SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company uses AWS Organizations with 200 accounts. The security team wants to enforce that all EC2 instances launched in any account must use a specific Amazon Machine Image (AMI) ID that is approved by the security team. Which approach should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse reactive compliance tools like AWS Config (which detects violations after the fact) with proactive preventive controls like SCPs (which block the action before it happens), leading them to choose Option B instead of C.
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 a service control policy (SCP) that denies EC2 RunInstances unless the AMI ID matches the approved list
A service control policy (SCP) can centrally deny the EC2 RunInstances action across all accounts in an AWS Organization unless the request specifies an AMI ID from an approved list. SCPs act as a permission guardrail that cannot be overridden by account-level IAM policies, making them the only mechanism that enforces a mandatory AMI ID across 200 accounts without relying on post-launch detection or per-account configuration.
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 IAM policies in each account to restrict the AMI ID
Why it's wrong here
IAM policies can be bypassed if the user has permission to pass a different AMI.
- ✗
Use AWS Config rules with auto-remediation to stop non-compliant instances
Why it's wrong here
This is reactive and instances may run for a short time before being stopped.
- ✓
Use a service control policy (SCP) that denies EC2 RunInstances unless the AMI ID matches the approved list
Why this is correct
SCPs can centrally control which AMIs can be used across all accounts.
- ✗
Use CloudFormation StackSets to enforce AMI IDs for all new instances
Why it's wrong here
Only instances launched via CloudFormation would be affected.
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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.