SCS-C02 Threat Detection and Incident Response Practice Question
This SCS-C02 practice question tests your understanding of threat detection and incident response. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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.
Your company has a serverless application using AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, and Amazon DynamoDB. The security team enabled AWS CloudTrail and Amazon GuardDuty. GuardDuty generates a finding 'Recon:EC2/PortProbeUnprotectedPort' for an EC2 instance that does not exist in the account. Upon investigation, you realize that the finding is triggered by a misconfigured Network Load Balancer (NLB) that is exposing a port to the internet. The NLB is used by the API Gateway. You need to reduce false positives for this specific finding. What should you do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a suppression rule in GuardDuty to filter out findings for the NLB's public IP and port.
Option D is correct because GuardDuty suppression rules allow you to filter out findings that are known false positives based on specific criteria, such as the public IP and port of the NLB. Since the NLB is intentionally exposing a port for API Gateway, the port probe finding is expected behavior, not a real threat. Suppressing findings for that specific combination reduces noise without disabling GuardDuty for the entire account.
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.
✗
Change the NLB to an Application Load Balancer.
Why it's wrong here
Changing load balancer type does not address the false positive.
✗
Enable AWS Shield Advanced to block the probes.
Why it's wrong here
Shield is for DDoS, not for false positives.
✗
Disable GuardDuty for the account.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling GuardDuty removes all threat detection.
✓
Create a suppression rule in GuardDuty to filter out findings for the NLB's public IP and port.
Why this is correct
Suppression rules allow filtering of known false positives.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may think changing the load balancer type or adding DDoS protection will stop the probes, but GuardDuty detects the probe activity itself, not the vulnerability—so only suppression rules can prevent the false positive without disabling the service.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
GuardDuty uses threat intelligence feeds and anomaly detection to identify reconnaissance activity, such as port probes from known malicious IPs. The NLB's public IP is reachable from the internet, and when a scanner probes it, GuardDuty correlates the source IP with threat lists, generating the finding. Suppression rules in GuardDuty are evaluated before the finding is stored, so they prevent the finding from appearing in the console or triggering alerts, effectively filtering it out at ingestion time.
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 healthcare organisation deploys an application with a public-facing web tier and a private database tier. The database subnet has no public IP and only accepts connections from the web tier's security group. Questions like this test whether you can design cloud network isolation using VNets/VPCs, subnets, and security group rules.
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.
Threat Detection and Incident Response — This question tests Threat Detection and Incident Response — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create a suppression rule in GuardDuty to filter out findings for the NLB's public IP and port. — Option D is correct because GuardDuty suppression rules allow you to filter out findings that are known false positives based on specific criteria, such as the public IP and port of the NLB. Since the NLB is intentionally exposing a port for API Gateway, the port probe finding is expected behavior, not a real threat. Suppressing findings for that specific combination reduces noise without disabling GuardDuty for the entire account.
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.
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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