SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A multinational corporation is deploying a multi-account AWS environment using AWS Organizations. The security team requires that all S3 buckets across all accounts be encrypted with a specific AWS KMS key managed by the security account. Which solution should the company implement to enforce this policy across the organization?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates choose AWS Config rules (Option C) thinking they provide preventive enforcement, but Config rules are detective and reactive, not preventive, whereas SCPs proactively block non-compliant API calls before the resource is created.
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 a service control policy (SCP) to the root that denies S3 actions unless encryption conditions are met
A service control policy (SCP) attached to the root of the AWS Organizations hierarchy can deny S3 PutObject or CreateBucket actions unless the request includes the specific KMS key ID (via the s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption-aws-kms-key-id condition key). This enforces encryption centrally across all accounts, as SCPs are inherited by all member accounts and cannot be overridden by IAM policies within those accounts.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Create IAM policies in each account to enforce encryption
Why it's wrong here
IAM policies are per-account and cannot be centrally enforced across all accounts.
- ✓
Attach a service control policy (SCP) to the root that denies S3 actions unless encryption conditions are met
Why this is correct
SCPs can centrally deny operations that do not meet encryption requirements across all accounts in the organization.
- ✗
Use AWS Config rules with auto-remediation in each account
Why it's wrong here
Config rules can detect non-compliance but auto-remediation may not cover all scenarios and requires per-account setup.
- ✗
Deploy a CloudFormation StackSet that creates S3 buckets with encryption
Why it's wrong here
StackSets can create compliant buckets but cannot enforce existing buckets or prevent non-compliant creation.
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.