Practice Free SCS-C02 AWS Certified Security - Specialty Exam Questions Answers With Explanation

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/cloudhsm-share-clusters/#:~:text=In%20the%20navigation%20pane%2C%20in,subnet%20ID%20for%20your%20CloudHSM.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To enable GuardDuty to monitor Kubernetes-based applications:

Enable Control Plane Logs:

GuardDuty uses control plane logs to detect malicious or unauthorized activity in Amazon EKS.

Enable EKS control plane logs (API, audit, authenticator) and ingest them into CloudWatch.

The correct answer is D.

To stop the data exfiltration from the compromised EC2 instances, the security engineer needs to implement a solution that can deny access to any S3 bucket that is outside thecompany’s organization. The solution should also allow the EC2 instances to access the required S3 buckets within the company’s organization for the analysis process.

Option A is incorrect because updating the policy on the S3 gateway endpoint will not affect the access to S3 buckets that are outside the company’s organization. The S3 gateway endpoint only applies to S3 buckets that are in the same AWS Region as the VPC. The compromised EC2 instances can still access S3 buckets in other Regions or other AWS accounts through the internet gateway or NAT device.

Option B is incorrect because updating the policy on the instance profile role will not prevent the compromised EC2 instances from using other credentials or methods to access S3 buckets outside the company’s organization. The instance profile role only applies to requests that are made using the credentials of that role. The compromised EC2 instances can still use other IAM users, roles, or access keys to access S3 buckets outside the company’s organization.

Option C is incorrect because adding a network ACL rule to block outgoing connections on port 443 will also block legitimate connections to S3 buckets within the company’s organization. The network ACL rule will prevent the EC2 instances from accessing any S3 bucket through HTTPS, regardless of whether it is inside or outside the company’s organization.

Option D is correct because applying an SCP on the AWS account will effectively deny access to any S3 bucket that is outside the company’s organization. The SCP will apply to all IAM users, roles, and resources in the AWS account, regardless of how they access S3. The SCP will use the aws:ResourceOrgID and aws:PrincipalOrgID condition keys to check whether the S3 bucket and the principal belong to the same organization as the AWS account. If they do not match, the SCP will deny the S3 actions.

the most scalable solution for accessing the IAM infrastructure in a multi-account strategy. A multi-account strategy is a way of organizing your AWS resources into multiple IAM accounts for security, billing, and management purposes. Federation is a process that allows users to access AWS resources using credentials from an external identity provider such as Active Directory or SAML. IAM roles are sets of permissions that grant access to AWS resources. Cross-account roles are IAM roles that allow users in one account to access resources in another account. By using a centralized account with IAM roles that employees can assume through federation with their existing identity provider, you can simplify and streamline the access management process. By using cross-account roles to allow the federated users to assume their target role in the resource accounts, you can enable granular and flexible access control across multiple accounts. The other options are either less scalable or less secure for accessing the IAM infrastructure in a multi-account strategy.

Restrict Root User Capabilities Using Service Control Policies (SCPs):

SCPs in AWS Organizations provide the ability to control permissions for AWS accounts in the organization.

Create a new organizational unit (OU) and move all member accounts into this OU.

Create SCP for Root User Restrictions:

Define an SCP that denies critical actions likeiam:CreateUser,iam:DeleteUser, or other high-risk actions for the root user. Example SCP:

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Deny",

"Action": "*",

"Resource": "*",

"Condition": {

"StringEquals": {

"aws:PrincipalAccountRoot": "true"

}

}

}

]

}

Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA):

Enable MFA on root accounts for additional security.

Monitor Root User Activity:

Use AWS CloudTrail to monitor and log root user actions. Configure alerts with CloudWatch for any unauthorized root usage.

AWS Organizations SCP Documentation

Best Practices for Root User Account

For this scenario you would need to set up static website hosting because a custom domain name is listed as a requirement. "Amazon S3 website endpoints do not support HTTPS or access points. If you want to use HTTPS, you can use Amazon CloudFront to serve a static website hosted on Amazon S3." This is not secure. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/website-hosting-custom-domain-walkthrough.html CloudFront signed URLs allow much more fine-grained control as well as HTTPS access with custom domain names:https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/private-content-signed-urls.html

 these are the strategies that can reduce the attack surface and enhance the security of the containers. Containers are a method of packaging and running applications in isolated environments. Using containers to automate security deployments can help ensure that security patches and updates are applied consistently and quickly across the container fleet. Segregating containers by host, function, and data classification can help limit the impact of a compromise and enforce the principle of least privilege. The other options are either irrelevant or risky for securing containers.

Multi-factor authentication can add one more layer of security to your IAM account Even when you go to your Security Credentials dashboard one of the items is to enable MFA on your root account

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Option A is invalid because you need to have a good password policy Option B is invalid because there is no IAM Geo-Lock Option D is invalid because this is not a recommended practices For more information on MFA, please visit the below URL

http://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id credentials mfa.htmll

The correct answer is: Use MFA on all users and accounts, especially on the root account.

Submit your Feedback/Queries to our Experts

AWS Backup supports cross-Region backup copy to another backup vault in a different AWS Region. This is the simplest and most operationally efficient method to meet the requirement of geographic redundancy (i.e., data centers several hundred miles apart).

No custom scripting, Lambda, or EventBridge scheduling is required, minimizing operational overhead and aligning with Data Protection and Disaster Recovery best practices.

Enable GuardDuty:

GuardDuty provides monitoring for EKS clusters by analyzing EKS audit logs.

Automatic Configuration:

No additional setup for the EKS deployment is needed. GuardDuty directly monitors API calls to detect suspicious or unauthenticated access.

Advantages:

Minimal Effort: No operational overhead for configuration.

Proactive Detection: Alerts for unauthorized or suspicious activity in near-real-time.

Amazon GuardDuty for EKS

EKS Audit Log Monitoring

Option A is incorrect since you don't add a user to the IAM Role

Option C is incorrect since you don't assign multiple users to a policy

Option D is incorrect since this is not an ideal approach

An IAM group is used to collectively manage users who need the same set of permissions. By having groups, it becomes easier to manage permissions. So if you change the permissions on the group scale, it will affect all the users in that group

For more information on IAM Groups, just browse to the below URL:

https://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_eroups.html

The correct answer is: Use the IAM groups and add users, based upon their role, to different groups and apply the policy to group

Submit your Feedback/Queries to our Experts

To implement the solution, the security engineer should do the following:

Assign an Elastic IP address to Amazon EFS and add the Elastic IP address to the allow list for the data center firewall. This allows the security engineer to use a specific IP address for the EFS file system that can be added to the firewall rules, instead of a CIDR range or a URL.

Install the AWS CLI on the data center-based servers to mount the EFS file system. This allows the security engineer to use the mount helper provided by AWS CLI to mount the EFS file system with encryption in transit.

In the EFS security group, add the IP addresses of the data center servers to the allow list. This allows the security engineer to restrict access to the EFS file system to only certain data center-based servers.

Mount the EFS using the Elastic IP address. This allows the security engineer to use the Elastic IP address as the DNS name for mounting the EFS file system.

The correct answer is A. Configure an S3 Lifecycle rule on the S3 bucket to delete objects after 45 days.

The reason is that this is the simplest and most effective way to enforce the data retention policy.According to theAWS documentation1, “To manage your objects so that they are stored cost effectively throughout their lifecycle, configure their Amazon S3 Lifecycle. An S3 Lifecycle configuration is a set of rules that define actions that Amazon S3 applies to a group of objects.There are two types of actions: Transition actionsand Expiration actions.” The documentation1also states that “Expiration actions define when objects expire. Amazon S3 deletes expired objects on your behalf.” Therefore, by configuring an S3 Lifecycle rule on the S3 bucket to delete objects after 45 days, the security engineer can ensure that the data is removed from the S3 bucket according to the company’s policy.

The other options are incorrect because:

B. Create an AWS Lambda function to check the last-modified date of the S3 objects and delete objects that are older than 45 days. Create an S3 event notification to invoke the Lambda function for each PutObject operation. This option is not optimal because it requires deploying and maintaining a Lambda function, which adds complexity and cost. Moreover, it does not guarantee that the data is deleted exactly after 45 days, since the Lambda function is triggered only when a new object is put into the S3 bucket. If there are no new objects for a long period of time, the Lambda function will not run and the data will not be deleted.

C. Create an AWS Lambda function to check the last-modified date of the S3 objects and delete objects that are older than 45 days. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule to invoke the Lambda function each month. This option is not optimal because it requires deploying and maintaining a Lambda function, which adds complexity and cost. Moreover, it does not guarantee that the data is deleted exactly after 45 days, since the Lambda function is triggered only once a month. If the data is older than 45 days but less than a month, it will not be deleted until the next month.

