The answer is to apply an SCP to the production OU that denies guardduty:Disable* and guardduty:Delete* actions. This is the most effective way to prevent disabling GuardDuty across AWS Organization accounts because Service Control Policies (SCPs) act as a centralized permission guardrail at the organization level, setting a maximum permission boundary that overrides any IAM policies or root user actions within member accounts. On the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional SAP-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how SCPs enforce preventive security controls across an entire OU, often as a trap where candidates mistakenly choose IAM policies or AWS Config rules, which cannot block the root user. A common memory tip is to remember that SCPs are the only mechanism that can restrict the root user in member accounts, making them essential for irreversible security baselines. Think of SCPs as the "master off-switch" for critical services like GuardDuty across your entire organization.
SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
This SAP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of design solutions for organizational complexity. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company uses AWS Organizations with a single OU for all production accounts. The central security team wants to prevent any user from disabling Amazon GuardDuty in any production account. What is the MOST effective way to enforce this?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Apply an SCP to the production OU that denies guardduty:Disable* and guardduty:Delete* actions.
Service control policies (SCPs) in AWS Organizations allow you to centrally control the maximum available permissions for all accounts in an OU. By attaching an SCP that explicitly denies `guardduty:Disable*` and `guardduty:Delete*` actions to the production OU, the security team ensures that no principal (including the root user) in any production account can disable or delete GuardDuty, regardless of IAM policies or direct account-level actions.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
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 Lambda to re-enable GuardDuty if it is disabled.
Why it's wrong here
This is reactive and does not prevent the disable action.
✗
Create an AWS Config rule to detect disabled GuardDuty and send alerts.
Why it's wrong here
Detection alone does not prevent disabling.
✓
Apply an SCP to the production OU that denies guardduty:Disable* and guardduty:Delete* actions.
Why this is correct
SCPs prevent the actions across all accounts in the OU, regardless of user permissions.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Attach an IAM policy to each user that denies guardduty:Disable* actions.
Why it's wrong here
Users with admin access can bypass IAM policies.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often choose a detective or reactive solution (like AWS Config or Lambda) because they overlook the requirement to *prevent* the action, or they mistakenly believe IAM policies attached to users are sufficient to block all principals, including the root user and cross-account roles.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
SCPs are evaluated before IAM policies and affect all principals in the account, including the root user. The deny effect in an SCP overrides any allow from IAM or resource-based policies, making it the only mechanism that can block the root user from disabling GuardDuty. Under the hood, SCPs are applied at the OU level and inherited by all child accounts, providing a single point of enforcement that scales across hundreds of accounts without needing per-account configuration.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity — This question tests Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Apply an SCP to the production OU that denies guardduty:Disable* and guardduty:Delete* actions. — Service control policies (SCPs) in AWS Organizations allow you to centrally control the maximum available permissions for all accounts in an OU. By attaching an SCP that explicitly denies `guardduty:Disable*` and `guardduty:Delete*` actions to the production OU, the security team ensures that no principal (including the root user) in any production account can disable or delete GuardDuty, regardless of IAM policies or direct account-level actions.
What should I do if I get this SAP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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