Question 54 of 1,660
SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company uses AWS Organizations to manage multiple accounts. The security team wants to ensure that no IAM users are created in member accounts. All access must be through federated roles. Which approach should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse detective controls (like AWS Config or CloudTrail) with preventive controls (like SCPs), assuming that monitoring or alerting can effectively enforce a policy, whereas only SCPs can proactively block the action across all accounts in an organization.
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 an SCP to the root OU that denies the iam:CreateUser action.
Service Control Policies (SCPs) in AWS Organizations allow the security team to centrally restrict permissions across all member accounts. By applying an SCP to the root organizational unit (OU) that denies the `iam:CreateUser` action, no IAM users can be created in any member account, ensuring all access must come from federated roles. SCPs are evaluated before IAM policies and cannot be overridden by account administrators, making them the most effective preventive control.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Apply an SCP to the root OU that denies the iam:CreateUser action.
Why this is correct
SCPs prevent user creation entirely.
- ✗
Set an IAM password policy in each account that requires strong passwords.
Why it's wrong here
Does not prevent user creation.
- ✗
Use AWS Config rules to detect IAM users and automatically delete them.
Why it's wrong here
Reactive and may not be immediate.
- ✗
Use AWS CloudTrail to monitor for CreateUser and alert the security team.
Why it's wrong here
Alerts do not prevent creation.
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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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.
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