D. Configure S3 Intelligent-Tiering on the S3 bucket to automatically transition objects to another storage class. This option is not sufficient to enforce the data retention policy, because it does not delete the data from the S3 bucket. It only moves the data to a less expensive storage class based on access patterns.According to the AWS documentation2, “S3 Intelligent-Tiering optimizes storage costs by automatically moving data between two access tiers, frequent access and infrequent access, when access patterns change.” However, this feature does not expire or delete the data after a certain period of time.

The key length for an RSA certificate that you use with CloudFront is 2048 bits, even though ACM supports larger keys. If you use an imported certificate with CloudFront, your key length must be 1024 or 2048 bits and cannot exceed 2048 bits. You must import the certificate in the US East (N. Virginia) Region. You must have permission to use and importthe SSL/TLS certificate

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/cnames-and-https-requirements.html

To prevent users from directly accessing an Application Load Balancer and allow access only through CloudFront, complete these high-level steps: Configure CloudFront to add a custom HTTP header to requests that it sends to the Application Load Balancer. Configure the Application Load Balancer to only forward requests that contain the custom HTTP header. (Optional) Require HTTPS to improve the security of this solution.https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/restrict-access-to-load-balancer.html

The combination of the following actions should the Engineer take to enable users to be authenticated into the web application and call APIs are:

B. Configure a SAML identity provider in Amazon Cognito to map attributes to the Amazon Cognito user pool attributes.This is a necessary step to federate the existing users from the SAML identity provider to the Amazon Cognito user pool, which will be used for authentication and authorization1.

C. Configure the SAML identity provider to add the Amazon Cognito user pool as a relying party.This is a necessary step to establish a trust relationship between the SAML identity provider and the Amazon Cognito user pool, which will allow the users to sign in using their existing credentials2.

F. Update API Gateway to use a COGNITO_USER_POOLS authorizer.This is a necessary step to enable API Gateway to use the Amazon Cognito user pool as an authorizer for the RESTful services, which will validate the identity or access tokens that are issued by AmazonCognito when a user signs in successfully3.

The other options are incorrect because:

A.Creating a custom authorization service using AWS Lambda is not a necessary step, because Amazon Cognito user pools can provide built-in authorization features, such as scopes and groups, that can be used to control access toAPI resources4.

D.Configuring an Amazon Cognitoidentity pool to integrate with social login providers is not a necessary step, because the users already exist in a directory that is exposed through a SAML identity provider, and there is no requirement to support social login providers5.

E.Updating DynamoDB to store the user email addresses and passwords is not a necessary step, because the user credentials are already stored in the SAML identity provider, and there is no need to duplicate them in DynamoDB6.

the kms:ViaService condition key can be used to restrict a CMK to work with only a specific AWS service6. By configuring the CMKkey policy to allow KMS actions only when the kms:ViaService condition matches the Amazon S3 service name, you can ensure that only Amazon S3 can use the CMK7. The other options are either incorrect or insufficient for constraining a CMK to work with only Amazon S3.

Amazon CloudWatch monitoring is a service that collects and tracksmetrics fromAWS resources and applications, and provides visualization tools and alarms to monitor performance and availability1. The health status data in format can be sent to CloudWatch as custom metrics2, and then displayed in CloudWatch dashboards3. The other options are either inefficient or insecure for monitoring application availability in near-real time.

This answer is correct because it meets the requirements of returning the application to service, resolving the issue, and ensuring that logging is not turned off in the future. By editing the rules in the web ACL to include rules with Count actions, the security engineer can test the effect of each rule without blocking or allowing requests. By reviewing the logs, the security engineer can identify which rule is causing the problem and modify or delete it accordingly. By modifying the IAM policy of all AWS WAF administrators, the security engineer can restrict their permissions to prevent them from removing the logging configuration for any AWS WAF web ACLs.

A bucket policy is a resource-based policy that defines permissions for a specific S3 bucket. It can be used to grant cross-account access to another AWS account or an IAM user or role in another account. A bucket policy can also specify which actions, resources, and conditions are allowed or denied.

A bucket ACL is an access control list that grants basic read or write permissions to predefined groups of users. It cannot be used to grant cross-account access to a specific IAM user or role in another account.

An object ACL is an access control list that grants basic read or write permissions to predefined groups of users for a specific object in an S3 bucket. It cannot be used to grant cross-account access to a specific IAM user or role in another account.

A user policy is an IAM policy that defines permissions for an IAM user or role in the same account. It cannot be used to grant cross-account access to another AWS account or an IAM user or role in another account.

For more information, see Provide cross-account access to objects in Amazon S3 buckets and Example 2: Bucket owner granting cross-account bucket permissions.

To mitigate traffic volume from a specific IP address without entirely blocking it, AWS WAF’s rate-based rules are the appropriate solution. AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall) provides rate-based rules that allow a user to count and limit the rate of requests from individual IP addresses.

A rate-based rule tracks the number of requests that each originating IP makes in a rolling five-minute period. If the number of requests exceeds a specified threshold, WAF applies an action such as block or count.

This makes AWS WAF an ideal tool to throttle traffic rather than block it, which directly meets the use case described.

Reference from AWS Certified Security - Specialty Official Guide:

This capability is part of AWS WAF’s standard feature set, explicitly covered under the topics of Logging and Monitoring and Mitigating DDoS and Abnormal Behavior. Rate-based rules are discussed as a method for limiting the number of incoming requests based on request patterns without denying access outright.

To resolve CloudTrail's failure to deliver events to S3, verifying the S3 bucket policy for CloudTrail's write permissions (A) and ensuring the existence of the specified S3 bucket (D) are critical initial steps. These actions ensure that CloudTrail has the necessary permissions and a valid destination for log file delivery, addressing common configuration issues that can interrupt event logging.

The correct answer is A because it allows the security engineer to add the X-Frame-Options header to the HTTPS responses from the application origin without modifying the origin itself. A Lambda@Edge function is a Lambda function that runs in response to CloudFront events, such as viewer request, origin request, origin response, or viewer response. By configuring the function to runin response to the origin response event, the security engineer can modify the response headers that CloudFront receives from the origin before sending them to the viewer1. The function can include code to add the X-Frame-Options header with the desired value, suchas DENY or SAMEORIGIN, to prevent frame-related cross-site scripting attacks2.

The other options are incorrect because they are either less efficient or less secure than option A. Option B is incorrect because configuring the Lambda@Edge function to run in response to the viewer request event is not optimal, as it adds latency to the request processing and does not modify the response headers that CloudFront receives from the origin. Option C is incorrect because adding X-Frame-Options to custom headers in the origin settings does not affect the response headers that CloudFront sends to the viewer. Custom headers are only used to send additional information to the origin when CloudFront forwards a request3. Option D is incorrect because customizing the EC2 hosted application to add the X-Frame-Options header to the responses requires changing the origin code, which may not be feasible or desirable for the security engineer.

Generate a Data Key:

Use theaws kms generate-data-keycommand to request a data key from AWS KMS.

The data key will include both a plaintext version and an encrypted version.

Example command:

bash

aws kms generate-data-key --key-id --key-spec AES_256

Encrypt the File:

Use the plaintext data key to encrypt the 2 KB file using standard encryption libraries or utilities (e.g., OpenSSL).

Secure the Encrypted Data Key:

Store the encrypted version of the data key alongside the encrypted file for future decryption.

Least Privilege Principle:

Ensure the EC2 instance role has the minimum necessary permissions to callkms:GenerateDataKeyandkms:Decrypt.

Testing and Validation:

Verify that the encrypted file can be successfully decrypted using the stored encrypted data key and the KMS key.

AWS KMS GenerateDataKey API

AWS KMS Best Practices

Encrypting Data with AWS KMS

Option A: This option meets the requirements of following security best practices and configuring sensitive database credentials in the CloudFormation template. A dynamic reference is a way to specify external values that are stored and managed in other services,such as Secrets Manager, in the stack templates1. When using a dynamic reference, CloudFormation retrieves the value of the specified reference when necessary during stack and change set operations1. Dynamic references can be used for certain resources that support them, such as AWS::RDS::DBInstance1. By using a dynamic reference to reference the database credentials in Secrets Manager, the company can leverage the existing integration between these services and avoid hardcoding the secret information in the template. Secrets Manager is a service that helps you protect secrets needed to access your applications, services, and IT resources2. Secrets Manager enables you to rotate, manage,and retrieve database credentials, API keys, and other secrets throughout theirlifecycle2.

The correct answer is C. Update the existing bucket policy in the Amazon S3 console with the new log file prefix, and then update the log file prefix in the CloudTrail console.

According to the AWS documentation1, a bucket policy is a resource-based policy that you can use to grant access permissions to your Amazon S3 bucket and the objects in it. Only the bucket owner can associate a policy with a bucket. The permissions attached to the bucket apply to all of the objects in the bucket that are owned by the bucket owner.

