Question 1

A Security Administrator is performing a log analysis as a result of a suspected AWS account compromise. The Administrator wants to analyze suspicious AWS CloudTrail log files but is overwhelmed by the volume of audit logs being generated. What approach enables the Administrator to search through the logs MOST efficiently?

Accepted Answer

Amazon Athena allows the administrator to efficiently query and analyze large volumes of CloudTrail logs stored in an S3 bucket using SQL-like queries, making it easier to identify suspicious activities.

Question 2

During a recent internal investigation, it was discovered that all API logging was disabled in a production account, and the root user had created new API keys that appear to have been used several times. What could have been done to detect and automatically remediate the incident?

Accepted Answer

C

Question 3

A Security Engineer has created an Amazon CloudWatch event that invokes an AWS Lambda function daily. The Lambda function runs an Amazon Athena query that checks AWS CloudTrail logs in Amazon S3 to detect whether any IAM user accounts or credentials have been created in the past 30 days. The results of the Athena query are created in the same S3 bucket. The Engineer runs a test execution of the Lambda function via the AWS Console, and the function runs successfully. After several minutes, the Engineer finds that his Athena query has failed with the error message: "Insufficient Permissions". The IAM permissions of the Security Engineer and the Lambda function are shown below: Security Engineer  Lambda function execution role  What is causing the error?

Accepted Answer

B

Question 4

An organization wants to deploy a three-tier web application whereby the application servers run on Amazon EC2 instances. These EC2 instances need access to credentials that they will use to authenticate their SQL connections to an Amazon RDS DB instance. Also, AWS Lambda functions must issue queries to the RDS database by using the same database credentials. The credentials must be stored so that the EC2 instances and the Lambda functions can access them. No other access is allowed. The access logs must record when the credentials were accessed and by whom. What should the Security Engineer do to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS Secrets Manager is designed for storing and managing sensitive information like database credentials. It provides access logging and can be accessed by both EC2 instances and Lambda functions using IAM roles.

Question 5

An application has a requirement to be resilient across not only Availability Zones within the application's primary region but also be available within another region altogether. Which of the following supports this requirement for AWS resources that are encrypted by AWS KMS?

Accepted Answer

AWS services that replicate data across regions can be used, and the data encryption key can be re-wrapped with the CMK in the target region to ensure decryption capabilities.

Question 6

A Security Engineer must design a solution that enables the incident Response team to audit for changes to a user's IAM permissions in the case of a security incident. How can this be accomplished?

Accepted Answer

AWS Config can be used to track and review changes to IAM policies assigned to users, providing a clear audit trail before and after an incident.

Question 7

A Security Administrator has a website hosted in Amazon S3. The Administrator has been given the following requirements: Users may access the website by using an Amazon CloudFront distribution. Users may not access the website directly by using an Amazon S3 URL. Which configurations will support these requirements? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

The answer of A Security Administrator has a website hosted...

Question 8

A water utility company uses a number of Amazon EC2 instances to manage updates to a fleet of 2,000 Internet of Things (IoT) field devices that monitor water quality. These devices each have unique access credentials. An operational safety policy requires that access to specific credentials is independently auditable. What is the MOST cost-effective way to manage the storage of credentials?

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store allows storing credentials as Secure String Parameters, which can be encrypted with an AWS KMS key. This solution is cost-effective and provides auditability for access to specific credentials.

Question 9

A threat assessment has identified a risk whereby an internal employee could exfiltrate sensitive data from production host running inside AWS (Account 1). The threat was documented as follows: Threat description: A malicious actor could upload sensitive data from Server X by configuring credentials for an AWS account (Account 2) they control and uploading data to an Amazon S3 bucket within their control. Server X has outbound internet access configured via a proxy server. Legitimate access to S3 is required so that the application can upload encrypted files to an S3 bucket. Server X is currently using an IAM instance role. The proxy server is not able to inspect any of the server communication due to TLS encryption. Which of the following options will mitigate the threat? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

The answer of A threat assessment has identified a risk...

