SCS-C02 AWS Certified Security - Specialty Questions and Answers

you need to configure the Amazon Inspector agent to use the CVE rule package, which is a set of rules that check for vulnerabilitiesand exposures on your EC2 instances5. You also need to install an additional integration library that enables communication between the Amazon Inspector agent and Security Hub6. Security Hub is a service that provides you with a comprehensive view of your securitystate in AWS and helps you check your environment against security industry standards and best practices7. The other options are either incorrect or incomplete for meeting the requirement.

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.

Using Amazon EventBridge to create a rule for ACM Certificate Approaching Expiration events and configuring an SNS topic as the target provides an operationally efficient way to monitor and alert on certificate expirations. This method leverages AWS's native capabilities for event monitoring and notifications, reducing the need for custom implementations and ensuring timely alerts.

To implement host-based security for Amazon EC2 instances and containers in Amazon ECR with minimal operational overhead and ensure automatic deployment and scanning for new workloads, the recommended solution is to configure a delegated administrator for Amazon Inspector within the AWS Organizations structure. By enabling Amazon Inspector for the organization and configuring it to automatically scan new member accounts, the company can ensure that all EC2 instances and ECR containers are analyzed for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure. Amazon Inspector will automatically assess the workloads and push findings to AWS Security Hub, providing centralized security monitoring and compliance checking. This approach ensures that as new accounts orworkloads are added, they are automatically included in the security assessments, maintaining a consistent security posture across the organization with minimal manual intervention.

because these are the steps that can ensure that the service-linked role can launch instances with encrypted volumes. A service-linked role is a type of IAM role that is linked to an AWS service and allows the service to perform actions on your behalf. A KMS grant is a mechanism that allows you to delegate permissions to use a customer master key (CMK) to a principal such as a service-linked role.A KMS grant specifies the actions that the principal can perform, such as encrypting and decrypting data. By creating a KMS grant for the service-linked role with the specified actions, you can allow the service-linked role to use the CMK in Account-2 to launch instances with encrypted volumes. By attaching an IAM policy to the role attached to the EC2 instances with KMS actions and then allowing Account-1 in the KMS key policy, you can also enable cross-account access to the CMK and allow the EC2 instances to use the encrypted volumes. The other options are either incorrect or unnecessary for meeting the requirement.

Create an Account-Wide Data Protection Policy:

Use AWS CloudWatch Logs account-level data protection policies to prevent sensitive data exposure.

Define the policy with appropriate AWS managed data identifiers or custom identifiers specific to the company's sensitive data.

Apply the policy across all log groups in the account, ensuring coverage for both existing and future log groups.

Restrict Developer Access to Unmasked Data:

Explicitly deny thelogs:UnmaskIAM permission to developers. This prevents developers from accessing unmasked sensitive data in log entries.

Automatic Policy Application:

Account-wide data protection policies automatically apply to new log groups created in the future, ensuring scalability and compliance without manual intervention.

Testing and Verification:

Test the policy with sample log entries containing sensitive data to ensure proper masking.

Verify that developers can troubleshoot logs without exposing sensitive information.

AWS CloudWatch Logs Data Protection Documentation

AWS Identity and Access Management Permissions for CloudWatch Logs

To avoid AccessDeniedExceptions when users first attempt to encrypt using the CMK, the security specialist should recommend the following solution:

Instruct the engineering team to pass the grant token returned in the CreateGrant response to users. This allows the engineering team to use the grant token as a form of temporary authorization for the grant.

Instruct users to use that grant token in their call to encrypt. This allows the users to use the grant token as a proof that they have permission to use the CMK, and to avoid any eventual consistency issues with the grant creation.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Amazon GuardDuty provides intelligent threat detection and continuous monitoring for malicious or unauthorized behavior to protect AWS accounts and workloads. It satisfies the requirement for monitoring endpoints for anomalous network traffic.

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) simplifies the process of provisioning, managing, and deploying SSL/TLS certificates. Configuring ELB with ACM ensures encryption in transit.

AWS KMS with S3 bucket policy using x-amz-server-side-encryption ensures that S3 objects are encrypted at rest using managed keys. Denying uploads that do not use SSE with a bucket policy enforces encryption at rest.

