CPENT Cloud And Hybrid Infrastructure Security Practice Question
An AWS penetration tester uncovers an IAM policy attached to a user that contains the action 'iam:PutUserPolicy' with a resource of '*'. What privilege escalation vector does this enable?
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 user can attach an inline policy to their own IAM user granting full administrative access (AdministratorAccess).
An IAM user with iam:PutUserPolicy can attach an inline policy to their own user account or another user, granting themselves full administrative permissions.
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 user can modify the AWS billing dashboard and delete all EC2 instances.
Why it's wrong here
Billing access is controlled separately via account management.
- ✗
The user can decrypt all KMS keys in the AWS region.
Why it's wrong here
KMS decryption requires kms:Decrypt permissions.
- ✗
The user can delete the AWS account root user credentials.
Why it's wrong here
Root user credentials cannot be deleted via IAM user policies.
- ✓
The user can attach an inline policy to their own IAM user granting full administrative access (AdministratorAccess).
Why this is correct
iam:PutUserPolicy allows adding inline policies to users, enabling self-escalation.
About these practice questions
This CPENT question is part of Courseiva's 274-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. 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 August 2026 · checked against the official EC-Council exam blueprint
This CPENT 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 CPENT exam.