VA-003 Compare and configure secrets engines Practice Question
A financial services company runs a microservices application on Kubernetes. Each service needs to authenticate to Vault using Kubernetes auth and then read secrets from a shared KV v2 engine mounted at 'shared-kv'. The security team requires that Service-A can only read secrets under 'shared-kv/team-alpha/*' and Service-B can only read secrets under 'shared-kv/team-beta/*'. The Vault administrator has already configured the Kubernetes auth method and created roles for each service with bound service account names. However, both services are currently able to read all paths under 'shared-kv/'. The administrator wants to enforce the least privilege access. Which course of action should the administrator take?
⚠ Common exam trap
HashiCorp often tests the misconception that 'path_deny' is a valid capability in Vault ACL policies, when in fact Vault uses default-deny and explicit allow, so candidates incorrectly choose Option C instead of updating the allowed paths.
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
✓
Review and update the policy attached to the Kubernetes auth roles to restrict capabilities to the specific paths, e.g., 'path "shared-kv/data/team-alpha/*" { capabilities = ["read"] }'.
The issue is that the policy attached to the Kubernetes auth roles grants read access to the entire 'shared-kv/*' path. By updating the policy to restrict capabilities to specific paths like 'shared-kv/data/team-alpha/*' and 'shared-kv/data/team-beta/*', the administrator enforces least privilege. The 'data' prefix is required for KV v2 engines to access secret data, and the wildcard ensures only the respective team's secrets are readable.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure the Kubernetes auth role to use 'token_policies' with a restrictive policy and ensure the bound service account names are correct.
Why it's wrong here
Token policies attached to the Kubernetes auth role apply to every service assuming that role, so they cannot separate team-alpha from team-beta paths. It is tempting because token_policies is the standard way to bind policies to a role, but path-level least privilege here requires distinct policies per role or templated ACL paths.
- ✗
Create a new secrets engine for each team and mount them at 'team-alpha' and 'team-beta', then assign each service to its respective engine.
Why it's wrong here
Separate mounts would enforce isolation, but they break the stated requirement that both services read from the shared KV v2 engine at 'shared-kv', and existing data would need migration. This option tempts administrators who prefer physical separation, which would be correct if no shared engine were mandated.
- ✗
Add a 'path_deny' capability in the policy for the disallowed paths.
Why it's wrong here
Vault ACL policies have no 'path_deny' capability; denial is the default when a path is absent from the policy, so this syntax is invalid. This option tempts administrators familiar with explicit deny rules in other systems, which would be correct if Vault supported deny statements.
- ✓
Review and update the policy attached to the Kubernetes auth roles to restrict capabilities to the specific paths, e.g., 'path "shared-kv/data/team-alpha/*" { capabilities = ["read"] }'.
Why this is correct
Vault authorises requests through the token's attached policy, not the auth role itself. Editing each role's policy to grant read only on shared-kv/data/team-alpha/* or team-beta/* enforces least privilege, since the existing broad policy currently allows both services to read every path.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This VA-003 practice question is part of Courseiva's free HashiCorp 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 VA-003 exam.