These three actions together satisfy the stated security requirements with minimal operational overhead.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To ensure encryption for all data in transit between EC2 instances and EBS volumes,TLS encryptionmust be implemented. While EBS volume encryption secures data at rest, the requirement here is to secure datain transit.

TLS Encryption with ACM Certificates:

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) simplifies the process of deploying TLS encryption by managing certificates.

EC2 instances can use these certificates for secure data transmission to EBS.

because these are the features that can address the CISO’s concerns about cryptographic wear-out and blast radius. Cryptographic wear-out is a phenomenon that occurs when a key is used too frequently or for too long, which increases the risk of compromise or degradation. Blast radius is a measure of how much damage a compromised key can cause to the encrypted data. S3 uses KMS to generate a unique data key for each individual object, which reduces both cryptographic wear-out and blast radius. The KMS encryption envelope digitally signs the master key during encryption, which prevents cryptographicwear-out by ensuring that only authorized parties can use the master key. The other options are either incorrect or irrelevant for addressing the CISO’s concerns.

Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/. In the navigation pane, choose Session Manager. Choose the Preferences tab, and then choose Edit. Select the check box next to Enable under S3 logging. (Recommended) Select the check box next to Allow only encrypted S3 buckets. With this option turned on, log data is encrypted using the server-side encryption key specified for the bucket. If you don 't want to encrypt the log data that is sent to Amazon S3, clear the check box. You must also clear the check box if encryption isn't allowed on the S3 bucket.

Understanding Gateway VPC Endpoint:

A gateway VPC endpoint allows traffic from the VPC to specific AWS services (e.g., Amazon S3) without traversing the public internet.

Key Configuration Points to Verify:

The route table is correctly configured to send traffic for Amazon S3 through the gateway VPC endpoint.

IAM permissions and bucket policies are correct and allow access to the specific S3 bucket.

Verify the Endpoint Policy:

Check the VPC endpoint policy to ensure it allows access to the S3 bucket. The policy might be restricting access to certain buckets, prefixes, or IAM principals.

Example VPC Endpoint Policy:

{

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

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Principal": "*",

"Action": "s3:*",

"Resource": [

"arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket",

"arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket/*"

]

}

]

}

Testing and Validation:

Modify the endpoint policy if required and test access again from the EC2 instance.

Gateway VPC Endpoints Documentation

VPC Endpoint Policies for Amazon S3

To quickly identify other compute resources with the specific version of the web framework installed, the team should do the following:

Scan all the EC2 instances with AWS Systems Manager to identify the vulnerable version of the web framework. This allows the team to use AWS Systems Manager Inventory to collect and query information about the software installed on their EC2 instances, and to filter the results by software name and version.

because these are the actions that can improve IAM account root user security. IAM account root user is a user that has complete access to all AWS resources and services in an account. IAM account root user security is a set of best practices that help protect the account root user from unauthorized oraccidental use. Deleting the access keys for the account root user in every account can help prevent programmatic access by the account root user, which reduces the risk of compromise or misuse. Enabling MFA on every account root user in all accounts can help add an extra layer of security for console access by requiring a verification code in addition to a password. Creating a custom IAM policy to limit permissions to required actions for the account root user and attaching the policy to the account root user can help enforce the principle of least privilege and restrict the account root user from performing unnecessary or dangerous actions. The other options are either invalid or ineffective for improving IAM account root user security.

The correct answer is A. Create an AWS Service Catalog portfolio in the organization’s management account. Upload the CloudFormation template. Add the template to the portfolio’s product list. Share the portfolio with the OU.

According to the AWS documentation, AWS Service Catalog is a service that allows you to create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS. You can use Service Catalog to centrally manage commonly deployed IT services and help achieve consistent governance and compliance requirements, while enabling users to quickly deploy only the approved IT services they need.

To use Service Catalog with multiple AWS accounts, you need to enable AWS Organizations with all features enabled. This allows you to centrally manage your accounts and apply policies across your organization. You can also use Service Catalog as a service principal for AWS Organizations, which lets you share your portfolios with organizational units (OUs) or accounts in your organization.

