
Why it's wrong here
S3 Transfer Acceleration improves upload speeds by routing traffic through AWS edge locations, but its sole purpose is to optimize network latency for data transfers. It has no effect on the bucket's permission model, since it only changes how data arrives, not who is allowed to read or write it. Therefore, enabling it cannot block anonymous users from accessing the bucket's contents.
- ✗
Create an IAM policy that denies s3:GetObject to anonymous users
Why it's wrong here
An IAM policy that denies s3:GetObject to anonymous users is ineffective because IAM policies are attached to IAM principals such as users, groups, or roles, and anonymous requests have no IAM identity to which to attach the policy. A bucket policy with a Principal of '*' is the resource-based way to manage anonymous access, but even that can be overridden by S3 Block Public Access. IAM policies cannot be applied to 'anonymous users' because they do not exist as a principal in IAM.
- ✓
Enable S3 Block Public Access at the account or bucket level
Why this is correct
S3 Block Public Access at the account or bucket level provides four protective settings that prohibit public ACLs, ignore existing public ACLs, block public bucket policies, and restrict any bucket policy that would grant public access. For a healthcare document service, this acts as a strict guardrail that nullifies any accidental public exposure, regardless of how a bucket policy or ACL is configured. Since the settings are enforced centrally, they provide comprehensive coverage against bucket misconfiguration.
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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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.