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Management and Security Governance →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

SCS-C02 Management and Security Governance Practice Question

This SCS-C02 practice question tests your understanding of management and security governance. 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 wants to grant cross-account access to an S3 bucket. What is the best practice for managing permissions?

Clue words in this question

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

Clue: "best"
Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.

A
Use an IAM role in the target account
Why wrong: IAM roles are for temporary access, not bucket-level.
B
Use S3 ACLs with the other account ID
Why wrong: S3 ACLs can support cross-account access by specifying the other account's canonical user ID, but bucket policies are the recommended best practice due to easier management and centralized control.
C
Use an S3 bucket policy that grants access to the other account
Bucket policy can grant cross-account access directly.
D
Use an SCP to allow access
Why wrong: SCPs are at the organization level.

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

✓

Use an S3 bucket policy that grants access to the other account

Option C is correct because an S3 bucket policy can explicitly grant cross-account access by specifying the other AWS account ID as the principal in the policy's Principal element. This allows the bucket owner to centrally manage permissions without requiring the target account to create an IAM role, and it works seamlessly with IAM user or role permissions in the external account. It is the recommended best practice for cross-account S3 access as per AWS documentation.

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 an IAM role in the target account
Why it's wrong here
IAM roles are for temporary access, not bucket-level.
✗
Use S3 ACLs with the other account ID
Why it's wrong here
S3 ACLs can support cross-account access by specifying the other account's canonical user ID, but bucket policies are the recommended best practice due to easier management and centralized control.
✓
Use an S3 bucket policy that grants access to the other account
Why this is correct
Bucket policy can grant cross-account access directly.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use an SCP to allow access
Why it's wrong here
SCPs are at the organization level.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often confuse cross-account access patterns and incorrectly choose IAM roles (Option A) because they think roles are always the best practice, but for S3 buckets, a bucket policy is simpler and more direct for granting access to an entire account.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Under the hood, an S3 bucket policy is evaluated as a resource-based policy that allows the bucket owner to delegate access to principals in other accounts. The external account's IAM user or role must still have an IAM policy that allows the s3:GetObject or s3:PutObject action, creating a two-step authorization process. A real-world scenario is when a company needs to share log files with a partner account; the bucket policy specifies the partner's account ID, and the partner's IAM users have policies that permit the S3 actions, ensuring secure and auditable access.

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 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.

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

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.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this SCS-C02 question test?

Management and Security Governance — This question tests Management and Security Governance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Use an S3 bucket policy that grants access to the other account — Option C is correct because an S3 bucket policy can explicitly grant cross-account access by specifying the other AWS account ID as the principal in the policy's Principal element. This allows the bucket owner to centrally manage permissions without requiring the target account to create an IAM role, and it works seamlessly with IAM user or role permissions in the external account. It is the recommended best practice for cross-account S3 access as per AWS documentation.

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

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

Are there clue words in this question I should notice?

Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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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.