To create a Service Catalog portfolio, you need to use an administrator account, such as the organization’s management account. You can upload your CloudFormation template as a product in your portfolio, and define constraints and tags for it. You can then share your portfolio with the OU that contains the accounts for the web applications. This will allow the developers in those accounts to launch products from the shared portfolio using the Service Catalog end user console.

Option B is incorrect because CloudFormation modules are reusable components that encapsulate one or more resources and their configurations. They are not meant to be used as templates for deploying entire stacks of resources. Moreover, sharing a module with an OU does not grant access to launch stacks from it.

Option C is incorrect because creating an IAM role that has a trust policy that allows cross-account access to the portfolio is not secure. It would allow any user in the OU accounts to assume the role and access the portfolio, regardless of their job function or access requirements.

Option D is incorrect because sharing a module with an OU does not grant access to launch stacks from it. It also does not limit access to the deployment plan to only the developers who need access.

The AWS documentation states that you can create a new AMI without the potentially compromised credentials and create an 1AM role that includes the correct permissions. You can then create a launch template for the Auto Scaling group to reference the new AMI and 1AM role. This method is the most secure way to remediate the security concerns without causing downtime for the application.

The possible reason that the IAM user cannot access the objects in the S3 bucket is D. The KMS key policy has been edited to remove the ability for the AWS account to have full access to the key.

This answer is correct because the KMS key policy is the primary way to control access to the KMS key, and it must explicitly allow the AWS account to have full access to the key.If theKMS key policy has been edited to remove this permission, then the IAM policy that grants kms:Decrypt permission to the IAM user has no effect, and the IAM user cannot decrypt the objects in the S3 bucket12.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. The IAM policy does not need to allow the kms:DescribeKey permission, because this permission is not required for decrypting objects in S3 using SSE-KMS.The kms:DescribeKey permission allows getting information about a KMSkey, such as its creation date, description, and key state3.

B. The S3 bucket has not been changed to use the AWS managed key to encrypt objects at rest, because this would not cause an Access Denied message for the IAM user. The AWS managed key is a default KMS key that is created and managed by AWS for each AWS account and Region.The IAM user does not need any permissions on this key to use it for SSE-KMS4.

C. An S3 bucket policy does not need to be added to allow the IAM user to access the objects, because the IAM user already has s3:List* and s3:Get* permissions for the S3 bucket and its objects through an IAM policy.An S3 bucket policy is an optional way to grant cross-account access or public access to an S3 bucket5.

Generate a Data Key:

Use theaws kms generate-data-keycommand to request a data key from AWS KMS.

The data key will include both a plaintext version and an encrypted version.

Example command:

bash

aws kms generate-data-key --key-id --key-spec AES_256

Encrypt the File:

Use the plaintext data key to encrypt the 2 KB file using standard encryption libraries or utilities (e.g., OpenSSL).

Secure the Encrypted Data Key:

Store the encrypted version of the data key alongside the encrypted file for future decryption.

Least Privilege Principle:

Ensure the EC2 instance role has the minimum necessary permissions to callkms:GenerateDataKeyandkms:Decrypt.

Testing and Validation:

Verify that the encrypted file can be successfully decrypted using the stored encrypted data key and the KMS key.

AWS KMS GenerateDataKey API

AWS KMS Best Practices

Encrypting Data with AWS KMS

To meet the requirements of importing their own key material, setting an expiration date on the keys, and deleting keys immediately, the security engineer should do the following:

Configure AWS KMS and use a custom key store. This allows the security engineer to use a key manager outside of AWS KMS that they own and manage, such as an AWS CloudHSM cluster or an external key manager.

Create a customer managed CMK with no key material. Import the company’s keys and key material into the CMK. This allows the security engineer to use their own key material for encryption and decryption operations, and to specify an expiration date for it.

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.

The correct answer is B. Use data key caching. Use the local cache that the AWS Encryption SDK provides with a caching cryptographic materials manager.

