SCS-C02 Amazon Web Services AWS Certified Security - Specialty Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

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.

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.

The correct answer is C. Specify Amazon CloudWatch as the destination for the access logs. Export the CloudWatch logs to an Amazon S3 bucket. Use Amazon Athena to query the logs and to filter the logs by host.

According to the AWS documentation1, AWS WAF offers logging for the traffic that your web ACLs analyze. The logs include information such as the time that AWS WAF received the request from your protected AWS resource, detailed information about the request, and the action setting for the rule that the request matched. You can send yourlogs to an Amazon CloudWatch Logs log group, an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket, or an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose.

To create a log analysis solution for the AWS WAF web ACLs, you can use Amazon Athena, which is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL2. You can use Athena to query and filter the AWS WAF logs by host or any other criteria. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to manage, and you pay only for the queries that you run.

To use Athena with AWS WAF logs, you need to export the CloudWatch logs to an S3 bucket.You can do this by creating a subscription filter that sends your log events to a Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream, which then delivers the data to an S3 bucket3.Alternatively, you can use AWS DMS to migrate your CloudWatch logs to S34.

After you have exported your CloudWatch logs to S3, you can create a table in Athena that points to your S3 bucket and use the AWS service log format that matches your log schema5. For example, if you are using format for your AWS WAF logs, you can use the AWSSerDe serde. Then you can run SQL queries on your Athena table and filter the results by host or any other field in your log data.

Therefore, this solution meets the requirements of creating a log analysis solution for the AWS WAF web ACLs with the most operational efficiency. This solution does not require setting up any additional infrastructure or services, and it leverages the existing capabilities of CloudWatch, S3, and Athena.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Specifying Amazon Redshift as the destination for the access logs is not possible, because AWS WAF does not support sending logs directly to Redshift. You would need to use an intermediate service such as Kinesis Data Firehose or AWS DMS to load the data from CloudWatch or S3 to Redshift.Deploying the Amazon Athena Redshift connector is not necessary, because you can query Redshift data directly from Athena without using a connector6. This solution would also incur additional costs and operational overhead of managing a Redshift cluster.

B. Specifying Amazon CloudWatch as the destination for the access logs is possible, but using Amazon CloudWatch Logs Insights to design a query to filter the logs by host is not efficient or scalable.CloudWatch Logs Insights is a feature that enables you to interactively search and analyze your log data in CloudWatch Logs7.However, CloudWatch Logs Insights has somelimitations, such as a maximum query duration of 20 minutes, a maximum of 20 log groups per query, and a maximum retention period of 24 months8. These limitations may affect your ability to perform complex and long-running analysis on your AWS WAF logs.

D. Specifying Amazon CloudWatch as the destination for the access logs is possible, but using Amazon Redshift Spectrum to query the logs and filter them by host is not efficient or cost-effective.Redshift Spectrum is a feature of Amazon Redshift that enables you to run queries against exabytes of data in S3 without loading or transforming any data9. However, Redshift Spectrum requires a Redshift cluster to process the queries, which adds additional costs and operational overhead.Redshift Spectrum also charges you based on the number ofbytes scanned by each query, which can be expensive if you have large volumes of log data10.

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.

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 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/

the most secure way to meet the requirements. TLS is a protocol that provides encryption and authentication for data in transit. ALB is a service that distributes incoming traffic across multiple EC2 instances. HIDS is a system that monitors and detects malicious activity on a host. ECDHE is a type of cipher suite that supports perfect forward secrecy, which is a property that ensures that past and current TLS traffic stays secure even if the certificate private key is leaked. By creating a listener on the ALB that does not enable PFS cipher suites, and using encrypted connections to the servers using ECDHE cipher suites, you can ensure that the HIDS agents can capture the traffic of the EC2 instance without compromising the privacy of the users. The other options are either less secure or less compatible with the third-party solution.

Amazon EventBridge can directly monitor CloudTrail events, including root login attempts. By creating an EventBridge rule to trigger on a root sign-in event (ConsoleLogin with userIdentity.type as Root), you can immediately send alerts to SNS, fulfilling the requirement for real-time notifications.

This solution is low-maintenance and efficient, following best practices in real-time security event monitoring under the Logging and Monitoring domain.

This answer is correct because downloading the updated SAML metadata file from the identity service provider ensures that AWS has the latest information about the identity provider, including the new public key. Updating the file in the AWS identity provider entitydefined in IAM by using the AWS CLI allows AWS to verify the signature of the SAML assertions sent by the identity provider. This solution also minimizes operational overhead because it can be automated with a script or a cron job.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To monitor EC2 instances for software vulnerabilities without installing agents and to display findings in AWS Security Hub,Amazon Inspectoris the most appropriate solution.

Amazon Inspector Overview:

Amazon Inspector is a vulnerability management service that automatically scans Amazon EC2 instances and container images in Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) for known vulnerabilities.

It does not require agent installation as it integrates directly with EC2 metadata and uses network-based scanning.