SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company wants to ensure that no IAM user in any account can create access keys. The company uses AWS Organizations. Which approach should be used?
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
✓
Attach an SCP to the root OU that denies iam:CreateAccessKey
A Service Control Policy (SCP) attached to the root organizational unit denies the iam:CreateAccessKey action across all accounts in the organization, providing centralized enforcement. Option A is wrong because CloudTrail logs events but does not prevent them. Option B is wrong because applying an IAM policy in each account is not centrally managed and may be overridden by administrator permissions. Option D is wrong because AWS Config detects but cannot prevent the action, and the remediation Lambda may have a delay.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable AWS CloudTrail and set up a metric filter for CreateAccessKey
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail with a metric filter only detects and alerts after CreateAccessKey has already succeeded, leaving the keys usable. CloudTrail is an audit and monitoring service; prevention requires an Organizations-level SCP that denies iam:CreateAccessKey, which would be the answer if the question asked for detection instead.
- ✗
Apply an IAM policy to all users in each account that denies iam:CreateAccessKey
Why it's wrong here
Per-user IAM policies must be attached in every account and to every new user, so coverage is never guaranteed. An Organizations SCP applied at the root enforces the deny across all accounts centrally. IAM identity policies are the right tool for granting or denying permissions to specific users within a single account.
- ✓
Attach an SCP to the root OU that denies iam:CreateAccessKey
Why this is correct
An SCP attached to the root OU applies to every member account in the organisation, denying `iam:CreateAccessKey` regardless of identity-based policies. This satisfies the requirement that no IAM user in any account can create access keys, since SCPs set the maximum permissions boundary across all accounts beneath the root.
- ✗
Use AWS Config to detect access key creation and trigger a Lambda to delete the key
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config remediation is detective and reactive: the access key is created first, then deleted, so the deny requirement is never actually enforced. An Organizations SCP prevents the iam:CreateAccessKey call outright. Config rules suit compliance monitoring and auto-remediation of drift, not preventive access control.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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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.