AWS Certified Security Specialty SCS-C02

Q61. A company’s public Application Load Balancer (ALB) recently experienced a DDoS attack. To mitigate this issue, the company deployed Amazon CloudFront in front of the ALB so that users would not directly access the Amazon EC2 instances behind the ALB. The company discovers that some traffic is still coming directly into the ALB and is still being handled by the EC2 instances. Which combination of steps should the company take to ensure that the EC2 instances will receive traffic only from CloudFront? (Choose two.)

A. Configure CloudFront to add a cache key policy to allow a custom HTTP header that CloudFront sends to the ALB.
B. Configure CloudFront to add a custom HTTP header to requests that CloudFront sends to the ALB.
C. Configure the ALB to forward only requests that contain the custom HTTP header.
D. Configure the ALB and CloudFront to use the X-Forwarded-For header to check client IP addresses.
E. Configure the ALB and CloudFront to use the same X.509 certificate that is generated by AWS Certificate Manager (ACM).

Hint Answer: B C

Q62. A-company uses a third-party identity provider and SAML-based SSO for its AWS accounts. After the third-party identity provider renewed an expired signing certificate, users saw the following message when trying to log in:
Error: Response Signature Invalid (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400; Error Code: InvalidIdentityToken)
A security engineer needs to provide a solution that corrects the error and minimizes operational overhead.
Which solution meets these requirements?

A. Upload the third-party signing certificate’s new private key to the AWS identity provider entity defined in AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) by using the AWS Management Console.
B. Sign the identity provider’s metadata file with the new public key. Upload the signature to the AWS identity provider entity defined in AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) by using the AWS CLI.
C. Download the updated SAML metadata file from the identity service provider. Update the file in the AWS identity provider entity defined in AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) by using the AWS CLI.
D. Configure the AWS identity provider entity defined in AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to synchronously fetch the new public key by using the AWS Management Console.

Hint Answer: C

Q63. A company has several workloads running on AWS. Employees are required to authenticate using on-premises ADFS and SSO to access the AWS Management Console. Developers migrated an existing legacy web application to an Amazon EC2 instance. Employees need to access this application from anywhere on the internet, but currently, there is no authentication system built into the application. How should the security engineer implement employee-only access to this system without changing the application?

A. Place the application behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). Use Amazon Cognito as authentication for the ALB. Define a SAML-based Amazon Cognito user pool and connect it to ADFS.
B. Implement AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS Single Sign-On) in the management account and link it to ADFS as an identity provider. Define the EC2 instance as a managed resource, then apply an IAM policy on the resource.
C. Define an Amazon Cognito identity pool, then install the connector on the Active Directory server. Use the Amazon Cognito SDK on the application instance to authenticate the employees using their Active Directory user names and passwords.
D. Create an AWS Lambda custom authorizer as the authenticator for a reverse proxy on Amazon EC2. Ensure the security group on Amazon EC2 only allows access from the Lambda function.

Hint Answer: A

Q64. A company that operates in a hybrid cloud environment must meet strict compliance requirements. The company wants to create a report that includes evidence from on-premises workloads alongside evidence from AWS resources. A security engineer must implement a solution to collect, review, and manage the evidence to demonstrate compliance with company policy. Which solution will meet these requirements?

A. Create an assessment in AWS Audit Manager from a prebuilt framework or a custom framework. Upload manual evidence from the on-premises workloads. Add the evidence to the assessment. Generate an assessment report after Audit Manager collects the necessary evidence from the AWS resources.
B. Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the on-premises workloads. Use AWS Config to deploy a conformance pack from a sample conformance pack template or a custom YAML template. Generate an assessment report after AWS Config identifies noncompliant workloads and resources.
C. Set up the appropriate security standard in AWS Security Hub. Upload manual evidence from the on-premises workloads. Wait for Security Hub to collect the evidence from the AWS resources. Download the list of controls as a .csv file.
D. Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the on-premises workloads. Create a CloudWatch dashboard to monitor the on-premises workloads and the AWS resources. Run a query on the workloads and resources. Download the results.

Hint Answer: A

Q65. A company deploys a set of standard IAM roles in AWS accounts. The IAM roles are based on job functions within the company. To balance operational efficiency and security, a security engineer implemented AWS Organizations SCPs to restrict access to critical security services in all company accounts. All of the company’s accounts and OUs within AWS Organizations have a default FullAWSAccess SCP that is attached. The security engineer needs to ensure that no one can disable Amazon GuardDuty and AWS Security Hub. The security engineer also must not override other permissions that are granted by IAM policies that are defined in the accounts.

