Free Practice Questions for Amazon Web Services SCS-C02 Exam

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

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 A because it meets the RPO of 1 hour by creating backups of the EC2 instances and S3 buckets every hour. It also uses AWS CloudFormation templates to replicate the existing architecture components and AWS CodeCommit to store the templates and the application configuration code. This way, the security engineer can quickly restore the environment in case of a ransomware attack.

The other options are incorrect because they do not meet the RPO of 1 hour or they do not provide a complete disaster recovery solution. Option B only creates backups of the EBS volumes and S3 objects every day, which is not frequent enough to meet the RPO. Option C does not create any backups of the EC2 instances or the S3 buckets, which are essentialfor the frontend services. Option D only creates EBS snapshots every 4 hours, which is also not frequent enough to meet the RPO. Additionally, option D relies on Amazon GuardDuty to detect and respond to ransomware attacks, which may not be effective if the attacker bypasses the preventive and detective controls.

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.

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.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/singlesignon/latest/userguide/howtocmp.html

"Before you assign your permission set with IAM policies, you must prepare your member account. The name of an IAM policy in your member account must be a case-sensitive match to name of the policy in your management account. IAM Identity Center fails to assign the permission set if the policy doesn't exist in your member account."

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.

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.

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

Centralize Access Management with IAM Roles:

Create roles in the testing and production accounts with permissions specific to resources in those accounts.

Add a policy that allowssts:AssumeRolefor trusted accounts.

Establish Trust Between Accounts:

Update the trust policies of the roles in the testing and production accounts to allow the roles in the development account to assume them.

Example Trust Policy:

{

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

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Principal": {

"AWS": "arn:aws:iam:::role/"

},

"Action": "sts:AssumeRole"

}

]

}

Role Switching for Access:

Developers in the development account can use the AWS Management Console or CLI to assume the roles in the testing or production accounts.

Advantages of This Solution:

Scalability: No need to create individual credentials for each developer in every account.

Security: Credentials are dynamically assumed and not shared across accounts.

Ease of Management: Centralized role management simplifies permissions and reduces administrative overhead.

Cross-Account Access in AWS

Using Roles to Delegate Permissions

IAM Policies and Trust Relationships