CEH Wireless, IoT and Cloud Security Practice Question
A cloud security engineer notices that an S3 bucket containing sensitive customer data is configured with a bucket policy that allows 'Principal': '*' and 'Action': 's3:GetObject'. The bucket is not publicly accessible via the AWS Management Console, but the engineer is concerned about data exposure. What is the most likely risk?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse 'not publicly accessible via the AWS Management Console' with 'not publicly accessible via direct object URLs,' but S3 bucket policies control access at the API level, not just the console UI.
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
✓
Anyone on the internet can read objects in the bucket if they know the object URL.
The bucket policy allows 'Principal': '*' with 'Action': 's3:GetObject', which grants anonymous read access to any object in the bucket. Even if the bucket is not publicly listed in the AWS Management Console, anyone on the internet who knows or guesses the object URL can retrieve the object directly via HTTP/HTTPS. This is a classic data exposure risk because the policy overrides any console-level restrictions.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Anyone on the internet can read objects in the bucket if they know the object URL.
Why this is correct
This statement is correct because a misconfigured S3 bucket policy or ACL can grant `s3:GetObject` permissions to the `AllUsers` principal, effectively making the bucket publicly readable. In such cases, anyone with an internet connection can retrieve objects directly by knowing or guessing their specific URL, without requiring any AWS authentication. This represents a significant data exposure risk, as the data is accessible to unauthenticated users.
- ✗
The data is encrypted at rest, so no exposure risk exists.
Why it's wrong here
This statement is incorrect because data encryption at rest, whether using SSE-S3, SSE-KMS, or SSE-C, primarily protects against unauthorized physical access to storage devices. While crucial for data protection, encryption does not inherently control who can *access* the data via the S3 API or HTTP endpoints. If a bucket policy grants public read access, an encrypted object can still be downloaded and decrypted by anyone with the necessary permissions, as the decryption process is handled transparently by S3 or the client.
- ✗
The bucket policy is misconfigured but only affects objects with server-side encryption.
Why it's wrong here
This statement is incorrect. An S3 bucket policy, by default, applies to all objects within the specified bucket unless explicit conditions are included to filter based on object properties like encryption status. A misconfigured policy granting public access will typically apply broadly to all objects, regardless of whether they are encrypted with server-side encryption (SSE-S3, SSE-KMS) or not. The policy's permissions are evaluated *before* object retrieval, making the encryption status irrelevant to the initial access decision.
- ✗
Only authenticated AWS users can access the bucket, so the risk is limited.
Why it's wrong here
This statement is incorrect. A common misconfiguration in S3 bucket policies involves granting permissions to the `Principal: "*"`, which represents "AllUsers" (anonymous users) or `Principal: { "AWS": ["arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT_ID:root"] }` which represents the account owner. If the policy allows `s3:GetObject` for `AllUsers`, then *anyone* on the internet, without any AWS credentials or authentication, can access the objects. This constitutes anonymous access, not limited access to only authenticated AWS users, thus posing a significant risk.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CEH practice question is part of Courseiva's free EC-Council 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 CEH exam.