SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company uses AWS Organizations with hundreds of accounts. The security team needs to ensure that no IAM user in any account can create a new IAM user or access key. What is the most scalable way to enforce this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently choose Option C because they think attaching a deny policy to the Administrator role is sufficient, but they overlook that SCPs are the only mechanism that can restrict the root user and scale across hundreds of accounts without per-account management.
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 a service control policy (SCP) that denies the iam:CreateUser and iam:CreateAccessKey actions.
Service control policies (SCPs) are the most scalable way to enforce restrictions across all accounts in an AWS Organization because they apply to all IAM users and roles in every member account, including the root user. By denying the iam:CreateUser and iam:CreateAccessKey actions at the organization root or OU level, the security team can prevent any IAM user from creating new users or access keys without needing to manage individual account policies or rely on reactive measures.
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 Config rules to detect and automatically delete any new users or keys.
Why it's wrong here
Reactive, not preventive.
- ✗
Enable AWS CloudTrail and create a metric filter to alert on these actions.
Why it's wrong here
Only alerts, does not prevent.
- ✗
Attach an IAM policy to the Administrator role in each account that denies these actions.
Why it's wrong here
Does not prevent users with other roles or direct permissions.
- ✓
Apply a service control policy (SCP) that denies the iam:CreateUser and iam:CreateAccessKey actions.
Why this is correct
SCPs apply to all principals in the account.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,660 original SAP-C02 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on SAP-C02
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. 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?
easy- ✓ A.Apply an SCP to the root OU that denies the iam:CreateUser action.
- B.Set an IAM password policy in each account that requires strong passwords.
- C.Use AWS Config rules to detect IAM users and automatically delete them.
- D.Use AWS CloudTrail to monitor for CreateUser and alert the security team.
Why A: 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.
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.