A company uses an Amazon S3 bucket to store sensitive data. The SysOps administrator needs to be notified within 15 minutes if any object in the bucket becomes publicly accessible. Which solution will meet this requirement with the least operational overhead?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Distractor review
Configure an S3 event notification for all object creation events and publish to an Amazon SNS topic that sends an email alert.
Incorrect. This would send notifications for all object creations, not only when objects become publicly accessible, generating noise.
Distractor review
Use an AWS Config managed rule to detect 's3-bucket-public-read-prohibited' and trigger an SNS notification via Amazon EventBridge.
Incorrect. AWS Config evaluates configuration changes periodically (e.g., every 10 minutes) and is not real-time; it may not notify within 15 minutes consistently.
Distractor review
Enable Amazon CloudTrail data events for the S3 bucket and create a CloudWatch Logs metric filter for PutObjectAcl (or PutObject with public ACL) and set an alarm.
Incorrect. While this could work, it requires more setup and CloudTrail data events incur additional costs and complexity.
Best answer
Configure S3 event notifications for 's3:ObjectCreated:Put' and 's3:ObjectCreated:PutObjectAcl' with a suffix/prefix filter for public grants, sending to an SNS topic.
Correct. This allows real-time notification specifically when objects are created with public ACLs, meeting the requirement with minimal overhead.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: ACLs stop at the first match
ACLs are processed top to bottom. The first matching entry wins, and an implicit deny usually exists at the end.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
ACL questions test precision: source, destination, protocol, port and direction. A generally correct ACL can still fail if it is applied on the wrong interface or in the wrong direction.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Standard ACLs match source addresses.
- Extended ACLs can match source, destination, protocol and ports.
- The first matching ACL entry is used.
- There is usually an implicit deny at the end.
TExam Day Tips
- Check inbound versus outbound direction.
- Read the ACL from top to bottom.
- Look for a broader permit or deny above the intended line.
Related practice questions
Related SOA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A company uses Amazon CloudFront to deliver content to a global audience. The origin is an Application Load Balancer in us-east-1. The SysOps administrator wants to reduce costs by minimizing the number of requests that reach the origin server. Which action should the administrator take?
Question 2
A company runs a batch processing application on Amazon EC2 that runs for 2 hours every night. The workload can tolerate interruptions. Which EC2 purchasing option provides the lowest cost for this use case?
Question 3
A SysOps administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an Amazon RDS DB instance and receive an alarm when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create this alarm?
Question 4
A company runs a critical web application on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application uses session stickiness (sticky sessions) to maintain user sessions. The SysOps administrator notices that when instances are replaced during a scale-in or failure event, users lose their session data. The administrator needs to preserve session data across instance failures without losing stickiness benefits. What should the administrator do?
Question 5
A company runs a production web application on a single Amazon EC2 instance. The application experiences a predictable and steady workload 24/7. The SysOps administrator wants to minimize compute costs for this instance while ensuring it remains available during the expected workload. Which EC2 purchasing option should the administrator use?
Question 6
A company has a VPC with public and private subnets. The private subnets host application servers that need to make outbound HTTPS connections to the internet. The SysOps administrator must implement a solution that provides outbound internet connectivity while preventing inbound connections from the internet. Additionally, the solution must allow the company to control which domains the application servers can access. Which solution should the administrator implement?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
Standard ACLs match source addresses.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Configure S3 event notifications for 's3:ObjectCreated:Put' and 's3:ObjectCreated:PutObjectAcl' with a suffix/prefix filter for public grants, sending to an SNS topic. — Amazon S3 Event Notifications with CloudWatch Events (now part of Amazon EventBridge) can filter for 'PutObject' events with specific conditions and trigger a notification via Amazon SNS. AWS Config rules can evaluate compliance but are not real-time and have a delay. CloudTrail provides logs but requires custom processing. S3 public access blocks prevent public access but do not provide notifications.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
Discussion
Sign in to join the discussion.