SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company has a multi-account AWS environment and uses AWS Organizations. The security team wants to automatically remediate non-compliant resources, such as S3 buckets that are publicly accessible. Which design should they implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse preventive controls (SCPs) with detective and corrective controls (AWS Config + Lambda), assuming SCPs can automatically fix existing non-compliant resources, when in reality SCPs only block future API actions and do not remediate current state.
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 AWS Config rules to detect public buckets and trigger an AWS Lambda function to make them private.
AWS Config rules can continuously evaluate S3 bucket configurations against a custom or managed rule (e.g., 's3-bucket-public-read-prohibited'). When a bucket is detected as publicly accessible, the rule can invoke an AWS Lambda function via an Amazon CloudWatch Events event to automatically apply a bucket policy that removes public access, achieving automated remediation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use Amazon Inspector to scan for public buckets.
Why it's wrong here
Amazon Inspector assesses EC2 instances, container images and Lambda functions for vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure; it does not evaluate S3 bucket policies or public access settings. It is tempting because it is a native security assessment service, but it is the correct choice for vulnerability scanning of compute workloads, not S3 configuration.
- ✗
Use an SCP to deny making buckets public.
Why it's wrong here
An SCP only blocks the API call that would make a bucket public; it neither detects existing public buckets nor remediates them, so it cannot satisfy the automatic remediation requirement. It is tempting because SCPs enforce guardrails across all accounts in AWS Organizations, which suits preventive, organisation-wide policy control.
- ✓
Use AWS Config rules to detect public buckets and trigger an AWS Lambda function to make them private.
Why this is correct
AWS Config rules detect publicly accessible S3 buckets and can invoke an AWS Lambda function as a remediation action, automatically making them private. This provides continuous detection and automated response across all accounts in the organisation.
- ✗
Use AWS CloudTrail to send alerts when a bucket becomes public.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail records API activity and can trigger alerts, but it does not itself change resource configuration, so it detects rather than remediates. It is tempting because CloudTrail provides the organisation-wide audit trail and event source that a remediation pipeline would consume, making it the right choice for detection and logging alone.
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 |
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAP-C02 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 SAP-C02 exam.