When you create a trail in CloudTrail, you can specify an existing S3 bucket or create a new one to store your log files. CloudTrail automatically creates a bucket policy for your S3 bucket that grants CloudTrail write-only access to deliver log files to your bucket. The bucket policy also grants read-only access to AWS services that you can use to view and analyze your log data, such as Amazon Athena, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, and Amazon QuickSight.

If you want to update the log file prefix for an existing trail, you must also update the existing bucket policy in the S3 console with the new log file prefix. The log file prefix is part of the resource ARN that identifies the objects in your bucket that CloudTrail canaccess. If you don’t update the bucket policy with the new log file prefix, CloudTrail will not be able to deliver log files to your bucket, and you will receive an error message when you try to save the change in the CloudTrail console.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Creating a new trail with the updated log file prefix, and then deleting the original trail is not necessary and may cause data loss or inconsistency. You can simply update the existing trail and its associated bucket policy with the new log file prefix.

B. Updating the existing bucket policy in the S3 console to allow the Security Engineer’s Principal to perform PutBucketPolicy is not relevant to this issue. The PutBucketPolicy action allows you to create or replace a policy on a bucket, but it does not affect CloudTrail’s ability to deliver log files to your bucket. You still need to update the existing bucket policy with the new log file prefix.

D. Updating the existing bucket policy in the S3 console to allow the Security Engineer’s Principal to perform GetBucketPolicy is not relevant to this issue. The GetBucketPolicy action allows you to retrieve a policy on a bucket, but it does not affect CloudTrail’s ability to deliver log files to your bucket. You still need to update the existing bucket policy with the new log file prefix.

To implement host-based security for Amazon EC2 instances and containers in Amazon ECR with minimal operational overhead and ensure automatic deployment and scanning for new workloads, the recommended solution is to configure a delegated administrator for Amazon Inspector within the AWS Organizations structure. By enabling Amazon Inspector for the organization and configuring it to automatically scan new member accounts, the company can ensure that all EC2 instances and ECR containers are analyzed for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure. Amazon Inspector will automatically assess the workloads and push findings to AWS Security Hub, providing centralized security monitoring and compliance checking. This approach ensures that as new accounts orworkloads are added, they are automatically included in the security assessments, maintaining a consistent security posture across the organization with minimal manual intervention.

Enable VPC Flow Logs:

VPC flow logs capture details about the network traffic in your VPC, including both accepted and rejected traffic.

Configure the flow logs to capture traffic for the subnet where the affected EC2 instances are located.

Filter Rejected Traffic:

In the flow log configuration, ensure that you capture rejected traffic (log-status = REJECT).

This will provide a record of instances that attempted to communicate on TCP port 2905 and were blocked by the NACL rule.

Analyze Flow Logs:

Search the flow log records for entries where:

destination-port = 2905

log-status = REJECT

This will help identify the specific EC2 instances attempting to communicate on TCP port 2905.

Advantages of Using VPC Flow Logs:

Cost-effective: No additional infrastructure or services are required.

Scalable: Automatically captures traffic across the subnet without manual intervention.

Detailed Logs: Provides granular details about the rejected traffic.

VPC Flow Logs Documentation

Filtering VPC Flow Logs

To set up a CloudFront distribution for an S3 bucket that hosts a static website, and to allow only specified IP addresses to access the website, the following steps are required:

Create a CloudFront origin access identity (OAI), which is a special CloudFront user that you can associate with your distribution. An OAI allows you to restrict access to your S3 content by using signed URLs or signed cookies. For more information, see Using an origin access identity to restrict access to your Amazon S3 content.

Create the S3 bucket policy so that only the OAI has access. This will prevent users from accessing the website directly by using S3 URLs, as they will receive an Access Denied error. To do this, use the AWS Policy Generator to create a bucket policy that grants s3:GetObject permission to the OAI, and attach it to the S3 bucket. For more information, see Restricting access to Amazon S3 content by using an origin access identity.

Create an AWS WAF web ACL and add an IP set rule. AWS WAF is a web application firewall service that lets you control access to your web applications. An IP set is a condition that specifies a list of IP addresses or IP address ranges that requests originate from. You can use an IP set rule to allow or block requests based on the IP addresses of the requesters.For more information, see Working with IP match conditions.

Associate the web ACL with the CloudFront distribution. This will ensure that the web ACL filters all requests for your website before they reach your origin. You can do this by using the AWS WAF console, API, or CLI. For more information, see Associating or disassociating a web ACL with a CloudFront distribution.

This solution will meet the requirements of allowing only specified IP addresses to access the website and preventing direct access by using S3 URLs.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not create a CloudFront distribution for the S3 bucket (A), do not use an OAI to restrict access to the S3 bucket ©, or do not use AWS WAF to block traffic from outside the specified IP addresses (D).

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/private-content-restricting-access-to-s3.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/web-acl-ip-conditions.html

B. Amazon Inspector now supports Lambda scanning for vulnerabilities. Designating a delegated administrator provides centralized visibility into findings across the organization.

C. Tag-based suppression enables filtering of findings for non-production resources (e.g., test or dev Lambda functions). By using tags and configuring suppression filters in Inspector, only relevant production findings appear in the dashboard.

This approach provides continuous monitoring, centralized reporting, and filtering based on environment, fulfilling Infrastructure Security requirements.

Amazon OpenSearch Service provides near real-time log ingestion and indexing, full-text search, and analytics capabilities. Using the Security Analytics feature, you can define detection rules and configure alerts based on log patterns or threat indicators. These alerts can be routed to Amazon SNS topics for notification and automation workflows.

This meets the requirements for:

Near real-time log ingestion and search

Rule-based detection and alerting

Integration with SNS for notifications

This solution aligns with best practices under the Logging and Monitoring domain in the AWS Certified Security – Specialty curriculum.

Using Amazon Verified Permissions:

Verified Permissions is designed for fine-grained authorization using policies.

It supports integrating identity sources like Amazon Cognito for user-based permissions.

Integrate Cognito with Verified Permissions:

Configure the Cognito identity pool as the identity provider for Verified Permissions.

Use user attributes from Cognito to define policies in Verified Permissions.

Create a Policy Store:

Define a policy store in Verified Permissions to manage and evaluate fine-grained permissions.

Map Cognito Tokens to Schema:

Use Cognito's access tokens to map user attributes (e.g., roles, groups) to the Verified Permissions schema.

Advantages:

Fine-Grained Authorization: Allows precise control over resource access based on user attributes.

Scalability: Centralized policy management supports large-scale applications.

Amazon Verified Permissions Documentation

Using Cognito with Verified Permissions

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To implement WORM in Amazon S3 where no user, including the root account, can modify or delete objects:

S3 Object Lock in Compliance Mode:

Compliance mode ensures that the WORM policy cannot be bypassed, even by the root user.

Objects cannot be overwritten or deleted during the specified retention period.

The AWS Encryption SDK supports client-side encryption and cryptographic signing, enabling applications to protect and verify sensitive data before it is transmitted or stored. This allows end-to-end protection and helps detect unauthorized data changes using signatures.

While both AWS Encryption SDK and the DynamoDB Encryption Client provide similar functionalities, the AWS Encryption SDK is broader in scope and better supported for generalized end-to-end encryption patterns.

This solution ensures:

Data protection in transit and at rest

Integrity assurance through signing

Compliance with best practices under the Data Protection domain.

The correct answer is B because it checks the configuration of the CloudWatch alarm that is supposed to monitor the CloudTrail log events. The analyst should verify that a metric filter was created to extract the relevant information from the log events, such as the event name, source, and user identity. The analyst should also verify that the metric filter wasmapped to an alarm that triggers when a certain threshold is reached, and that the alarm notification action is set up correctly to send alerts to the analyst1.

The other options are incorrect because they do not address the issue of the CloudWatch alarm not working as expected. Option A is incorrect because CloudTrail and S3 bucket access logging are not related to the monitoring of security group changes. CloudTrail logs the API calls made to AWS services, and S3 bucket access logging records the requestsmade to thebucket2. OptionC is incorrect because CloudWatch dashboards are used to display metrics and alarms in a graphical way, but they do not affect the functionality of the alarm3. Option D is incorrect because the IAM policy permissions for cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics and cloudwatch:ListMetrics are not required to monitor the CloudTrail log events. These permissions are used to retrieve the statistics and list of metrics for a given namespace4.

To secure the images to limit their distribution, the company should take the following actions:

Update the S3 bucket policy to restrict access to a CloudFront origin access identity (OAI). This allows the company to use a special CloudFront user that can access objects in their S3 bucket, and prevent anyone else from accessing them directly.

Add a CloudFront geo restriction deny list of countries where the company lacks a license. This allows the company to use a feature that controls access to their content based on the geographic location of their viewers, and block requests from countries where they do not have a distribution license.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

The simplest and most efficient way to enforce a data retention policy in Amazon S3 is by usingS3 Lifecycle rules:

S3 Lifecycle Rule:

Lifecycle rules allow you to automatically delete objects based on their age or last-modified date.