Which SCP should the security engineer attach to the root of the organization to meet these requirements?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Hint Answer: A

Q66. A security engineer needs to create an Amazon S3 bucket policy to grant least privilege read access to IAM user accounts that are named User1, User2, and User3. These IAM user accounts are members of the AuthorizedPeople IAM group. The security engineer drafts the following S3 bucket policy:

When the security engineer tries to add the policy to the S3 bucket, the following error message appears: “Missing required field Principal.” The security engineer is adding a Principal element to the policy. The addition must provide read access to only User1, User2, and User3. Which solution meets these requirements?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Hint Answer: A

Q67. A company has an organization with SCPs in AWS Organizations. The root SCP for the organization is as follows:

The company’s developers are members of a group that has an IAM policy that allows access to Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) by allowing ses:* actions. The account is a child to an OU that has an SCP that allows Amazon SES. The developers are receiving a not-authorized error when they try to access Amazon SES through the AWS Management Console. Which change must a security engineer implement so that the developers can access Amazon SES?

A. Add a resource policy that allows each member of the group to access Amazon SES.
B. Add a resource policy that allows “Principal”: {“AWS”: “arn:aws:iam::account-number:group/Dev”}.
C. Remove the AWS Control Tower control (guardrail) that restricts access to Amazon SES.
D. Remove Amazon SES from the root SCP.

Hint Answer: D

Q68. A company has a guideline that mandates the encryption of all Amazon S3 bucket data in transit. A security engineer must implement an S3 bucket policy that denies any S3 operations if data is not encrypted. Which S3 bucket policy will meet this requirement?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Hint Answer: B

Q69. A company has AWS accounts in an organization in AWS Organizations. The organization includes a dedicated security account. All AWS account activity across all member accounts must be logged and reported to the dedicated security account. The company must retain all the activity logs in a secure storage location within the dedicated security account for 2 years. No changes or deletions of the logs are allowed. Which combination of steps will meet these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead? (Choose two.)

A. In the dedicated security account, create an Amazon S3 bucket. Configure S3 Object Lock in compliance mode and a retention period of 2 years on the S3 bucket. Set the bucket policy to allow the organization’s management account to write to the S3 bucket.
B. In the dedicated security account, create an Amazon S3 bucket. Configure S3 Object Lock in compliance mode and a retention period of 2 years on the S3 bucket. Set the bucket policy to allow the organization’s member accounts to write to the S3 bucket.
C. In the dedicated security account, create an Amazon S3 bucket that has an S3 Lifecycle configuration that expires objects after 2 years. Set the bucket policy to allow the organization’s member accounts to write to the S3 bucket.
D. Create an AWS CloudTrail trail for the organization. Configure logs to be delivered to the logging Amazon S3 bucket in the dedicated security account.
E. Turn on AWS CloudTrail in each account. Configure logs to be delivered to an Amazon S3 bucket that is created in the organization’s management account. Forward the logs to the S3 bucket in the dedicated security account by using AWS Lambda and Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose.

Hint Answer: A D

Q70. A company’s security engineer is developing an incident response plan to detect suspicious activity in an AWS account for VPC hosted resources. The security engineer needs to provide visibility for as many AWS Regions as possible. Which combination of steps will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively? (Choose two.)

A. Turn on VPC Flow Logs for all VPCs in the account.
B. Activate Amazon GuardDuty across all AWS Regions.
C. Activate Amazon Detective across all AWS Regions.
D. Create an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule that responds to findings and publishes the findings to the SNS topic.
E. Create an AWS Lambda function. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule that invokes the Lambda function to publish findings to Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES).

Hint Answer: A B

Q71. A company uses SAML federation to grant users access to AWS accounts. A company workload that is in an isolated AWS account runs on immutable infrastructure with no human access to Amazon EC2. The company requires a specialized user known as a break glass user to have access to the workload AWS account and instances in the case of SAML errors. A recent audit discovered that the company did not create the break glass user for the AWS account that contains the workload. The company must create the break glass user. The company must log any activities of the break glass user and send the logs to a security team. Which combination of solutions will meet these requirements? (Choose two.)

A. Create a local individual break glass IAM user for the security team. Create a trail in AWS CloudTrail that has Amazon CloudWatch Logs turned on. Use Amazon EventBridge to monitor local user activities.
B. Create a break glass EC2 key pair for the AWS account. Provide the key pair to the security team. Use AWS CloudTrail to monitor key pair activity. Send notifications to the security team by using Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS).
C. Create a break glass IAM role for the account. Allow security team members to perform the AssumeRoleWithSAML operation. Create an AWS CloudTrail trail that has Amazon CloudWatch Logs turned on. Use Amazon EventBridge to monitor security team activities.
D. Create a local individual break glass IAM user on the operating system level of each workload instance. Configure unrestricted security groups on the instances to grant access to the break glass IAM users.
E. Configure AWS Systems Manager Session Manager for Amazon EC2. Configure an AWS CloudTrail filter based on Session Manager. Send the results to an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic.

