Free Practice Questions for Amazon Web Services DOP-C02 Exam

To meet the requirements of deploying a workload on several hundred EC2 instances with least-privilege permissions and temporary security credentials, the company should use an IAM role and an instance profile. An IAM role is a way to grant permissions to an entity that you trust, such as an EC2 instance. An instance profile is a container for an IAM role that you can use to pass role information to an EC2 instance when the instance starts. By using an IAM role and an instance profile, the EC2 instances can automatically receive temporary security credentials from the AWS Security Token Service (STS) and use them to access the S3 buckets. This way, the company does not need to manage or rotate any long-term credentials, such as IAM users or access keys.

To use an IAM role and an instance profile, the company should create an IAM role that has the appropriate permissions for S3 buckets. The permissions should allow the EC2 instances to read from the source S3 bucket and write to the destination S3 bucket. The company should also create a trust policy for the IAM role that specifies that EC2 is allowed to assume the role. Then, the company should add the IAM role to an instance profile. An instance profile can have only one IAM role, so the company does not need to create multiple roles or profiles for this scenario.

Next, the company should update the launch template to include the IAM instance profile. A launch template is a way to save launch parameters for EC2 instances, such as the instance type, security group, user data, and IAM instance profile. By using a launch template, the company can ensure that all EC2 instances in the Auto Scaling group have consistent configuration and permissions. The company should specify the name or ARN of the IAM instance profile in the launch template. This way, when the Auto Scaling group launches new EC2 instances based on the launch template, they will automatically receive the IAM role and its permissions through the instance profile.

The other options are not correct because they do not meet the requirements or follow best practices. Creating an IAM user and generating a secret key and token is not a good option because it involves managing long-term credentials that need to be rotated regularly. Moreover, embedding credentials in user data is not secure because user data is visible to anyone who can describe the EC2 instance. Creating a trust anchor and profile is not a valid option because trust anchors are used for certificate-based authentication, not for IAM roles or instance profiles. Modifying user data to use a new secret key and token is also not a good option because it requires updating user data every time the credentials change, which is not scalable or efficient.

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2: DevOps Resources - Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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IAM Roles for Amazon EC2 - AWS Identity and Access Management

Working with Instance Profiles - AWS Identity and Access Management

Launching an Instance Using a Launch Template - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Temporary Security Credentials - AWS Identity and Access Management

The best solution is to use AWS Config and AWS Security Hub to identify and remediate noncompliant resources across multiple AWS accounts. AWS Config enables continuous monitoring of the configuration of AWS resources and evaluates them against desired configurations. AWS Config can also automatically remediate noncompliant resources by using conformance packs, which are a collection of AWS Config rules and remediation actions that can be deployed as a single entity. AWS Security Hub provides a comprehensive view of the security posture of AWS accounts and resources. AWS Security Hub can aggregate and normalize the findings from AWS Config and other AWS services, as well as from partner solutions. AWS Security Hub can also be used to create a dashboard for tracking noncompliant resources and events in a centralized location.

The other options are not optimal because they either require more development overhead, do not provide near real time detection and remediation, or do not provide a centralized dashboard for tracking.

Option A is not optimal because CloudFormation drift detection is not a near real time solution. Drift detection has to be manually initiated on each stack or resource, or scheduled using a cron expression. Drift detection also does not provide remediation actions, so a custom Lambda function has to be developed and invoked. CloudWatch Logs and dashboard can be used for tracking, but they do not provide a comprehensive view of the security posture of the AWS accounts and resources.

Option B is not optimal because CloudTrail logs analysis using Athena is not a near real time solution. Athena queries have to be manually run or scheduled using a cron expression. Athena also does not provide remediation actions, so a custom Lambda function has to be developed and invoked. Step Functions can be used to orchestrate the query and remediation workflow, but it adds more complexity and cost. QuickSight dashboard can be used for tracking, but it does not provide a comprehensive view of the security posture of the AWS accounts and resources.