Specify a rule to delete objects after 45 days to meet the retention policy.

To stream data using an existing Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream and encrypt it in transit using a private network, the company should do the following:

Create a VPC endpoint for Kinesis Data Firehose. This allows the company to use a private connection between their VPC and Kinesis Data Firehose without requiring an internet gateway or NAT device.

Configure the application to connect to the VPC endpoint. This allows the application to stream data using Kinesis Data Firehose over AWS PrivateLink, which encrypts all traffic with TLS.

You can establish a private connection between your VPC and Secrets Manager by creating an interface VPC endpoint. Interface endpoints are powered by AWS PrivateLink, a technology that enables you to privately access Secrets Manager APIs without an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or AWS Direct Connect connection. Reference:https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/vpc-endpoint-overview.html

The correct answer is D. Configure a Secrets Manager interface VPC endpoint. Include the Lambda function’s private subnet during the configuration process.

A Secrets Manager interface VPC endpoint is a private connection between the VPC and Secrets Manager that does not require an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or AWS Direct Connect connection1. By configuring a Secrets Manager interface VPC endpoint, the security engineer can enable the custom Lambda function to communicate with Secrets Manager without sending or receiving network traffic through the internet.The security engineer must include the Lambda function’s private subnet during the configuration process to allow the function to use the endpoint2.

The other options are incorrect for the following reasons:

A.An egress-only internet gateway is a VPC component that allows outbound communication over IPv6 from instances in the VPC to the internet, and prevents the internet from initiating an IPv6 connection with the instances3. However, this option does not meet the requirement that the VPC must not send or receive network traffic through the internet.Moreover, an egress-only internet gateway is for use with IPv6 traffic only, and Secrets Manager does not support IPv6 addresses2.

B.A NAT gateway is a VPC component that enables instances in a private subnet to connect to the internet or other AWS services, but prevents the internet from initiating connections with those instances4. However, this option does not meet therequirement that the VPC must not send or receive network traffic through the internet.Additionally, a NAT gateway requires an elasticIP address, which is a public IPv4 address4.

C.A VPC peering connection is a networking connection between two VPCs that enables you to route traffic between them using private IPv4 addresses or IPv6 addresses5. However, this option does not work because Secrets Manager does not have a default VPC that can be peered with.Furthermore, a VPC peering connection does not provide a private connection to Secrets Manager APIs without an internetgateway or other devices2.

the aws kms get-key-rotation-status command returns a boolean value that indicates whetherautomatic rotation of the customer master key (CMK) is enabled1. This commandalsoshowsthe date and time when the CMK was last rotated2. The other options are not valid ways to check the CMK rotation status.

"When you create an Amazon GuardDuty filter, you choose specific filter criteria, name the filter and can enable the auto-archiving of findings that the filter matches. This allows you to further tune GuardDuty to your unique environment, without degrading the ability to identify threats. With auto-archive set, all findings are still generated by GuardDuty, so you have a complete and immutable history of all suspicious activity."

To support answer B, use the referencehttps://d1.IAMstatic.com/whitepapers/IAM-security-whitepaper.pdf

"For example, IAM Config provides a managed IAM Config Rules to ensure that encryption is turned on for all EBS volumes in your account."

Storing sensitive information in environment variables is not a secure practice, as anyone who has access to the Lambda console or the Lambda function code can view them asplaintext. To address this security issue, the security engineer needs to use a service that can store and encrypt the environment variables, and access them at runtime using IAM permissions. The most cost-effective way to do this is to use AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, which is a service that provides secure, hierarchical storage for configuration data management and secrets management. Parameter Store allows you to store values as standard parameters (plaintext) or secure string parameters (encrypted). Secure string parameters use a AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) customer master key (CMK) to encrypt the parameter value. To access the parameter value at runtime, the Lambda function needs to have IAM permissions to decrypt the parameter using the KMS CMK.

The other options are incorrect because:

Option A is incorrect because setting up IAM policies from the Lambda console to hide access to the environment variables will not prevent someone who has access to the Lambda function code from viewing them as plaintext. IAM policies can only control who can perform actions on AWS resources, not what they can see in the code or the console.

Option B is incorrect because using AWS Step Functions to store the environment variables is not a secure or cost-effective solution. AWS Step Functions is a service that lets you coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows. Step Functions does not provide any encryption or secrets management capabilities, and it will incur additional charges for each state transition in the workflow. Moreover, storing environment variables in Step Functions will make them visible in the execution history of the workflow, which can be accessed by anyone who has permission to view the Step Functions console or API.

Option C is incorrect because storing the environment variables in AWS Secrets Manager and accessing them at runtime is not a cost-effective solution. AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps you protect secrets needed to access your applications, services, and IT resources. Secrets Manager enables you to rotate, manage, and retrieve secrets throughout their lifecycle. While Secrets Manager can securely store and encrypt environment variables using KMS CMKs, it will incur higher charges than Parameter Store for storing and retrieving secrets. Unless the security engineer needs the advanced features of Secrets Manager, such as automatic rotation of secrets or integration with other AWS services, Parameter Store is a cheaper and simpler option.

To meet the requirements of securing access management and implementing a centralized logging solution, the most secure solution would be to:

Install a bastion host in the management account.

Reconfigure all SSH and RDP to allow access only from the bastion host.

Install AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) on the bastion host.

Attach the AmazonSSMManagedlnstanceCore role to the bastion host.

Configure session data streaming to Amazon CloudWatch Logs in a separate logging account to audit log data

This solution provides the following security benefits:

It uses AWS Systems Manager Session Manager instead of traditional SSH and RDP protocols, which provides a secure method for accessing EC2 instances without requiring inbound firewall rules or open ports.

It provides audit trails by configuring Session Manager logging to Amazon CloudWatch Logs and creating a separate logging account to audit the log data.

It uses the AWS Systems Manager Agent to automate common administrative tasks and improve the security posture of the instances.

The separate logging account with cross-account permissions provides better data separation and improves security posture.

https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/implementations/centralized-logging/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/Overview.Encryption.html

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/ebs-automatic-encryption/

To implement encryption at rest for both the EC2 instances and the Aurora DB cluster, the following steps are required:

For the EC2 instances, modify the EBS default encryption settings in the target AWS Region to enable encryption. This will ensure that any new EBS volumes created in that Region are encrypted by default using an AWS managed key. Alternatively, you can specify a customer managed key when creating new EBS volumes.For more information, see Amazon EBS encryption.

Use an Auto Scaling group instance refresh to replace the existing EC2 instances with new ones that have encrypted EBS volumes attached. An instance refresh is a feature that helps you update all instances in an Auto Scaling group in a rolling fashion without the need to manage the instance replacement process manually. For more information, see Replacing Auto Scaling instances based on an instance refresh.

For the Aurora DB cluster, create a new AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) encrypted DB cluster from a snapshot of the existing DB cluster. You can use either an AWS managed key or a customer managed key to encrypt the new DB cluster. You cannot enable or disable encryption for an existing DB cluster, so you have to create a new one from a snapshot.For more information, see Encrypting Amazon Aurora resources.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not enable encryption at rest for the resources (B, D), or they use the wrong service for encryption (E).

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/EBSEncryption.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/ec2/userguide/asg-instance-refresh.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/Overview.Encryption.html

This solution meets the requirement of recovering the EC2 instances if the AWS account is compromised and the EBS snapshots are deleted. By creating a new AWS account with limited privileges, the company can isolate the backup snapshots from the main account and reduce the risk of accidental or malicious deletion. By allowing the new account to access the KMS key that encrypts the EBS snapshots, the company can ensure that the snapshots are copied in an encrypted form and can be decrypted when needed. By copying the encrypted snapshots to the new account on a recurring basis, the company can maintain a consistent backup schedule and minimize data loss.

The error message indicates that the private key file permissions are too open, meaning that other users can read or write to the file. This is a security risk, as the private key should be accessible only by the owner of the file. To fix this error, the security administrator should use the chmod command to change the permissions of the private key file to 0400, which means that only the owner can read the file and no one else can read or write to it.

The chmod command takes a numeric argument that represents the permissions for the owner, group, and others in octal notation. Each digit corresponds to a set of permissions: read (4), write (2), and execute (1). The digits are added together to get the final permissions for each category. For example, 0400 means that the owner has read permission (4) and no other permissions (0), and the group and others have no permissions at all (0).

The other options are incorrect because they either do not change the permissions at all (D), or they give too much or too little permissions to the owner, group, or others (A, C).