Hint Answer: C E

Q72. A security engineer is building a Java application that is running on Amazon EC2. The application communicates with an Amazon RDS instance and authenticates with a user name and password. Which combination of steps can the engineer take to protect the credentials and minimize downtime when the credentials are rotated? (Choose two.)

A. Have a database administrator encrypt the credentials and store the ciphertext in Amazon S3. Grant permission to the instance role associated with the EC2 instance to read the object and decrypt the ciphertext.
B. Configure a scheduled job that updates the credential in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store and notifies the engineer that the application needs to be restarted.
C. Configure automatic rotation of credentials in AWS Secrets Manager.
D. Store the credential in an encrypted string parameter in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store. Grant permission to the instance role associated with the EC2 instance to access the parameter and the AWS KMS key that is used to encrypt it.
E. Configure the Java application to catch a connection failure and make a call to AWS Secrets Manager to retrieve updated credentials when the password is rotated. Grant permission to the instance role associated with the EC2 instance to access Secrets Manager.

Hint Answer: C E

Q73. A security engineer is trying to use Amazon EC2 Image Builder to create an image of an EC2 instance. The security engineer has configured the pipeline to send logs to an Amazon S3 bucket. When the security engineer runs the pipeline, the build fails with the following error: “AccessDenied: Access Denied status code: 403”. The security engineer must resolve the error by implementing a solution that complies with best practices for least privilege access. Which combination of steps will meet these requirements? (Choose two.)

A. Ensure that the following policies are attached to the IAM role that the security engineer is using·EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilder, EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilderECRContainerBuilds, and AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore.
B. Ensure that the following policies are attached to the instance profile for the EC2 instance: EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilder, EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilderECRContainerBuilds, and AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore.
C. Ensure that the AWSImageBuilderFullAccess policy is attached to the instance profile for the EC2 instance.
D. Ensure that the security engineer’s IAM role has the s3:PutObject permission for the S3 bucket.
E. Ensure that the instance profile for the EC2 instance has the s3:PutObject permission for the S3 bucket.

Hint Answer: B E

Q74. A company has a group of Amazon EC2 instances in a single private subnet of a VPC with no internet gateway attached. A security engineer has installed the Amazon CloudWatch agent on all instances in that subnet to capture logs from a specific application. To ensure that the logs flow securely, the company’s networking team has created VPC endpoints for CloudWatch monitoring and CloudWatch logs. The networking team has attached the endpoints to the VPC. The application is generating logs However, when the security engineer queries CloudWatch, the logs do not appear. Which combination of steps should the security engineer take to troubleshoot this issue? (Choose three.)

A. Ensure that the EC2 instance profile that is attached to the EC2 instances has permissions to create log streams and write logs.
B. Create a metric filter on the logs so that they can be viewed in the AWS Management Console.
C. Check the CloudWatch agent configuration file on each EC2 instance to make sure that the CloudWatch agent is collecting the proper log files.
D. Check the VPC endpoint policies of both VPC endpoints to ensure that the EC2 instances have permissions to use them.
E. Create a NAT gateway in the subnet so that the EC2 instances can communicate with CloudWatch.
F. Ensure that the security groups allow all the EC2 instances to communicate with each other to aggregate logs before sending.

Hint Answer: A C D

Q75. A security engineer needs to configure an Amazon S3 bucket policy to restrict access to an S3 bucket that is named DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET. The policy must allow access to only DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET from only the following endpoint: vpce-1a2b3c4d. The policy must deny all access to DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET if the specified endpoint is not used. Which bucket policy statement meets these requirements?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Hint Answer: B

Q76. A security engineer is creating an AWS Lambda function. The Lambda function needs to use a role that is named LambdaAuditRole to assume a role that is named AcmeAuditFactoryRole in a different AWS account. When the code is processed, the following error message appears: “An error occurred (AccessDenied) when calling the AssumeRole operation.” Which combination of steps should the security engineer take to resolve this error? (Choose two.)

A. Ensure that LambdaAuditRole has the sts:AssumeRole permission for AcmeAuditFactoryRole.
B. Ensure that LambdaAuditRole has the AWSLambdaBasicExecutionRole managed policy attached.
C. Ensure that the trust policy for AcmeAuditFactoryRole allows the sts:AssumeRole action from LambdaAuditRole.
D. Ensure that the trust policy for LambdaAuditRole allows the sts:AssumeRole action from the lambda.amazonaws.com service.
E. Ensure that the sts:AssumeRole API call is being issued to the us-east-1 Region endpoint.