Question 10

An organization has a system in AWS that allows a large number of remote workers to submit data files. File sizes vary from a few kilobytes to several megabytes. A recent audit highlighted a concern that data files are not encrypted while in transit over untrusted networks. Which solution would remediate the audit finding while minimizing the effort required?

Accepted Answer

Using AWS Certificate Manager to provision a certificate on an Elastic Load Balancing in front of the web service's servers ensures that data is encrypted in transit with minimal effort, as it handles SSL/TLS termination.

Question 11

An organization policy states that all encryption keys must be automatically rotated every 12 months. Which AWS Key Management Service (KMS) key type should be used to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

AWS managed Customer Master Keys (CMKs) are automatically rotated every 12 months by AWS, which aligns with the organization's policy requirement.

Question 12

A company will store sensitive documents in three Amazon S3 buckets based on a data classification scheme of "Sensitive," "Confidential," and "Restricted." The security solution must meet all of the following requirements: Each object must be encrypted using a unique key. Items that are stored in the "Restricted" bucket require two-factor authentication for decryption. AWS KMS must automatically rotate encryption keys annually. Which of the following meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

AWS KMS allows you to create a Customer Master Key (CMK) for each classification type, enable automatic key rotation, and define an MFA policy for the "Restricted" bucket within the key policy. S3 SSE-KMS can be used to encrypt objects with unique keys.

Question 13

A Security Engineer launches two Amazon EC2 instances in the same Amazon VPC but in separate Availability Zones. Each instance has a public IP address and is able to connect to external hosts on the internet. The two instances are able to communicate with each other by using their private IP addresses, but they are not able to communicate with each other when using their public IP addresses. Which action should the Security Engineer take to allow communication over the public IP addresses?

Accepted Answer

The answer of A Security Engineer launches two Amazon EC2...

Question 14

A Systems Engineer has been tasked with configuring outbound mail through Simple Email Service (SES) and requires compliance with current TLS standards. The mail application should be configured to connect to which of the following endpoints and corresponding ports?

Accepted Answer

The correct endpoint for sending emails using Amazon SES with TLS is the SMTP endpoint, which is email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com over port 587. This port is commonly used for SMTP with STARTTLS, which is a method to take an existing insecure connection and upgrade it to a secure connection using TLS.

Question 15

A company wants to control access to its AWS resources by using identities and groups that are defined in its existing Microsoft Active Directory. What must the company create in its AWS account to map permissions for AWS services to Active Directory user attributes?

Accepted Answer

AWS IAM roles can be used to map permissions for AWS services to Active Directory user attributes by establishing trust relationships and using SAML-based federation.

Question 16

A security team is responsible for reviewing AWS API call activity in the cloud environment for security violations. These events must be recorded and retained in a centralized location for both current and future AWS regions. What is the SIMPLEST way to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

The answer of A security team is responsible for reviewing...

Question 17

An application is currently secured using network access control lists and security groups. Web servers are located in public subnets behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB); application servers are located in private subnets. How can edge security be enhanced to safeguard the Amazon EC2 instances against attack? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

The answer of An application is currently secured using network...

Question 18

A Security Engineer must enforce the use of only Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, and AWS STS in specific accounts. What is a scalable and efficient approach to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

The answer of A Security Engineer must enforce the use...

Question 19

A company requires that IP packet data be inspected for invalid or malicious content. Which of the following approaches achieve this requirement? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

A proxy solution on EC2 can inspect traffic, and a host-based agent can inspect data on each instance.

Question 20

A company has complex connectivity rules governing ingress, egress, and communications between Amazon EC2 instances. The rules are so complex that they cannot be implemented within the limits of the maximum number of security groups and network access control lists (network ACLs). What mechanism will allow the company to implement all required network rules without incurring additional cost?

Accepted Answer

Using the operating system's built-in, host-based firewall allows for implementing complex network rules directly on each instance without additional costs associated with AWS services or third-party products.

Exam 8: AWS Certified Security - Specialty (SCS-C01)