Verified References:

https://superuser.com/questions/215504/permissions-on-private-key-in-ssh-folder

https://www.baeldung.com/linux/ssh-key-permissions

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/using-managed-response-headers-policies.html#managed-response-headers-policies-security

The SecurityHeadersPolicy is a managed policy provided by Amazon CloudFront that includes a set of recommended security headers to enhance the security of your website. These headers help protect against various types of attacks, including man-in-the-middle attacks. By applying the SecurityHeadersPolicy to your CloudFront distribution, the necessary security headers will be automatically added to the responses sent by CloudFront. This reduces operational overhead because you don't have to manually configure or manage the headers yourself.

AWS Organizations and SCPs:

SCPs allow centralized control over permissions across all accounts in an AWS Organization.

Use SCPs to prevent specific actions, such as S3 bucket deletion, across all accounts.

Create an SCP for S3 Bucket Deletion:

Define an SCP that explicitly denies thes3:DeleteBucketaction.

Example SCP:

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Deny",

"Action": "s3:DeleteBucket",

"Resource": "*"

}

]

}

Attach SCP to the Root or Specific OUs:

Attach the SCP to the root of the organization or specific organizational units (OUs) as needed.

Advantages:

Scalability: Applies to all accounts in the organization without the need for individual configuration.

Compliance: Ensures sensitive S3 buckets are protected from accidental or malicious deletion.

AWS Organizations SCP Documentation

Restricting S3 Actions with SCPs

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/automatically-block-suspicious-traffic-with-aws-network-firewall-and-amazon-guardduty/

To improve the security at the edge of the solution to defend against a large, layer 7 DDoS attack, the security engineer should do the following:

Configure AWS WAF with a rate-based rule that imposes a rate limit that automatically blocks requests when the rate limit is exceeded. This allows the security engineer to use a rule that tracks the number of requests from a single IP address and blocks subsequent requests if they exceed a specified threshold within a specified time period.

When implementing DNSSEC for a subdomain in Amazon Route 53 and encountering a broken trust chain error, creating a Delegation Signer (DS) record in the parent hosted zone is the correct approach. The DS record is essential for establishing the trust chain between the parent and child zones by linking the DNSSEC-signed subdomain to its parentdomain. This step is crucial for DNS resolvers to validate the authenticity of DNS responses, thereby resolving the broken trust chain issue and ensuring the integrity and authenticity of the DNS data for the secured subdomain.

The correct answer is A, C, and E because they provide the most secure and efficient way to implement private connectivity to AWS services. Using interface VPC endpoints for Amazon SQS and gateway VPC endpoints for Amazon S3 allows the application to access these services without using public IP addresses or internet gateways. Modifying the endpoint policies on all VPC endpoints enables the security engineer to specify the SQS and S3 resources that the application uses and restrict access to other resources.

The other options are incorrect because they do not provide private connectivity to AWS services or they introduce unnecessary complexity or cost. Option B is incorrect because AWS Transit Gateway is used to connect multiple VPCs and on-premises networks, not to connect to AWS services. Option D is incorrect because modifying the IAM role applied to the EC2 instances is not sufficient to allow outbound traffic to the interface endpoints. The security group and route table associated with the interface endpoints also need to be configured. Option F is incorrect because AWS Firewall Manager is used to centrally manage firewall rules across multiple accounts and resources, not to connect to AWS services.

Enable AWS Config Managed Rule:

Activate therestricted-sshAWS Config managed rule to evaluate security groups for SSH access from0.0.0.0/0.

Create an EventBridge Rule:

Configure an EventBridge rule to trigger on compliance change events generated by therestricted-sshmanaged rule.

Set Target to SNS:

Configure the EventBridge rule to target an SNS topic that notifies the security team when a noncompliant security group is detected.

Advantages:

Provides near-real-time notifications.

Fully integrates with AWS native services for compliance monitoring.

AWS Config Managed Rules

Amazon EventBridge Documentation

Enable Amazon Macie for Sensitive Data Discovery (Option A):

Use Amazon Macie to identify personal health information (PHI) in S3 buckets.

Create an on-demand sensitive data discovery job with the PERSONAL_INFORMATION managed data identifier.

Enable AWS Audit Manager for Compliance Evidence (Option C):

Use AWS Audit Manager to automate evidence collection for compliance.

Select a supported framework (e.g., HIPAA) to assess compliance readiness.

Enable AWS Security Hub for Public Access Monitoring (Option E):

Enable Security Hub and use the AWS Foundational Security Best Practices standard.

Review the dashboard for failed controls related to S3 Block Public Access.

Advantages:

Automated Discovery: Macie and Security Hub reduce manual effort.

Centralized Compliance Management: Audit Manager streamlines evidence collection.

Amazon Macie Documentation

AWS Audit Manager Documentation

AWS Security Hub Documentation

The correct answer is B and E. To troubleshoot the issue, the security engineer should verify that the SQS resource policy does not explicitly deny access to the role used by the instances, and that the role attached to the instances contains policies that allow access to the queue. These actions will ensure that the instances have the necessary permissions to retrieve messages from Amazon SQS, while maintaining the principle of least privilege.

The other options are incorrect because they are either unnecessary or overly permissive. Option A is incorrect because configuring and assigning an MFA device to the role used by the instances is not required to access Amazon SQS. MFA is an optional security feature that adds an extra layer ofprotection on top of the user name and password1. Option C is incorrect because verifying that the access key attached to the role used by the instances is active is not relevant to the issue. Access keys are used to make programmatic requests to AWS services, not to retrieve messages from Amazon SQS2. Option D is incorrect because attaching the AmazonSQSFullAccess managed policy to the role used by the instances is overly permissive and violates the principle of least privilege. This policy grants full access to all Amazon SQS actions and resources, which may expose the instances to unnecessary risks3.

To rotate database credentials every 30 days, the most secure and efficient solution is to store the database credentials in AWS Secrets Manager and configure automatic credential rotation for every 30 days. Secrets Manager can handle the rotation of the credentials in both the secret and the database, and it can use AWS KMS to encrypt the credentials. Option B is incorrect because it requires creating a custom Lambda function to rotate the credentials, which is more effort than using Secrets Manager. Option C is incorrect because it stores the database credentials in an environment file or a configuration file, which is less secure than using Secrets Manager. Option D is incorrect because it combines the drawbacks of option B and option C. Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/rotating-secrets.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/rotate-secrets_turn-on-for-other.html

The correct answer is B and C.

B. Allow port 443 from source 0.0.0.0/0.

This is correct because port 443 is used for HTTPS traffic, which must be able to access the website from any source IP address.

C. Allow port 22 from 192.168.100.0/24.

This is correct because port 22 is used for SSH, which is the management protocol for the web server. The management subnet is 192.168.100.0/24, so only this subnet should be allowed to access port 22.

A. Allow port 22 from source 0.0.0.0/0.

This is incorrect because it would allow anyone to access port 22, which is a security risk. SSH should be restricted to the management subnet only.

D. Allow port 22 from 10.0.1.0/24.

This is incorrect because it would allow the website subnet to access port 22, which is unnecessary and a security risk. SSH should be restricted to the management subnet only.

E. Allow port 443 from 10.0.1.0/24.

This is incorrect because it would limit the HTTPS traffic to the website subnet only, which defeats the purpose of having a public website.

The correct answer is D.

To implement short-term credentials for third-party AWS accounts, you can use IAM roles and trust policies. A trust policy is a policy document that defines who can assume the role. You can specify the AWS account ID of the third-party account as a principal in the trust policy, and use the sts:ExternalId condition key to enhance the security of the role. The sts:ExternalId condition key is a unique identifier that is agreed upon by both parties and included in the AssumeRole request. This way, you can prevent the “confused deputy” problem, where an unauthorized party can use the same role as a legitimate party.

Option A is incorrect because bearer token authentication with OAuth or SAML is not suitable for granting access to AWS accounts and resources. Amazon Cognito and API Gateway are used for building web and mobile applications that require user authentication and authorization.

Option B is incorrect because AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS Single Sign-On) is a service that simplifies the management of access to multiple AWS accounts and cloud applications for your workforce users. It does not support granting access to third-party AWS accounts.

Option C is incorrect because using AWS Secrets Manager to create a random external key is not necessary and adds operational complexity. You can use the sts:ExternalId condition key instead to provide a unique identifier for each external account.

To migrate the static website to AWS and meet the requirements, the following steps are required:

Migrate the website to Amazon S3, which is a highly scalable and durable object storage service that can host static websites. To do this, create an S3 bucket with the same name as the domain name of the website, enable static website hosting for the bucket, upload the website files to the bucket, and configure the bucket policy to allow public read access to the objects. For more information, see Hosting a static website on Amazon S3.

Import a public SSL certificate that is created by AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) to Amazon CloudFront, which is a global content delivery network (CDN) service that can improve the performance and security of web applications. To do this, request or import a public SSL certificate for the domain name of the website using ACM, create a CloudFront distribution with the S3 bucket as the origin, and associate the SSL certificate with the distribution. For more information, see Using alternate domain names and HTTPS.

