SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a multi-account AWS environment using AWS Organizations. The security team requires that all Amazon S3 buckets across accounts must have server access logging enabled and must block public access. What is the MOST scalable and secure way to enforce these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently choose detective solutions like AWS Config (Option D) or deployment solutions like CloudFormation StackSets (Option A), failing to recognize that only a preventive, organization-wide guardrail like SCPs can enforce compliance at scale and prevent non-compliant actions from ever succeeding.
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
✓
Apply service control policies (SCPs) at the organizational unit (OU) level to deny actions that disable logging or enable public access
Service control policies (SCPs) at the OU level are the most scalable and secure way to enforce guardrails across all accounts in an AWS Organization. By denying actions that disable server access logging (e.g., s3:PutBucketLogging with a condition that the logging target is not set) and actions that enable public access (e.g., s3:PutBucketPublicAccessBlock with a condition that the block is not set to true), SCPs prevent non-compliant configurations from being created or modified, regardless of the IAM principal used. This approach is centralized, immutable by child accounts, and scales automatically as new accounts are added to the OU.
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 AWS CloudFormation StackSets to deploy S3 buckets with logging and public access blocks
Why it's wrong here
CloudFormation does not prevent creation of non-compliant buckets outside the stack.
- ✓
Apply service control policies (SCPs) at the organizational unit (OU) level to deny actions that disable logging or enable public access
Why this is correct
SCPs centrally enforce restrictions across all accounts.
- ✗
Create IAM roles in each account with policies that require logging and block public access
Why it's wrong here
IAM roles cannot enforce settings on existing resources.
- ✗
Use AWS Config rules to detect non-compliant buckets and send notifications
Why it's wrong here
Config only detects, does not enforce.
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.