Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company wants to ensure that only specific IAM roles within the same AWS account can encrypt and decrypt data using an AWS KMS customer managed key. Which type of policy must be configured to achieve this restriction?
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.
A
Distractor review
IAM policy attached to the roles
An IAM policy alone cannot grant KMS key permissions unless the key policy also allows IAM policies. The key policy must explicitly allow the roles.
B
Best answer
KMS key policy
KMS key policies are resource-based policies that define who can use the key. They are required to grant access to IAM roles.
C
Distractor review
Service control policy (SCP)
SCPs are used in AWS Organizations to control permissions at the account level, not for individual KMS keys.
D
Distractor review
Resource policy attached to the KMS key
KMS uses key policies, not resource policies. The term resource policy is generally used for S3 or SNS; KMS has key policies.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- 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.
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?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: KMS key policy — KMS key policies are the primary way to control access to a KMS key. By default, KMS keys have no IAM policy permissions, so you must use a key policy to grant the necessary permissions to specific IAM roles. IAM policies alone do not grant access to a key unless the key policy explicitly allows it (or a default key policy is used). An SCP applies to accounts in an organization, not to individual keys. Resource policies are used for services like S3, not KMS keys.
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.
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