Configure CloudFront to block traffic from outside the US, which is one of the requirements. To do this, create a CloudFront web ACL using AWS WAF, which is a web application firewall service that lets you control access to your web applications. In the web ACL, create a rule that uses a geo match condition to block requests that originate from countries other than the US. Associate the web ACL with the CloudFront distribution. For more information, see How AWS WAF works with Amazon CloudFront features.

Migrate DNS to Amazon Route 53, which is a highly available and scalable cloud DNS service that can route traffic to various AWS services. To do this, register or transfer your domain name to Route 53, create a hosted zone for your domain name, and create an alias record that points your domain name to your CloudFront distribution. For more information, see Routing traffic to an Amazon CloudFront web distribution by using your domain name.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not implement SSL/TLS encryption for the website (A), do not use managed services whenever possible (B), or do not block IP addresses from outside the US ©.

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/HostingWebsiteOnS3Setup.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/using-https-alternate-domain-names.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/waf-cloudfront.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/routing-to-cloudfront-distribution.html

To grant appropriate access to separate modules for read-write and read-only functionality in a serverless application hosted on AWS that uses Amazon Redshift as a data store, a security engineer should configure cluster security groups for each application module to control access to database users that are required for read-only and readwrite, and configure an IAM policy for each module specifying the ARN of an IAM user that allows the GetClusterCredentials API call.

Understanding the Key Material Deletion:

Once the key material for a customer managed KMS key is deleted, the key becomes permanently unusable.

Restoring from a Snapshot (Option B):

If the EBS volume was previously backed up with a snapshot, you can create a new volume from the snapshot.

This new volume will use a different key for encryption, enabling access to the data.

Other Options Are Invalid:

Reimporting key material (Option C) or importing new key material (Options A and D) does not restore the ability to decrypt data encrypted with the original key material.

Best Practices:

Always ensure snapshots are taken and stored securely to protect against key loss.

Restoring EBS Volumes from Snapshots

KMS Key Management Best Practices

A is incorrect because reviewing the cross-account role permissions and the S3 bucket policy is not enough to troubleshoot the permissions issue. You also need to verify that the Amazon S3 block public access option in the member account is deactivated, as well as the permissions boundary and the SCPs of the role in the member account.

D is correct because evaluating the SCPs and the permissions boundary of the role in the member account can help you identify any missing permissions or explicit denies that could prevent the administrator from making the S3 bucket public.

E is correct because ensuring that the S3 bucket policy explicitly allows the s3 PutBucketPublicAccess action for the role in the member account can help you override any block public access settings that could prevent the administrator from making the S3 bucket public.

The correct answer is B because it preserves the forensic evidence from the instance in the correct order. The first step is to take a memory snapshot of the instance and store it in an S3 bucket, as memory data is volatile and can be lost when the instance is stopped. The second step is to stop the instance, which will prevent any further changes to the EBS volume. The third step is to take an EBS volume snapshot of the instance and store it in an S3 bucket, which will capture the disk state of the instance. The last two steps are to detach the instance from the Auto Scaling group and deregister it from the ALB, which will isolate the instance from the rest of the application.

The other options are incorrect because they do not preserve the forensic evidence in the correct order. Option A takes the EBS volume snapshot before the memory snapshot, which can result in inconsistent data. Option C detaches and deregisters the instance before taking any snapshots, which can affect the availability of the application. Option D stops the instance before taking the memory snapshot, which can cause the loss of memory data.

The correct answer is B, D, and F. Designate an AWS account in an organization in AWS Organizations as a delegated administrator for Security Hub. Publish events to Amazon EventBridge from the delegated administrator account, all member accounts, and required Regions that are enabled for Security Hub findings. In each Region, create an Amazon EventBridge rule to deliver findings to an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream. Configure the Kinesis Data Firehose delivery streams to deliver the logs to a single Amazon S3 bucket. Partition the Amazon S3 data. Use AWS Glue to crawl the S3 bucket andbuild the schema. Use Amazon Athena to query the data and create views to flatten nested attributes. Build Amazon QuickSight dashboards that use the Athena views.

According to the AWS documentation, AWS Security Hub is a service that provides you with a comprehensive view of your security state across your AWS accounts, and helps you check your environment against security standards and best practices. You can use Security Hub to aggregate security findings from various sources, such as AWS services, partner products, or your own applications.

To use Security Hub with multiple AWS accounts and Regions, you need to enable AWS Organizations with all features enabled. This allows you to centrally manage your accounts and apply policies across your organization. You can also use Security Hub as a service principal for AWS Organizations, which lets you designate a delegated administrator account for Security Hub. The delegated administrator account can enable Security Hub automatically in all existing and future accounts in your organization, and can view and manage findings from all accounts.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus that makes it easy to connect applications using data from your own applications, integrated software as a service (SaaS) applications, and AWS services. You can use EventBridge to create rules that match events from various sources and route them to targets for processing.

To use EventBridge with Security Hub findings, you need to enable Security Hub as an event source in EventBridge. This will allow you to publish events from Security Hub to EventBridge in the same Region. You can then create EventBridge rules that match Security Hub findings based on criteria such as severity, type, or resource. You can also specify targets for your rules, such as Lambda functions, SNS topics, or Kinesis Data Firehose delivery streams.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is a fully managed service that delivers real-time streaming data to destinations such as Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Elasticsearch Service (Amazon ES), and Splunk. You can use Kinesis Data Firehose to transform and enrich your data before delivering it to your destination.

To use Kinesis Data Firehose with Security Hub findings, you need to create a Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream in each Region where you have enabled Security Hub. You can then configure the delivery stream to receive events from EventBridge as a source, and deliver the logs to a single S3 bucket as a destination. You can also enable data transformation or compression on the delivery stream if needed.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon S3 is an object storage service that offers scalability, data availability, security, and performance. You can use S3 to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web. You can also use S3 features such as lifecycle management, encryption, versioning, and replication to optimize your storage.

To use S3 with Security Hub findings, you need to create an S3 bucket that will store the logs from Kinesis Data Firehose delivery streams. You can then partition the data in the bucket by using prefixes such as account ID or Region. This will improve the performance and cost-effectiveness of querying the data.

According to the AWS documentation, AWS Glue is a fully managed extract, transform, and load (ETL) service that makes it easy to prepare and load your data for analytics. You canuse Glue to crawl your data sources, identify data formats, and suggest schemas and transformations. You can also use Glue Data Catalog as a central metadata repository for your data assets.

To use Glue with Security Hub findings, you need to create a Glue crawler that will crawl the S3 bucket and build the schema for the data. The crawler will create tables in the Glue Data Catalog that you can query using standard SQL.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to manage, and you pay only for the queries that you run. You can use Athena with Glue Data Catalog as a metadata store for your tables.

To use Athena with Security Hub findings, you need to create views in Athena that will flatten nested attributes in the data. For example, you can create views that extract fields such as account ID, Region, resource type, resource ID, finding type, finding title, and finding description from the data. You can then query the views using SQL and join them with other tables if needed.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon QuickSight is a fast, cloud-powered business intelligence service that makes it easy to deliver insights to everyone in your organization. You can use QuickSight to create and publish interactive dashboards that include machine learning insights. You can also use QuickSight to connect to various data sources, such as Athena, S3, or RDS.

To use QuickSight with Security Hub findings, you need to create QuickSight dashboards that use the Athena views as data sources. You can then visualize and analyze the findings using charts, graphs, maps, or tables. You can also apply filters, calculations, or aggregations to the data. You can then share the dashboards with your users or embed them in your applications.

these are the solutions that can securely rotate the secrets for the production RDS database using Secrets Manager. Secrets Manager is a service that helps you manage secrets such as database credentials, API keys, and passwords. You can use Secrets Manager to rotate secrets automatically by using a Lambda function that runs on a schedule. The Lambda function needs to have access to both the RDS instance and the Secrets Manager service. Option B places the RDS instance in a private subnet and the Lambda function in the same VPC in another private subnet. The private subnet with the Lambda function needs to use a NAT gateway to access Secrets Manager over the internet. Option E places the RDS instance and the Lambda function in the same private subnet and configures a Secrets Manager interface endpoint, which is a private connection between the VPC and Secrets Manager. The other options are either insecure or incorrect for rotating secrets using Secrets Manager.

To provide access to the three individuals who have IAM user accounts to access the Amazon Linux 2 Amazon EC2 instances that are using the same IAM instance profile, the most appropriate solution would be to assign an IAM policy to the instance profile to allow the EC2 instances to be managed by AWS Systems Manager, provide the IAM user accounts with permission to use Systems Manager, remove the SSH keys from the EC2 instances, and use Systems Manager Session Manager to select the EC2 instance and connect.

you need to configure the Amazon Inspector agent to use the CVE rule package, which is a set of rules that check for vulnerabilitiesand exposures on your EC2 instances5. You also need to install an additional integration library that enables communication between the Amazon Inspector agent and Security Hub6. Security Hub is a service that provides you with a comprehensive view of your securitystate in AWS and helps you check your environment against security industry standards and best practices7. The other options are either incorrect or incomplete for meeting the requirement.

