AWS Certified Security - Specialty SCS-C02 v1.0
Question 1
A company has hundreds of AWS accounts in an organization in AWS Organizations. The company operates out of a single AWS Region. The company has a dedicated security tooling AWS account in the organization. The security tooling account is configured as the organization's delegated administrator for Amazon GuardDuty and AWS Security Hub. The company has configured the environment to automatically enable GuardDuty and Security Hub for existing AWS accounts and new AWS accounts.
The company is performing control tests on specific GuardDuty findings to make sure that the company's security team can detect and respond to security events. The security team launched an Amazon EC2 instance and attempted to run DNS requests against a test domain, example.com, to generate a DNS finding. However, the GuardDuty finding was never created in the Security Hub delegated administrator account.
Why was the finding was not created in the Security Hub delegated administrator account?
- A. VPC flow logs were not turned on for the VPC where the EC2 instance was launched.
- B. The VPC where the EC2 instance was launched had the DHCP option configured for a custom OpenDNS resolver.
- C. The GuardDuty integration with Security Hub was never activated in the AWS account where the finding was generated.
- D. Cross-Region aggregation in Security Hub was not configured.
Answer : C
Question 2
An ecommerce company has a web application architecture that runs primarily on containers. The application containers are deployed on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS). The container images for the application are stored in Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR).
The company's security team is performing an audit of components of the application architecture. The security team identifies issues with some container images that are stored in the container repositories.
The security team wants to address these issues by implementing continual scanning and on-push scanning of the container images. The security team needs to implement a solution that makes any findings from these scans visible in a centralized dashboard. The security team plans to use the dashboard to view these findings along with other security-related findings that they intend to generate in the future. There are specific repositories that the security team needs to exclude from the scanning process.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A. Use Amazon Inspector. Create inclusion rules in Amazon ECR to match repositories that need to be scanned. Push Amazon Inspector findings to AWS Security Hub.
- B. Use ECR basic scanning of container images. Create inclusion rules in Amazon ECR to match repositories that need to be scanned. Push findings to AWS Security Hub.
- C. Use ECR basic scanning of container images. Create inclusion rules in Amazon ECR to match repositories that need to be scanned. Push findings to Amazon Inspector.
- D. Use Amazon Inspector. Create inclusion rules in Amazon Inspector to match repositories that need to be scanned. Push Amazon Inspector findings to AWS Config.
Answer : A
Question 3
A company has a single AWS account and uses an Amazon EC2 instance to test application code. The company recently discovered that the instance was compromised. The instance was serving up malware. The analysis of the instance showed that the instance was compromised 35 days ago.
A security engineer must implement a continuous monitoring solution that automatically notifies the company's security team about compromised instances through an email distribution list for high severity findings. The security engineer must implement the solution as soon as possible.
Which combination of steps should the security engineer take to meet these requirements? (Choose three.)
- A. Enable AWS Security Hub in the AWS account.
- B. Enable Amazon GuardDuty in the AWS account.
- C. Create an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic. Subscribe the security team's email distribution list to the topic.
- D. Create an Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) queue. Subscribe the security team's email distribution list to the queue.
- E. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule for GuardDuty findings of high severity. Configure the rule to publish a message to the topic.
- F. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule for Security Hub findings of high severity. Configure the rule to publish a message to the queue.
Answer : BCE
Question 4
A company uses identity federation to authenticate users into an identity account (987654321987) where the users assume an IAM role named IdentityRole. The users then assume an IAM role named JobFunctionRole in the target AWS account (123456789123) to perform their job functions.
A user is unable to assume the IAM role in the target account. The policy attached to the role in the identity account is:
What should be done to enable the user to assume the appropriate role in the target account?
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A.
Update the IAM policy attached to the role in the identity account to be:
-
B.
Update the trust policy on the role in the target account to be:
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C.
Update the trust policy on the role in the identity account to be:
-
D.
Update the IAM policy attached to the role in the target account to be:
Answer : D
Question 5
A company is using AWS Organizations to manage multiple AWS accounts for its human resources, finance, software development, and production departments. All the company's developers are part of the software development AWS account.
The company discovers that developers have launched Amazon EC2 instances that were preconfigured with software that the company has not approved for use. The company wants to implement a solution to ensure that developers can launch EC2 instances with only approved software applications and only in the software development AWS account.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A. In the software development account, create AMIs of preconfigured instances that include only approved software. Include the AMI IDs in the condition section of an AWS CloudFormation template to launch the appropriate AMI based on the AWS Region. Provide the developers with the CloudFormation template to launch EC2 instances in the software development account.
- B. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule that runs when any EC2 RunInstances API event occurs in the software development account. Specify AWS Systems Manager Run Command as a target of the rule. Configure Run Command to run a script that will install all approved software onto the instances that the developers launch.
