SCS-C02 Management and Security Governance Practice Question
A developer has created an S3 bucket policy that grants public read access. The security team wants to prevent any S3 bucket from becoming public. Which AWS service can enforce this restriction across all accounts?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse preventive controls (like SCPs) with detective controls (like CloudTrail) or assume that S3 Block Public Access settings applied per account are sufficient for centralized enforcement, but SCPs are the only service that can enforce restrictions across all accounts in an organization from a single point.
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
✓
A service control policy (SCP) denying s3:PutBucketPolicy
A service control policy (SCP) is the correct choice because it operates at the AWS Organizations level to centrally restrict permissions across all accounts. By creating an SCP that denies the s3:PutBucketPolicy action, you prevent any account in the organization from modifying bucket policies to grant public access, regardless of individual account settings. This enforces a guardrail that cannot be overridden by account administrators.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail with a metric filter
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail only logs, does not prevent.
- ✗
S3 Block Public Access settings on each account
Why it's wrong here
Block Public Access can be changed by account administrators.
- ✓
A service control policy (SCP) denying s3:PutBucketPolicy
Why this is correct
SCPs can deny actions across all accounts in an organization.
- ✗
IAM permissions boundary
Why it's wrong here
Permissions boundaries are per-entity, not per-account.
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 SCS-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 SCS-C02 exam.