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Question 150 of 1,738

Identity and Access Management →hardMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

Quick Answer

The answer is that the condition in the SCP is incorrectly scoped, causing the deny to apply to all principals including SecurityAdminRole. The core issue is that Service Control Policies use an implicit deny by default, so a deny statement without a properly structured condition that explicitly excludes the allowed role will block everyone, including the intended exception. To correctly allow only SecurityAdminRole, the SCP must use a condition like `StringNotEquals` on `aws:PrincipalArn` to deny the action only when the principal does not match that role; otherwise, the deny overrides any other permissions. On the AWS Certified Security Specialty SCS-C02 exam, this tests your understanding of SCP evaluation logic and the critical difference between an allow list and a deny with an exclusion condition—a common trap is assuming a deny with a condition automatically exempts the listed principal. Remember the mnemonic: "Deny without a proper exception is a universal rejection."

SCS-C02 Identity and Access Management Practice Question

This SCS-C02 practice question tests your understanding of identity and access management. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 runs a critical application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application processes financial transactions and must store transaction logs in an Amazon S3 bucket. The security team requires that all API calls to AWS services are logged and that the logs are stored in a secure, tamper-proof manner. The team enables AWS CloudTrail to log management events and Amazon S3 server access logs for the S3 bucket. They also enable AWS Config to track resource changes. The compliance team wants to ensure that no one can disable CloudTrail logging or delete the CloudTrail log files. The security engineer proposes a solution using an SCP in AWS Organizations to deny actions that would disable CloudTrail or delete log files. However, the engineer is concerned that the SCP might be applied too broadly and affect legitimate administrative actions. The engineer wants to ensure that only the security team’s IAM role (SecurityAdminRole) can perform these restricted actions, while all other principals (including IAM users, roles, and the root user) are denied. The engineer creates an SCP that denies cloudtrail:StopLogging, cloudtrail:DeleteTrail, and s3:DeleteObject on the CloudTrail S3 bucket. The SCP includes a condition that allows the action if the principal is SecurityAdminRole. However, after applying the SCP, the security team finds that even SecurityAdminRole is unable to stop CloudTrail logging. What is the most likely cause of this issue?

Clue words in this question

Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.

Clue: "most likely"
Why it matters: Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.

Question 1hardmultiple choice

Full question →

A
The condition in the SCP is incorrectly scoped, causing the deny to apply to all principals including SecurityAdminRole.
Correct – The condition likely does not properly exclude SecurityAdminRole, so the deny applies to all.
B
The SCP is applied to the root organizational unit (OU), which includes the management account where the root user is not affected by SCPs.
Why wrong: Incorrect – Root user is not affected by SCPs, but SecurityAdminRole is in a member account, so the SCP should affect it.
C
The SecurityAdminRole does not have the necessary IAM permissions to stop CloudTrail logging.
Why wrong: Incorrect – The engineer would have granted the permissions via IAM policy; the issue is the SCP.
D
The S3 bucket policy on the CloudTrail bucket denies access to the SecurityAdminRole.
Why wrong: Incorrect – The bucket policy could be the issue, but the most likely cause is the SCP condition.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

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 condition in the SCP is incorrectly scoped, causing the deny to apply to all principals including SecurityAdminRole.

C: Correct – The root user is not affected by SCPs by default, but if the condition incorrectly references the root user, it may block all principals including SecurityAdminRole. However, the more common issue is that the SCP was applied without an explicit allow for the SecurityAdminRole, or the condition was not properly scoped. In this scenario, the most likely cause is that the condition in the SCP is not correctly scoped to allow SecurityAdminRole. The SCP should use a condition like "StringNotEquals": {"aws:PrincipalArn": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/SecurityAdminRole"} to deny only when the principal is not that role. If the condition is incorrectly written, it may deny all principals. Alternatively, the SCP might be applied to the management account where root user cannot be denied, but the issue is that SecurityAdminRole is denied. The typical mistake is using "Deny" without a proper condition that excludes the allowed role. A: Incorrect – If the SCP is applied to the root OU, it applies to all accounts including the security team's account. B: Incorrect – S3 bucket policies can grant access, but if the SCP denies, the deny overrides. D: Incorrect – The correct answer is that the SCP is too restrictive; the condition is flawed.

Key principle: NAT direction and interface roles matter as much as the IP address mapping. Inside/outside designation controls which traffic is translated.

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 condition in the SCP is incorrectly scoped, causing the deny to apply to all principals including SecurityAdminRole.
Why this is correct
Correct – The condition likely does not properly exclude SecurityAdminRole, so the deny applies to all.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "most likely" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
✗
The SCP is applied to the root organizational unit (OU), which includes the management account where the root user is not affected by SCPs.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect – Root user is not affected by SCPs, but SecurityAdminRole is in a member account, so the SCP should affect it.
✗
The SecurityAdminRole does not have the necessary IAM permissions to stop CloudTrail logging.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect – The engineer would have granted the permissions via IAM policy; the issue is the SCP.
✗
The S3 bucket policy on the CloudTrail bucket denies access to the SecurityAdminRole.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect – The bucket policy could be the issue, but the most likely cause is the SCP condition.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic

NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.

KKey Concepts to Remember

Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.

TExam Day Tips

Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.

Key takeaway

NAT direction and interface roles matter as much as the IP address mapping. Inside/outside designation controls which traffic is translated.

Real-world example

How this comes up in practice

A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Review the four NAT address types (inside local, inside global, outside local, outside global), PAT port overload, and static vs dynamic NAT use cases. Then practise related SCS-C02 NAT questions on configuration and troubleshooting.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this SCS-C02 question test?

Identity and Access Management — This question tests Identity and Access Management — Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: The condition in the SCP is incorrectly scoped, causing the deny to apply to all principals including SecurityAdminRole. — C: Correct – The root user is not affected by SCPs by default, but if the condition incorrectly references the root user, it may block all principals including SecurityAdminRole. However, the more common issue is that the SCP was applied without an explicit allow for the SecurityAdminRole, or the condition was not properly scoped. In this scenario, the most likely cause is that the condition in the SCP is not correctly scoped to allow SecurityAdminRole. The SCP should use a condition like "StringNotEquals": {"aws:PrincipalArn": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/SecurityAdminRole"} to deny only when the principal is not that role. If the condition is incorrectly written, it may deny all principals. Alternatively, the SCP might be applied to the management account where root user cannot be denied, but the issue is that SecurityAdminRole is denied. The typical mistake is using "Deny" without a proper condition that excludes the allowed role. A: Incorrect – If the SCP is applied to the root OU, it applies to all accounts including the security team's account. B: Incorrect – S3 bucket policies can grant access, but if the SCP denies, the deny overrides. D: Incorrect – The correct answer is that the SCP is too restrictive; the condition is flawed.

What should I do if I get this SCS-C02 question wrong?

Are there clue words in this question I should notice?

Yes — watch for: "most likely". Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.

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