- C. Use an AWS Service Catalog portfolio that contains EC2 products with appropriate AMIs that include only approved software. Grant the developers permission to access only the Service Catalog portfolio to launch a product in the software development account.
- D. In the management account, create AMIs of preconfigured instances that include only approved software. Use AWS CloudFormation StackSets to launch the AMIs across any AWS account in the organization. Grant the developers permission to launch the stack sets within the management account.
Answer : A
Question 6
A company has enabled Amazon GuardDuty in all AWS Regions as part of its security monitoring strategy. In one of its VPCs, the company hosts an Amazon EC2 instance that works as an FTP server. A high number of clients from multiple locations contact the FTP server. GuardDuty identifies this activity as a brute force attack because of the high number of connections that happen every hour.
The company has flagged the finding as a false positive, but GuardDuty continues to raise the issue. A security engineer must improve the signal-to-noise ratio without compromising the company's visibility of potential anomalous behavior.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A. Disable the FTP rule in GuardDuty in the Region where the FTP server is deployed.
- B. Add the FTP server to a trusted IP list. Deploy the list to GuardDuty to stop receiving the notifications.
- C. Create a suppression rule in GuardDuty to filter findings by automatically archiving new findings that match the specified criteria.
- D. Create an AWS Lambda function that has the appropriate permissions to delete the finding whenever a new occurrence is reported.
Answer : C
Question 7
A company is running internal microservices on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) with the Amazon EC2 launch type. The company is using Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) private repositories.
A security engineer needs to encrypt the private repositories by using AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS). The security engineer also needs to analyze the container images for any common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs).
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A. Enable KMS encryption on the existing ECR repositories. Install Amazon Inspector Agent from the ECS container instances’ user data. Run an assessment with the CVE rules.
- B. Recreate the ECR repositories with KMS encryption and ECR scanning enabled. Analyze the scan report after the next push of images.
- C. Recreate the ECR repositories with KMS encryption and ECR scanning enabled. Install AWS Systems Manager Agent on the ECS container instances. Run an inventory report.
- D. Enable KMS encryption on the existing ECR repositories. Use AWS Trusted Advisor to check the ECS container instances and to verify the findings against a list of current CVEs.
Answer : B
Question 8
A company's security engineer has been tasked with restricting a contractor's IAM account access to the company’s Amazon EC2 console without providing access to any other AWS services. The contractor's IAM account must not be able to gain access to any other AWS service, even if the IAM account is assigned additional permissions based on IAM group membership.
What should the security engineer do to meet these requirements?
- A. Create an inline IAM user policy that allows for Amazon EC2 access for the contractor's IAM user.
- B. Create an IAM permissions boundary policy that allows Amazon EC2 access. Associate the contractor's IAM account with the IAM permissions boundary policy.
- C. Create an IAM group with an attached policy that allows for Amazon EC2 access. Associate the contractor's IAM account with the IAM group.
- D. Create a IAM role that allows for EC2 and explicitly denies all other services. Instruct the contractor to always assume this role.
Answer : A
Question 9
A company manages multiple AWS accounts using AWS Organizations. The company’s security team notices that some member accounts are not sending AWS CloudTrail logs to a centralized Amazon S3 logging bucket. The security team wants to ensure there is at least one trail configured for all existing accounts and for any account that is created in the future.
Which set of actions should the security team implement to accomplish this?
- 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.
- B. Deploy an AWS Lambda function in every account to check if there is an existing trail and create a new trail, if needed.
- C. Edit the existing trail in the Organizations management account and apply it to the organization.
- D. Create an SCP to deny the cloudtrail:Delete* and cloudtrail:Stop* actions. Apply the SCP to all accounts.
Answer : C
Question 10
A company recently had a security audit in which the auditors identified multiple potential threats. These potential threats can cause usage pattern changes such as DNS access peak, abnormal instance traffic, abnormal network interface traffic, and unusual Amazon S3 API calls. The threats can come from different sources and can occur at any time. The company needs to implement a solution to continuously monitor its system and identify all these incoming threats in near-real time.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A. Enable AWS CloudTrail logs, VPC flow logs, and DNS logs. Use Amazon CloudWatch Logs to manage these logs from a centralized account.
- B. Enable AWS CloudTrail logs, VPC flow logs, and DNS logs. Use Amazon Macie to monitor these logs from a centralized account.
- C. Enable Amazon GuardDuty from a centralized account. Use GuardDuty to manage AWS CloudTrail logs, VPC flow logs, and DNS logs.
- D. Enable Amazon Inspector from a centralized account. Use Amazon Inspector to manage AWS CloudTrail logs, VPC flow logs, and DNS logs.
