SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new data lake solution on AWS using Amazon S3 as the storage layer. The data lake will be used by multiple teams for analytics and machine learning. The company needs to enforce fine-grained access control at the object level, enable auditing of data access, and ensure that sensitive data is masked for unauthorized users. Which combination of AWS services should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume IAM policies or S3 bucket policies alone can achieve fine-grained access control, but they lack the column/row-level granularity and dynamic data masking that Lake Formation and S3 Object Lambda provide.
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 Lake Formation for fine-grained access control and auditing, and Amazon S3 Object Lambda to mask data on the fly.
AWS Lake Formation provides fine-grained access control at the column, row, and cell level for data in S3, and it integrates with AWS CloudTrail for auditing data access. Amazon S3 Object Lambda can transform data on the fly, such as masking sensitive fields, before returning it to the requester, meeting the requirement to mask data for unauthorized users.
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 S3 bucket policies and S3 access logs for auditing.
Why it's wrong here
Bucket policies grant access at bucket or prefix granularity, not per object, and S3 access logs record requests without the detailed audit trail or masking capability required. It is tempting because these are native, low-cost S3 features, making them suitable for coarse-grained access control and basic request logging.
- ✗
Use Amazon Macie to discover sensitive data and apply S3 bucket policies to restrict access.
Why it's wrong here
Macie discovers and classifies sensitive data but cannot mask it per user, and bucket policies operate at bucket or prefix level, not per object or per column. It is tempting because Macie genuinely identifies sensitive content, which suits compliance discovery rather than the fine-grained access and masking this data lake requires.
- ✗
Use IAM policies with condition keys and enable AWS CloudTrail for auditing.
Why it's wrong here
IAM condition keys cannot mask sensitive data for unauthorised users, and CloudTrail records API activity rather than data-access auditing with row or column filtering. It is tempting because IAM policies and CloudTrail are the standard AWS access-control and audit pair, which suits general permission management without data masking.
- ✓
Use AWS Lake Formation for fine-grained access control and auditing, and Amazon S3 Object Lambda to mask data on the fly.
Why this is correct
AWS Lake Formation enforces column-, row- and cell-level permissions at the table level, satisfying the fine-grained access and audit requirements, while Amazon S3 Object Lambda intercepts GET requests to redact or mask sensitive fields before delivery, meeting the masking constraint without duplicating data.
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 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.