Hint Answer: A C

Q77. A systems engineer is troubleshooting the connectivity of a test environment that includes a virtual security appliance deployed inline. In addition to using the virtual security appliance, the development team wants to use security groups and network ACLs to accomplish various security requirements in the environment. What configuration is necessary to allow the virtual security appliance to route the traffic?

A. Disable network ACLs.
B. Configure the security appliance’s elastic network interface for promiscuous mode.
C. Disable the Network Source/Destination check on the security appliance’s elastic network interface.
D. Place the security appliance in the public subnet with the internet gateway.

Hint Answer: C

Q78. A security engineer needs to implement a write-once-read-many (WORM) model for data that a company will store in Amazon S3 buckets. The company uses the S3 Standard storage class for all of its S3 buckets. The security engineer must ensure that objects cannot be overwritten or deleted by any user, including the AWS account root user. Which solution will meet these requirements?

A. Create new S3 buckets with S3 Object Lock enabled in compliance mode. Place objects in the S3 buckets.
B. Use S3 Glacier Vault Lock to attach a Vault Lock policy to new S3 buckets. Wait 24 hours to complete the Vault Lock process. Place objects in the S3 buckets.
C. Create new S3 buckets with S3 Object Lock enabled in governance mode. Place objects in the S3 buckets.
D. Create new S3 buckets with S3 Object Lock enabled in governance mode. Add a legal hold to the S3 buckets. Place objects in the S3 buckets.

Hint Answer: A

Q79. A security engineer wants to use Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to send email alerts to a company’s security team for Amazon GuardDuty findings that have a High severity level. The security engineer also wants to deliver these findings to a visualization tool for further examination. Which solution will meet these requirements?

A. Set up GuardDuty to send notifications to an Amazon CloudWatch alarm with two targets in CloudWatch. From CloudWatch, stream the findings through Amazon Kinesis Data Streams into an Amazon Open Search Service domain as the first target for delivery. Use Amazon QuickSight to visualize the findings. Use OpenSearch queries for further analysis. Deliver email alerts to the security team by configuring an SNS topic as a second target for the CloudWatch alarm. Use event pattern matching with an Amazon EventBridge event rule to send only High severity findings in the alerts.
B. Set up GuardDuty to send notifications to AWS CloudTrail with two targets in CloudTrail. From CloudTrail, stream the findings through Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose into an Amazon OpenSearch Service domain as the first target for delivery. Use OpenSearch Dashboards to visualize the findings. Use OpenSearch queries for further analysis. Deliver email alerts to the security team by configuring an SNS topic as a second target for CloudTrail. Use event pattern matching with a CloudTrail event rule to send only High severity findings in the alerts.
C. Set up GuardDuty to send notifications to Amazon EventBridge with two targets. From EventBridge, stream the findings through Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose into an Amazon OpenSearch Service domain as the first target for delivery. Use OpenSearch Dashboards to visualize the findings. Use OpenSearch queries for further analysis. Deliver email alerts to the security team by configuring an SNS topic as a second target for EventBridge. Use event pattern matching with an EventBridge event rule to send only High severity findings in the alerts.
D. Set up GuardDuty to send notifications to Amazon EventBridge with two targets. From EventBridge, stream the findings through Amazon Kinesis Data Streams into an Amazon OpenSearch Service domain as the first target for delivery. Use Amazon QuickSight to visualize the findings. Use OpenSearch queries for further analysis. Deliver email alerts to the security team by configuring an SNS topic as a second target for EventBridge. Use event pattern matching with an EventBridge event rule to send only High severity findings in the alerts.

Hint Answer: C

Q80. An IAM user receives an Access Denied message when the user attempts to access objects in an Amazon S3 bucket. The user and the S3 bucket are in the same AWS account. The S3 bucket is configured to use server-side encryption with AWS KMS keys (SSE-KMS) to encrypt all of its objects at rest by using a customer managed key from the same AWS account. The S3 bucket has no bucket policy defined. The IAM user has been granted permissions through an IAM policy that allows the kms:Decrypt permission to the customer managed key. The IAM policy also allows the s3:List* and s3:Get* permissions for the S3 bucket and its objects. Which of the following is a possible reason that the IAM user cannot access the objects in the S3 bucket?

A. The IAM policy needs to allow the kms:DescribeKey permission.
B. The S3 bucket has been changed to use the AWS managed key to encrypt objects at rest.
C. An S3 bucket policy needs to be added to allow the IAM user to access the objects.
D. The KMS key policy has been edited to remove the ability for the AWS account to have full access to the key.

Hint Answer: D