Answer : C
Question 11
A company that uses AWS Organizations is using AWS IAM Identity Center (AWS Single Sign-On) to administer access to AWS accounts. A security engineer is creating a custom permission set in IAM Identity Center. The company will use the permission set across multiple accounts. An AWS managed policy and a customer managed policy are attached to the permission set. The security engineer has full administrative permissions and is operating in the management account.
When the security engineer attempts to assign the permission set to an IAM Identity Center user who has access to multiple accounts, the assignment fails.
What should the security engineer do to resolve this failure?
- A. Create the customer managed policy in every account where the permission set is assigned. Give the customer managed policy the same name and same permissions in each account.
- B. Remove either the AWS managed policy or the customer managed policy from the permission set. Create a second permission set that includes the removed policy. Apply the permission sets separately to the user.
- C. Evaluate the logic of the AWS managed policy and the customer managed policy. Resolve any policy conflicts in the permission set before deployment.
- D. Do not add the new permission set to the user. Instead, edit the user's existing permission set to include the AWS managed policy and the customer managed policy.
Answer : A
Question 12
A company has thousands of AWS Lambda functions. While reviewing the Lambda functions, a security engineer discovers that sensitive information is being stored in environment variables and is viewable as plaintext in the Lambda console. The values of the sensitive information are only a few characters long.
What is the MOST cost-effective way to address this security issue?
- A. Set up IAM policies from the Lambda console to hide access to the environment variables.
- B. Use AWS Step Functions to store the environment variables. Access the environment variables at runtime. Use IAM permissions to restrict access to the environment variables to only the Lambda functions that require access.
- C. Store the environment variables in AWS Secrets Manager, and access them at runtime. Use IAM permissions to restrict access to the secrets to only the Lambda functions that require access.
- D. Store the environment variables in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store as secure string parameters, and access them at runtime. Use IAM permissions to restrict access to the parameters to only the Lambda functions that require access.
Answer : D
Question 13
A security engineer is using AWS Organizations and wants to optimize SCPs. The security engineer needs to ensure that the SCPs conform to best practices.
Which approach should the security engineer take to meet this requirement?
- A. Use AWS IAM Access Analyzer to analyze the polices. View the findings from policy validation checks.
- B. Review AWS Trusted Advisor checks for all accounts in the organization.
- C. Set up AWS Audit Manager. Run an assessment for all AWS Regions for all accounts.
- D. Ensure that Amazon Inspector agents are installed on all Amazon EC2 instances in all accounts.
Answer : A
Question 14
A company uses Amazon RDS for MySQL as a database engine for its applications. A recent security audit revealed an RDS instance that is not compliant with company policy for encrypting data at rest. A security engineer at the company needs to ensure that all existing RDS databases are encrypted using server-side encryption and that any future deviations from the policy are detected.
Which combination of steps should the security engineer take to accomplish this? (Choose two.)
- A. Create an AWS Config rule to detect the creation of unencrypted RDS databases. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule to trigger on the AWS Config rules compliance state change and use Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to notify the security operations team.
- B. Use AWS System Manager State Manager to detect RDS database encryption configuration drift. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule to track state changes and use Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to notify the security operations team.
- C. Create a read replica for the existing unencrypted RDS database and enable replica encryption in the process. Once the replica becomes active, promote it into a standalone database instance and terminate the unencrypted database instance.
- D. Take a snapshot of the unencrypted RDS database. Copy the snapshot and enable snapshot encryption in the process. Restore the database instance from the newly created encrypted snapshot. Terminate the unencrypted database instance.
- E. Enable encryption for the identified unencrypted RDS instance by changing the configurations of the existing database.
Answer : AD
Question 15
A company has recently recovered from a security incident that required the restoration of Amazon EC2 instances from snapshots. The company uses an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) customer managed key to encrypt all Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) snapshots.
The company performs a gap analysis of its disaster recovery procedures and backup strategies. A security engineer needs to implement a solution so that the company can recover the EC2 instances if the AWS account is compromised and the EBS snapshots are deleted.
Which solution will meet this requirement?
- A. Create a new Amazon S3 bucket. Use EBS lifecycle policies to move EBS snapshots to the new S3 bucket. Use lifecycle policies to move snapshots to the S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval storage class. Use S3 Object Lock to prevent deletion of the snapshots.
- B. Use AWS Systems Manager to distribute a configuration that backs up all attached disks to Amazon S3.
- C. Create a new AWS account that has limited privileges. Allow the new account to access the KMS key that encrypts the EBS snapshots. Copy the encrypted snapshots to the new account on a recurring basis.
- D. Use AWS Backup to copy EBS snapshots to Amazon S3. Use S3 Object Lock to prevent deletion of the snapshots.
Answer : C