SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A large enterprise uses AWS Organizations with 200 accounts. The central security team has implemented a service control policy (SCP) that denies all actions unless the request comes from a specific set of allowed AWS services. The SCP is attached to the root OU. Recently, the DevOps team reported that they cannot launch Amazon EC2 instances in any account, even though they have full administrator access via IAM roles. The security team verifies that the SCP is correctly configured and that allowed services include EC2. However, the error message states 'Action 'ec2:RunInstances' is not authorized.' The DevOps team is using the AWS Management Console. What is the MOST LIKELY cause?
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
✓
The SCP denies all actions except those from allowed services, but the console makes calls that are not from an allowed service.
SCPs that deny all actions unless the request comes from allowed services would block the initial API call to EC2 because the console makes calls to multiple services. Option A is wrong because the SCP already allows EC2. Option B is wrong because the SCP is attached to the root OU, so it applies to all accounts. Option C is wrong because the issue is not about resource-based policies.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The SCP does not include 'ec2:RunInstances' in the list of allowed actions.
Why it's wrong here
The team confirmed EC2 is in the allowed services list.
- ✗
The SCP is attached only to the root OU and not to the specific account OUs.
Why it's wrong here
SCPs attached to the root OU apply to all accounts.
- ✗
The IAM roles used by the DevOps team do not have a trust policy that allows the EC2 service.
Why it's wrong here
IAM roles trust users, not services; the issue is with the SCP.
- ✓
The SCP denies all actions except those from allowed services, but the console makes calls that are not from an allowed service.
Why this is correct
The console may call other services (e.g., CloudFormation) to launch instances, which could be denied if not in allowed list.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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