The most scalable and lowest-latency solution for end-to-end TLS is to configure a Network Load Balancer (NLB) with a TCP listener. This configuration allows TLS traffic to be passed through directly to the containerized applications running on ECS, preserving full encryption between the client and the container without TLS termination at the load balancer.

NLBs are optimized for handling sudden spikes in traffic (volatile traffic patterns), and passing through TLS traffic ensures the encryption is maintained from source to container.

This is a key practice under Infrastructure Security as highlighted in the AWS Certified Security – Specialty content where preserving encryption and handling scale is crucial.

this is a way to configure a Classic Load Balancer with perfect forward secrecy cipher suites. Perfect forward secrecy is a property of encryption protocols that ensures that past and current TLS traffic stays secure even if the certificate private key is leaked. Cipher suites are sets of algorithms that determine how encryption is performed. A custom security policy is a set of cipher suites and protocols that you can select for your load balancer to support. An HTTPS listener is a process that checks for connection requests using encrypted SSL/TLS protocol. By using an HTTPS listener that uses a custom security policy that allows only perfect forward secrecy cipher suites, you can ensure that your Classic Load Balancer meets the requirements. The other options are either invalid or insufficient for configuring a Classic Load Balancer with perfect forward secrecy cipher suites.

AWS WAF Geo Match Condition:

Use AWS WAF to create a web access control list (web ACL).

Add a geo match condition to block traffic originating from the specified countries.

Associate Web ACL with CloudFront:

Attach the web ACL to the CloudFront distribution.

Requests from blocked countries will be denied at the CloudFront edge locations, ensuring compliance with data regulation policies.

Advantages of Using AWS WAF:

Cost-effective: Only pay for WAF rules, which are more economical than alternative solutions.

Scalable: Automatically handles global traffic without additional configuration.

Alternative Options:

Using CloudFront's geo-restriction feature (Option C) is also possible but lacks the flexibility and granularity of WAF rules.

AWS WAF Geo Match Conditions

Using AWS WAF with CloudFront

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/example-bucket-policies-vpc-endpoint.html

Enable Amazon GuardDuty:

GuardDuty is a threat detection service that natively supports detecting cryptocurrency mining activity on Amazon EC2 instances.

Enable GuardDuty for the account and all AWS Regions to ensure comprehensive coverage.

Monitor GuardDuty Findings:

GuardDuty generates findings for activities associated with cryptocurrency mining (e.g., unauthorized mining, DNS queries to known mining domains).

Create an EventBridge Rule:

Define an EventBridge rule that triggers on specific GuardDuty findings related to cryptocurrency activity.

Configure the rule to send notifications to an Amazon SNS topic.

Example Rule:

{

"Source": ["aws.guardduty"],

"DetailType": ["GuardDuty Finding"],

"Detail": {

"type": ["CryptoCurrency:EC2/BitcoinTool.B"]

}

}

Advantages of GuardDuty:

Automated Threat Detection: Requires no additional setup or custom rules.

Near-Real-Time Alerts: Delivers findings and notifications with minimal delay.

Amazon GuardDuty Documentation

Creating EventBridge Rules for GuardDuty Findings

The correct answer is C. The GuardDuty integration with Security Hub was never activated in the AWS account where the finding was generated.

The reason is that Security Hub does not automatically receive findings from GuardDuty unless the integration is activated in each AWS account.According to the AWS documentation1, “The Amazon GuardDuty integration with Security Hub enables you to send findings from GuardDuty to Security Hub. Security Hub can then include those findings in its analysis of your security posture.” However, this integration is not enabled by default and requires manual activation in each AWS account.The documentation1also states that “You must activate the integration in each AWS account that you want to send findings from GuardDuty to Security Hub.”

Therefore, even though the company has configured the security tooling account as the delegated administrator for GuardDuty and Security Hub, and has enabled these services for existing and new AWS accounts, it still needs to activate the GuardDuty integration with Security Hub in each account. Otherwise, the findings from GuardDuty will not be sent to Security Hub and will not be visible in the delegated administrator account.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. VPC flow logs are not required for GuardDuty to generate DNS findings. GuardDuty uses VPC flow logs as one of the data sources for network connection findings, but not for DNS findings.According to the AWS documentation2, “GuardDuty uses VPC Flow Logs as a data source for network connection findings.”

B. The VPC DHCP option configured for a custom OpenDNS resolver does not affect GuardDuty’s ability to generate DNS findings. GuardDuty uses DNS logs as one of the data sources for DNS findings, regardless of the DNS resolver used by the VPC.According to the AWS documentation2, “GuardDuty uses DNS logs as a data source for DNS activity findings.”

D. Cross-Region aggregation in Security Hub is not relevant for this scenario, since the company operates out of a single AWS Region. Cross-Region aggregation in Security Hub allows you to aggregate security findings from multiple Regions into a single Region, where you can view and manage them. However, this feature is not needed if the company only uses one Region.According to the AWS documentation3, “Cross-Region aggregation enables you to aggregate security findings from multiple Regions into a single Region.”

Using Amazon EventBridge to create a rule for ACM Certificate Approaching Expiration events and configuring an SNS topic as the target provides an operationally efficient way to monitor and alert on certificate expirations. This method leverages AWS's native capabilities for event monitoring and notifications, reducing the need for custom implementations and ensuring timely alerts.

For seamless encryption of Amazon S3 objects without direct key management, AWS Key Management Service (KMS) with AWS managed keys offers a highly scalable and manageable solution. TheScheduleKeyDeletionAPI withPendingWindowInDaysset to 0 allows for immediate deletion of the keys, meeting the requirement for immediate key removal. This approach leverages the managed infrastructure of KMS, reducing the overhead of key management while ensuring scalability and security. The integration of KMS with S3 and the ability to schedule key deletion provides a balance between ease of use and security control.

The condition of "s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption":"IAM:kms" ensures that objects uploaded need to be encrypted.

Options B,C and D are invalid because you have to ensure the condition of ns3:x-amz-server-side-encryption":"IAM:kms" is present

AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps you manage, retrieve, and rotate secrets such as database credentials, API keys, and other sensitive information. By configuring automatic rotation of credentials in AWS Secrets Manager, you can ensure that your secrets are changed regularly and securely, without requiring manual intervention or application downtime. You can also specify the rotation frequency and the rotation function that performs the logic of changing the credentials on the database and updating the secret in Secrets Manager1.

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.

By configuring the Java application to catch a connection failure and make a call to AWS Secrets Manager to retrieve updated credentials, you can avoid hard-coding the credentials in your application code or configuration files. This way, your application can dynamically obtain the latest credentials from Secrets Manager whenever the password is rotated, without needing to restart or redeploy the application. To enable this, you need to grant permission to the instance role associated with the EC2 instance to access Secrets Manager using IAM policies2. You can also usethe AWS SDK for Java to integrate your application with Secrets Manager3.

To redesign the edge security to help mitigate the DDoS attack risk in the future, the engineer could do the following:

Move the static content to Amazon S3, and front this with an Amazon CloudFront distribution. This allows the engineer to use a global content delivery network that can cache static content at edge locations and reduce the load on the origin servers.

Use AWS WAF security rules to inspect the inbound traffic. This allows the engineer to use web application firewall rules that can filter malicious requests based on IP addresses, headers, body, or URI strings, and block them before they reach the web servers.

Use Amazon Route 53 to distribute traffic. This allows the engineer to use a scalable and highly available DNS service that can route traffic based on different policies, such as latency, geolocation, or health checks.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-eni.html#eni-basics Source/destination checking "You must disable source/destination checks if the instance runs services such as network address translation, routing, or firewalls."

The correct answer is C. Disable the Network Source/Destination check on the security appliance’s elastic network interface.

This answer is correct because disabling the Network Source/Destination check allows the virtual security appliance to route traffic that is not addressed to or from itself. By default, this check is enabled on all EC2 instances, and it prevents them from forwarding traffic that does not match their own IP or MAC addresses.However, for a virtual security appliance that acts as a router or a firewall, this check needs to be disabled, otherwise it will drop the traffic that it is supposed to route12.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Disabling network ACLs is not a solution, because network ACLs are optional layers of security for the subnets in a VPC.They can be used to allow or deny traffic based on IP addresses and ports, but they donot affect the routing behavior of the virtual security appliance3.

B. Configuring the security appliance’s elastic network interface for promiscuous mode is not a solution, because promiscuous mode is a mode for a network interface that causes it to pass all traffic it receives to the CPU, rather than passing only the frames that it is programmed to receive.Promiscuous mode is normally used for packet sniffing or monitoring, but it does not enable the network interface to route traffic4.