Option D is not optimal because CloudTrail logs analysis using CloudWatch Logs is not a near real time solution. CloudWatch Logs filters have to be manually created or updated for each resource type and configuration change. CloudWatch Logs also does not provide remediation actions, so a custom Lambda function has to be developed and invoked. EventBridge can be used to trigger the Lambda function, but it adds more complexity and cost. OpenSearch Service dashboard can be used for tracking, but it does not provide a comprehensive view of the security posture of the AWS accounts and resources.

AWS Config conformance packs

Introducing AWS Config conformance packs

Managing conformance packs across all accounts in your organization

To ensure that CloudTrail cannot be disabled in any member account, the control must be enforced above the individual accounts, at the organization level, and must not be overridable by local administrators. AWS Service Control Policies (SCPs) provide exactly this capability: they define permission guardrails that apply to all IAM users, roles, and even the root user in accounts within an AWS Organizations OU.

By applying an SCP that explicitly denies cloudtrail:StopLogging and cloudtrail:DeleteTrail, the organization prevents any principal in the affected accounts from disabling logging or deleting the trails, regardless of their IAM permissions. This provides strong, centralized enforcement of audit logging.

Option B uses IAM policies in each account. Local administrators with sufficient privileges could modify or detach those policies, defeating the control. Option C only sends notifications and does not prevent the action. Option D with AWS Config auto-remediation still allows a window where CloudTrail is disabled and also can be disabled or modified itself.

Therefore, the most robust and least bypassable approach is to use an SCP at the OU level to deny CloudTrail stop and delete actions.

RDS Multi-AZ with cross-Region read replicas provides synchronous replication with near-zero data loss and supports fast failover with RPO < 1 min and RTO < 10 min.

Automation can promote replicas and update Route 53 CNAME to redirect traffic during failover.

Options B, C, and D rely on snapshots, backups, or DMS, which cannot guarantee such low RPO/RTO and require manual intervention or complex automation.

The correct answer is B and C. Option B is correct because inviting the acquired company’s AWS accounts to join the organization and creating the OrganizationAccountAccessRole IAM role in the invited accounts allows the management account to assume the role and gain full administrative access to the member accounts. Option C is correct because using AWS Security Hub to collect and group findings across all accounts enables the DevOps team to monitor and improve the security posture of the organization. Security Hub can automatically detect new accounts as the accounts are added to the organization and enable Security Hub for them. Option A is incorrect because creating an SCP that has full administrative privileges and attaching it to the management account does not grant the management account access to the member accounts. SCPs are used to restrict the permissions of the member accounts, not to grant permissions to the management account. Option D is incorrect because using AWS Firewall Manager to collect and group findings across all accounts is not a valid use case for Firewall Manager. Firewall Manager is used to centrally configure and manage firewall rules across the organization, not to collect and group security findings. Option E is incorrect because using Amazon Inspector to collect and group findings across all accounts is not a valid use case for Amazon Inspector. Amazon Inspector is used to assess the security and compliance of applications running on Amazon EC2 instances, not to collect and group security findings across accounts. References:

Inviting an AWS account to join your organization

Enabling and disabling AWS Security Hub

Service control policies

AWS Firewall Manager

Amazon Inspector

The question focuses on detecting supply chain attacks that bypass CI/CD controls and result in malicious runtime behavior in the deployed serverless application. This requires runtime threat detection, not just static scanning or infrastructure validation.

Amazon GuardDuty is AWS’s managed threat detection service. GuardDuty now includes Lambda Protection, which analyzes Lambda function behavior, including network calls, IAM API usage, and other signals to detect compromised functions, crypto-mining, data exfiltration, and other malicious activity. GuardDuty automatically ingests CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs (if enabled), and other telemetry without requiring code changes or agents. Findings are published and can be routed to Amazon EventBridge for near real-time notifications or automated remediation.

Option A (AWS WAF) only inspects HTTP requests to API Gateway and is focused on known bad patterns, not deeper behavioral anomalies. Option C (CloudFormation Guard) is focused on infrastructure-as-code validation in the pipeline, which explicitly does not help once malicious code is deployed. Option D (Network Firewall with Emerging Threats rules) protects VPC traffic, but serverless components like Lambda and API Gateway may not all traverse that firewall, and it is not targeted at function-level behavior.

Hence, enabling GuardDuty with Lambda Protection and using EventBridge notifications is the correct solution.