SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company uses AWS Organizations with multiple accounts. The security team requires that all S3 buckets across the organization have server-side encryption enabled. Which is the MOST efficient way to enforce this policy?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse S3 bucket policies (which control access to objects) with SCPs (which control API actions at the account level), leading them to choose option D, which cannot enforce encryption on the bucket itself.
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 creation of S3 buckets without encryption
A service control policy (SCP) can centrally deny the creation of S3 buckets that do not have server-side encryption enabled across all accounts in an AWS Organization. This approach enforces the security team's requirement at the organizational level, preventing non-compliant buckets from being created regardless of individual account configurations, which is the most efficient and scalable method.
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 CloudTrail to monitor and alert on unencrypted buckets
Why it's wrong here
Monitoring does not enforce; it only alerts.
- ✗
Enable S3 default encryption in each account
Why it's wrong here
Requires per-account manual setup, not efficient for many accounts.
- ✓
Apply a service control policy (SCP) that denies creation of S3 buckets without encryption
Why this is correct
SCP can be applied to the entire organization or OU to enforce encryption at account creation.
- ✗
Use S3 bucket policies to require encryption
Why it's wrong here
Bucket policies are per-bucket, not organization-wide.
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.