D. Placing the security appliance in the public subnet with the internet gateway is not a solution, because it does not address the routing issue of the virtual security appliance.Thesecurity appliance can be placed in either a public or a private subnet, depending on the network design and security requirements, but it still needs to have the Network Source/Destination check disabled to route traffic properly5.

To prevent unauthorized access to the EC2 instances, the security engineer should do the following:

Restrict SSH access in the security group to only known corporate IP addresses. This allows the security engineer to use a virtual firewall that controls inbound and outbound traffic for their EC2 instances, and limit SSH access to only trusted sources.

To detect suspicious activity in an AWS account for VPC hosted resources, the security engineer needs to use a service that can monitor network traffic and API calls across all AWS Regions. Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that can do this by analyzing VPC Flow Logs, AWS CloudTrail event logs, and DNS logs. By activating GuardDuty across all AWS Regions, the security engineer can provide visibility for as many regions as possible. GuardDuty generates findings that contain details about the potential threats detected in the account. To respond to these findings, the security engineer needs to create a mechanism that can notify the relevant stakeholders or take remedial actions. One way to do this is to use Amazon EventBridge, which is a serverless event bus service that can connect AWS services and third-party applications. By creating an EventBridge rule that responds to GuardDuty findings and publishes them to an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic, the security engineer can enable subscribers of the topic to receive notifications via email, SMS, or other methods. This is a cost-effective solution that does not require any additional infrastructure or code.

what the Security Engineer should do to block the malicious bot. SFTP is a protocol that allows secure file transfer over SSH. EC2 is a service that provides virtual servers in the cloud. A public subnet is a subnet that has a route to an internet gateway, which allows it to communicate with the internet. A brute force attack is a type of attack that tries to guess passwords or keys by trying many possible combinations. A malicious bot is a software program that performs automated tasks for malicious purposes. Route 53 is a service that provides DNS resolution and domain name registration. A DNS sinkhole is a technique that redirects malicious or unwanted traffic to a different destination, such as a black hole server or a honeypot. By modifying the hosted zone in Route 53 and creating a DNS sinkhole for the malicious IP, the Security Engineer can block the malicious bot from reaching the EC2 instance on the public subnet. The other options are either ineffective or inappropriate for blocking the malicious bot.

To allow cross-account access to a KMS key, the key policy of the KMS key must grant permission to the external account or principal, and the IAM policy of the external account or principal must delegate the key policy permission. In this case, the new Lambda function in the development account needs to use the KMS key in the security account, so the key policy of the KMS key must allow access to the IAM role of the new Lambda function in the development account (option E), and the IAM role of the new Lambda function in the development account must have an IAM policy that allows access to the KMS key in the security account (option C). Option A is incorrect because it creates an IAM role for the new Lambda function in the security account, not in the development account. Option B is incorrect because it attaches a key policy to an IAM role, which is not valid. Option D is incorrect because it allows access to the IAM role of the new Lambda function in the security account, not in the development account.Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kms/latest/developerguide/key-policy-modifying-external-accounts.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/ec2/userguide/key-policy-requirements-EBS-encryption.html

KMS grants are lightweight and efficient tools designed specifically for programmatic, temporary, or high-volume delegation of KMS key usage. They are ideal when access needs to be rotated or updated frequently—such as weekly changes in vendors.

KMS grants allow you to control access without changing the key policy itself. They can be easily created and revoked programmatically, which minimizes operational overhead compared to editing key or IAM policies.

This approach aligns with Identity and Access Management best practices in the AWS Certified Security – Specialty study guide for scalable cross-account key access management.

The most cost-effective way to correct a typo in a vault lock policy during the 24-hour initiation period is to call theabort-vault-lockoperation. This action stops the vault lock process, allowing the security engineer to correct the policy and re-initiate the vault lock with the corrected policy. This approach avoids the need for data transfer or creating a new vault, thus minimizing costs and operational overhead.

To set up AWS Security Hub for centralized security monitoring across all accounts in an AWS Organization with the least operational overhead, the best actions to take are:

Solution A: Configure a finding aggregation Region for Security Hub. This allows Security Hub to aggregate findings from multiple regions into a single designated region, simplifying monitoring and analysis. By centralizing findings, the security team can have a unified view of security alerts and compliance statuses across all accounts and regions, enhancing the efficiency of security operations.

Solution C: Turn on the option to automatically enable accounts for Security Hub within the AWS Organization. This ensures that as new accounts are created and added to the organization, they are automatically enrolled in Security Hub, and their findings are included in the centralized monitoring. This automation reduces the manual effort required to manage account enrollment and ensures comprehensive coverage of security monitoring across the organization.

These actions collectively ensure that Security Hub is effectively configured to manage security findings across all accounts and regions, providing a comprehensive and automated approach to security monitoring with minimal manual intervention.

https://docs.IAM.amazon.com/kms/latest/developerguide/services-parameter-store.html#parameter-store-cmk-fail

The correct answer is C. Edit the existing trail in the Organizations management account and apply it to the organization.

The reason is that this is the simplest and most effective way to ensure that there is at least one trail configured for all existing accounts and for any account that is created in the future.According to the AWS documentation1, “If you have created an organization in AWS Organizations, you can create a trail that logs all events for all AWS accounts in that organization.This is sometimes called an organization trail.” The documentation1also states that “The management account for the organization can edit an existing trail in their account, and apply it to an organization, making it an organization trail. Organization trails log events for the management account and all member accounts in the organization.” Therefore, by editing the existing trail in the management account and applying it to the organization, the security team can ensure that all accounts are sending CloudTrail logs to a centralized S3 logging bucket.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Create a new trail and configure it to send CloudTrail logs to Amazon S3. Use Amazon EventBridge to send notification if a trail is deleted or stopped. This option is not sufficient to ensure that there is at least one trail configured for all accounts, because it does not prevent users from deleting or stopping the trail in their accounts. Even if EventBridge sends a notification, the security team would have to manually restore or restart the trail, which is not efficient or scalable.

B. Deploy an AWS Lambda function in every account to check if there is an existing trail and create a new trail, if needed. This option is not optimal because it requires deploying and maintaining a Lambda function in every account, which adds complexity and cost. Moreover, it does not prevent users from deleting or stopping the trail after it is created by the Lambda function.

D. Create an SCP to deny the cloudtrail:Delete and cloudtrail:Stop actions. Apply the SCP to all accounts. This option is not sufficient to ensure that there is at least one trail configured for all accounts, because it does not create or apply a trail in the first place. It only prevents users from deleting or stopping an existing trail, but it does not guarantee that a trail exists in every account.

these are the steps that can meet the requirements in the most secure manner. CloudTrail is a service that records AWS API calls and delivers log files to an S3 bucket. Turning on CloudTrail in each IAM account can help capture all IAM API calls made within those accounts. Updating the bucket policy of the bucket in the account that will be storing the logs can help grant other accounts permission to write log files to that bucket. The other options are either unnecessary or insecure for logging and analyzing IAM API calls.

Understand the Risk:

Unauthorized users could stop or delete CloudTrail logging, creating a gap in audit trails.

Create a Service Control Policy (SCP):

Define an SCP at the root organizational unit (OU) level. The SCP should explicitly denyStopLoggingandDeleteTrailactions.

Example SCP:

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Deny",

"Action": [

"cloudtrail:StopLogging",

"cloudtrail:DeleteTrail"

],

"Resource": "*"

}

]

}

Attach the SCP:

Attach the SCP to the root OU in AWS Organizations. This ensures the policy is enforced across all accounts within the organization.

Test and Verify:

Attempt to stop or delete a CloudTrail trail to ensure the SCP prevents these actions.

AWS CloudTrail Security Best Practices

Service Control Policies Documentation

To meet the requirement of changing the key material for new files whenever a potential key breach occurs, the most appropriate solution would be to create a new customer managed key, add a key rotation schedule to the key, and invoke the key rotation schedule every time the security team requests a key change.

To assess the impact of the exposed access key, the security engineer should recommend the following solution:

Analyze an IAM use report from AWS Trusted Advisor to see when the access key was last used. This allows the security engineer to use a tool that provides information about IAM entities and credentials in their account, and check if there was any unauthorized activity with the exposed access key.

This answer is correct because AWS Shield Advanced is a service that provides comprehensive protection against DDoS attacks of any size or duration. It also provides metrics and reports on the DDoS attack vectors, duration, and size. You can create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm that monitors Shield Advanced metrics such as DDoSAttackBitsPerSecond, DDoSAttackPacketsPerSecond, and DDoSAttackRequestsPerSecond to receive alerts if a DDoS attack occurs against your account.

For more information, see Monitoring AWS Shield Advanced with Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Shield Advanced metrics and alarms.