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

The AWS documentation states that you can deploy the Lambda functions inside the VPC and attach a security group to the Lambda functions. You can then provide outbound rule access to the VPC CIDR range only and update the DB instance security group to allow traffic from the Lambda security group. This method is the most secure way to meet the requirements.

To allow an IAM user in one AWS account to access resources in another AWS account using IAM roles, the following steps are required:

Create a role in the AWS account that contains the resources (the trusting account) and specify the AWS account that contains the IAM user (the trusted account) as a trusted entity in the role’s trust policy. This allows users from the trusted account to assume the role and access resources in the trusting account.

Attach a policy to the IAM user in the trusted account that allows the user to assume the role in the trusting account. The policy must specify the ARN of the role that was created in the trusting account.

The IAM user can then switch roles or use temporary credentials to access the resources in the trusting account.

Verified References:

https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/cross-account-access-iam

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/orgs_manage_accounts_access.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/tutorial_cross-account-with-roles.html

these are the recommended actions to take when you receive an abuse notice fromAWS8. You shouldreview the abuse notice to see what content or activity was reported and detach the internet gateway from the VPC to isolate the affected instances from the internet. You should also remove any rules that allow inbound traffic from 0.0.0.0/0 from the security groups and create a network access control list (NACL) rule to deny all traffic inbound from the internet. You should then delete the compromised instances and any associated resources that you did not create. The other options are either inappropriate or unnecessary for responding to the abuse notice.

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.

To ensure that Security Hub can evaluate their resources for CIS AWS Foundations compliance, the security engineer should do the following:

Ensure that AWS Config is enabled in the account. This is a service that enables continuous assessment and audit of your AWS resources for compliance.

Ensure that the required AWS Config rules have been created for the CIS compliance evaluation. These are rules that represent your desired configuration settings for specific AWS resources or for an entire AWS account.

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

this is the accurate reflection of the access control mechanisms that the Architect should verify. Access control mechanisms are methods that regulate who can access what resources and how. Security groups and network ACLs are two types of access control mechanisms that can be applied to EC2 instances and subnets. Security groups are stateful, meaning they remember and return traffic that was previously allowed. Network ACLs are stateless, meaning they do not remember or return traffic that was previously allowed. Security groups and network ACLs can have inbound and outbound rules that specify the source, destination, protocol, and port of the traffic. By verifying the outbound security group configuration on database servers, the inbound security group configuration on application servers, and the inbound and outbound network ACL configuration on both the database and application server subnets, the Architect can check if there are any misconfigurations or conflicts thatprevent the application servers from initiating a connection to the database servers. The other options are either inaccurate or incomplete for verifying the access control mechanisms.

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.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To provide a single management portal for access and integrate with an external IdP for SSO,AWS IAM Identity Center(formerly AWS Single Sign-On) is the best solution:

AWS IAM Identity Center:

IAM Identity Center enables centralized management of access to AWS accounts within an organization.

Supports external IdPs (e.g., Okta, Azure AD) using SAML 2.0 for workforce SSO.

When using server-side encryption with AWS KMS keys (SSE-KMS), the requester must have both Amazon S3 permissions and AWS KMS permissions to access the objects. The Amazon S3 permissions are for the bucket and object operations, such as s3:ListBucket and s3:GetObject. The AWS KMS permissions are for the key operations, such as kms:GenerateDataKey and kms:Decrypt. In this case, the IAM role has the necessary Amazon S3 permissions, but not the AWS KMS permissions to use the customer managed key that encrypts the objects. Therefore, the IAM role receives an access denied message when trying to access the objects.Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/troubleshoot-403-errors.html

https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/s3-access-denied-error-kms

https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/cross-account-access-denied-error-s3

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.

The correct answer is A, C, and F.

To automate a response for any newly created policies that are overly permissive, the security engineer needs to use a combination of services that can monitor, analyze, remediate, and notify the security incidents.

Option A is correct because creating an AWS Step Functions state machine that checks the resource type in the finding and adds an explicit Deny statement in the trust policy for the IAM role is a valid way to remediate external access. AWS Step Functions is a service that allows you to coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows. You can use Step Functions to invoke AWS Lambda functions, which can modify the IAM policies programmatically. You can also use Step Functions to publish a notification to an Amazon SNS topic, which can send messages to subscribers such as email addresses.

Option B is incorrect because creating an AWS Batch job that forwards any resource type findings to an AWS Lambda function is not a suitable way to automate a response. AWS Batch is a service that enables you to run batch computing workloads on AWS. Batch is designed for large-scale and long-running jobs that can benefit from parallelization and dynamic provisioning of compute resources. Batch is not intended for event-driven and real-time workflows that require immediate response.

Option C is correct because creating an Amazon EventBridge event rule that matches active IAM Access Analyzer findings and invokes AWS Step Functions for resolution is a valid way to monitor and analyze the security incidents. Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus service that allows you to connect your applications with data from various sources. EventBridge can use rules to match events and route them to targets for processing. You can use EventBridge to invoke AWS Step Functions state machines from the IAM Access Analyzer findings.

Option D is incorrect because creating an Amazon CloudWatch metric filter that matches active IAM Access Analyzer findings and invokes AWS Batch for resolution is not a suitable way to monitor and analyze the security incidents. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that provides monitoring and observability for your AWS resources and applications. CloudWatch can collect metrics, logs, and events from various sources and perform actions based on alarms or filters. However, CloudWatch cannot directly invoke AWS Batch jobs from the IAM Access Analyzer findings. You would need to use another service such as EventBridge or SNS to trigger the Batch job.

Option E is incorrect because creating an Amazon SQS queue that forwards a notification to the security team that an external principal has been granted access to the specific IAM role and has been blocked is not a valid way to notify the security incidents. Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queue service that enables you to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. SQS can deliver messages to consumers that poll the queue for messages. However, SQS cannot directlyforward a notification to the security team’s email addresses. You would need to use another service such as SNS or SES to send email notifications.

Option F is correct because creating an Amazon SNS topic for external or cross-account access notices and subscribing the security team’s email addresses to the topic is a valid way to notify the security incidents. Amazon SNS is a fully managed messaging service that enables you to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. SNS can deliver messages to a variety of endpoints, such as email, SMS, or HTTP. You can use SNS to send email notifications to the security team when a critical security finding is detected.

To minimize downtime in response to DDoS attacks, the company should do the following:

Subscribe to AWS Shield Advanced and reach out to AWS Support in the event of an attack. This provides access to 24x7 support from the AWS DDoS Response Team (DRT), as well as advanced detection and mitigation capabilities for network and application layer attacks.

Use AWS WAF to create rules to respond to such attacks. This allows the company to filter web requests based on IP addresses, headers, body, or URI strings, and block malicious requests before they reach the web applications.