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SOA-C02 Practice Question: IAM permission boundaries to constrain what…
This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of iam permission boundaries to constrain what…. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. A key principle to apply: iAM permission boundary. 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.
Developers are allowed to create IAM roles for their Lambda functions. However, the security team is concerned that developers could create roles with Administrator access, granting Lambda functions more permissions than the developers themselves have. What IAM feature prevents privilege escalation in this scenario?
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
Best answer
Attach a permission boundary to each developer IAM user that limits them to creating roles with only the permissions they are allowed to grant
The permission boundary on the developer prevents them from passing permissions they do not have (iam:PassRole with a role whose boundary exceeds their own). When combined with an IAM policy that requires any role they create to have the same boundary attached, privilege escalation is prevented systematically.
B
Distractor review
Enable IAM Access Analyzer to detect when developers create overly permissive roles
IAM Access Analyzer identifies resources accessible from outside the account (external access) or unused permissions (unused access), and generates policy recommendations. It detects after-the-fact and requires manual remediation. It does not prevent a developer from creating an overly permissive role in the first place.
C
Distractor review
Require MFA for all IAM API calls so developers must re-authenticate before creating roles
MFA verifies identity but does not restrict what actions an authenticated identity can take. A developer who has iam:CreateRole permission can still create an Administrator role after MFA verification. Permission boundaries restrict what actions are possible, not who can authenticate.
D
Distractor review
Enable CloudTrail logging for all IAM API calls and set up a CloudWatch alarm for iam:CreateRole events
CloudTrail logging detects role creation after the fact. An alarm notifies the team but does not block the action. The developer can still create an overly permissive role before any remediation occurs. Permission boundaries prevent the escalation proactively.
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
Treat this as a scenario question. Identify the problem, the constraint, and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- IAM permission boundary
- effective permissions
- developer self-service
- privilege escalation prevention
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
IAM permission boundary
Related practice questions
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More questions from this exam
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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?
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SOA-C02 question test?
IAM permission boundary
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Attach a permission boundary to each developer IAM user that limits them to creating roles with only the permissions they are allowed to grant — An IAM permission boundary is a managed policy attached to an IAM entity (user or role) that defines the maximum permissions that entity can ever have, regardless of what identity-based policies grant. When applied to a developer's IAM user, the boundary limits what that developer can grant to roles they create. If the boundary does not include AdministratorAccess, the developer cannot create a role that effectively has AdministratorAccess — even if they attach the AdministratorAccess policy to the role. The effective permissions are the intersection of the identity-based policy and the permission boundary.
What should I do if I get this SOA-C02 question wrong?
Review iAM permission boundary, then practise related SOA-C02 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
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