← SOA-C02·Amazon Web Services

Question 972 of 1,546

Security and Compliance →easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

SOA-C02 Security and Compliance Practice Question

This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of security and compliance. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 requires that all access to the AWS Management Console be protected by multi-factor authentication (MFA). The SysOps administrator has enabled an IAM policy that denies all actions if the user does not authenticate with MFA. However, some users report they cannot list their own MFA devices. What is the MOST likely cause?

Clue words in this question

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

Clue: "most likely"
Why it matters: Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.

A
The policy denies the iam:ListMFADevices action without an MFA-authenticated session
The policy should allow iam:ListMFADevices without MFA to enable users to set up MFA.
B
The policy is applied to the root user only
Why wrong: The policy is applied to IAM users.
C
Users are not using MFA-enabled access keys
Why wrong: The issue is about console access, not access keys.
D
The policy is not applied in the us-east-1 region
Why wrong: IAM actions are global.

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

✓

The policy denies the iam:ListMFADevices action without an MFA-authenticated session

The IAM policy that denies all actions unless the user is authenticated with MFA will also block the iam:ListMFADevices action because that API call is made without an MFA-authenticated session. When a user tries to list their own MFA devices, they have not yet passed the MFA challenge, so the session is not MFA-authenticated, and the deny policy applies. This creates a catch-22: the user cannot list their devices to manage MFA because listing requires MFA, but they need to list devices to set up MFA.

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.

✓
The policy denies the iam:ListMFADevices action without an MFA-authenticated session
Why this is correct
The policy should allow iam:ListMFADevices without MFA to enable users to set up MFA.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "most likely" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
The policy is applied to the root user only
Why it's wrong here
The policy is applied to IAM users.
✗
Users are not using MFA-enabled access keys
Why it's wrong here
The issue is about console access, not access keys.
✗
The policy is not applied in the us-east-1 region
Why it's wrong here
IAM actions are global.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates assume the deny policy only applies to sensitive actions like modifying resources, but they overlook that even benign read actions like listing MFA devices are blocked because the policy uses a blanket Deny for all actions when MFA is not present, creating a circular dependency.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

The iam:ListMFADevices action is an IAM read operation that returns metadata about a user's virtual or hardware MFA devices. When a deny-all policy with a condition key aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent is set to false, the policy engine evaluates the request before any MFA challenge, so the session lacks the MFA context. This is a common pitfall where administrators forget to add an explicit allow for iam:ListMFADevices and iam:CreateVirtualMFADevice without the MFA condition, which is necessary for users to bootstrap their MFA setup.

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 company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.

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 SOA-C02 question test?

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

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: The policy denies the iam:ListMFADevices action without an MFA-authenticated session — The IAM policy that denies all actions unless the user is authenticated with MFA will also block the iam:ListMFADevices action because that API call is made without an MFA-authenticated session. When a user tries to list their own MFA devices, they have not yet passed the MFA challenge, so the session is not MFA-authenticated, and the deny policy applies. This creates a catch-22: the user cannot list their devices to manage MFA because listing requires MFA, but they need to list devices to set up MFA.

What should I do if I get this SOA-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: "most likely". Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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This SOA-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 SOA-C02 exam.