CV0-004 Security Practice Question
A cloud engineer is deploying a containerized application on Amazon EKS. The application pods need to access an Amazon RDS database. The security team wants to avoid storing database credentials in the container image or environment variables and prefers short-lived credentials. Which mechanism should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is believing that Kubernetes Secrets or Parameter Store alone solve credential management, when they still require a secure, short-lived identity to access them.
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
✓
AWS Secrets Manager with IAM roles for service accounts (IRSA)
IAM roles for service accounts (IRSA) enables EKS pods to assume an IAM role and receive temporary credentials. The pod can then access AWS Secrets Manager to retrieve the database secret dynamically, eliminating hardcoded credentials. This approach provides short-lived credentials and adheres to the security team's preference for avoiding static secrets in the container environment.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
AWS Secrets Manager with IAM roles for service accounts (IRSA)
Why this is correct
IAM roles for service accounts (IRSA) allows Kubernetes pods to assume an IAM role and obtain temporary credentials. The pod can then retrieve the database secret from AWS Secrets Manager using those credentials, avoiding hardcoded secrets. This provides short-lived credentials and fine-grained access control, directly meeting the security team's requirements for the EKS application.
- ✗
Kubernetes Secrets mounted as environment variables
Why it's wrong here
Kubernetes Secrets are stored in etcd and, by default, are only base64-encoded, not encrypted. Mounting them as environment variables exposes them to processes and logs. This approach does not provide short-lived credentials and contradicts the requirement to avoid storing credentials in environment variables. It also lacks integration with AWS IAM for temporary access.
- ✗
AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store with SecureString parameters
Why it's wrong here
Parameter Store SecureString parameters encrypt values at rest with KMS, but retrieving them still requires credentials. Without a mechanism like IRSA, the pod would need long-lived AWS credentials to call the Parameter Store API. This does not satisfy the requirement for short-lived credentials and does not inherently avoid credential storage in the container environment.
- ✗
Amazon RDS IAM database authentication with a static master password
Why it's wrong here
RDS IAM database authentication allows IAM principals to generate temporary tokens for database access, but using a static master password alongside it reintroduces a long-lived secret. The scenario requires avoiding static credentials entirely. While IAM database authentication is useful, combining it with a static password fails the requirement for short-lived credentials without stored secrets.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 834 original CV0-004 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CompTIA exam blueprint
This CV0-004 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA 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 CV0-004 exam.