This answer is correct because data key caching can improve performance, reduce cost, and help the company stay within the service limits of AWS KMS. Data key caching stores data keys and related cryptographic material in a cache, and reuses them for encryption and decryption operations. This reduces the number of requests to AWS KMSendpoints and avoids throttling.The AWS Encryption SDK provides a local cache and a caching cryptographic materials manager (caching CMM) that interacts with the cache and enforces security thresholds that the company can set1.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Using keyrings with the AWS Encryption SDK does not address the problem of throttling or cost optimization. Keyrings are used to generate, encrypt, and decrypt data keys, but they do not cache or reuse them.Using each keyring individually or combining them into a multi-keyring does not reduce the number of requests to AWS KMS endpoints2.

C. Using KMS key rotation does not address the problem of throttling or cost optimization. Key rotation is a security practice that creates new cryptographic material for a KMS key every year, but it does not affect the data that the KMS key protects.Key rotation does not reduce the number of requests to AWS KMS endpoints, and it might incur additional costs for storing multiple versions of key material3.

D. Using keyrings with the AWS Encryption SDK does not address the problem of throttling or cost optimization, as explained in option A. Moreover, using any of the wrapping keys in the multi-keyring to decrypt the data is not a valid option, because only one of the wrapping keys can decrypt a given data key.The wrapping key that encrypts a data key is stored in the encrypted data key structure, andonly that wrapping key can decrypt it4.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/log-your-vpc-dns-queries-with-route-53-resolver-query-logs/

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

A. IAM Access Analyzer helps track and evaluate which resources were accessed and by which principals, aiding in investigating the blast radius.

B. Deactivating the access key is the first and most critical step to immediately prevent further usage of the compromised credentials.

This is consistent with AWS incident response playbooks, which emphasize immediate revocation and impact analysis.

Option A is incorrect since you don't add a user to the IAM Role

Option C is incorrect since you don't assign multiple users to a policy

Option D is incorrect since this is not an ideal approach

An IAM group is used to collectively manage users who need the same set of permissions. By having groups, it becomes easier to manage permissions. So if you change the permissions on the group scale, it will affect all the users in that group

For more information on IAM Groups, just browse to the below URL:

https://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_eroups.html

The correct answer is: Use the IAM groups and add users, based upon their role, to different groups and apply the policy to group

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The most operationally efficient solution to implement a near-real-time monitoring and alerting solution that will notify administrators of security group violations is to use the restricted-ssh AWS Config managed rule that is invoked by security group configuration changes that are not compliant. This rule checks whether security groups that are in use have inbound rules that allow unrestricted SSH traffic. If a violation is detected, AWS Config can use the remediation feature to publish a message to an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic.

Option A is incorrect because creating a recurring Amazon Inspector assessment run that uses the Network Reachability package is not operationally efficient, as it requires setting up an assessment target and template, running the assessment every day, and invoking a Lambda function to retrieve and evaluate the assessment report. It also does not provide near-real-time monitoring and alerting, as it depends on the frequency and duration of the assessment run.

Option C is incorrect because configuring VPC Flow Logs for the VPC and specifying an Amazon CloudWatch Logs group is not operationally efficient, as it requires creating a log group and stream, enabling VPC Flow Logs for each subnet or network interface, and subscribing a Lambda function to parse and analyze the log entries. It also does not provide proactive monitoring and alerting, as it only detects successful connections on port 22 after they have occurred.

Option D is incorrect because creating a recurring Amazon Inspector assessment run that uses the Security Best Practices package is not operationally efficient, for the same reasons as option A. It also does not provide specific monitoring and alerting for security group violations, as it covers a broader range of security issues. References:

[AWS Config Rules]

[AWS Config Remediation]

[Amazon Inspector]

[VPC Flow Logs]

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-use-trust-policies-with-iam-roles/

The correct answer is B. Modify the network ACL that is associated with the CIDR range to allow outbound traffic to ephemeral ports.

This answer is correct because network ACLs are stateless, which means that they do not automatically allow return traffic for inbound connections. Therefore, the network ACL that is associated with the CIDR range of the new application must have outbound rules that allow traffic to ephemeral ports, which are the temporary ports used by the vendors’ machines to communicate with the application servers.Ephemeral ports are typically in the range of 1024-655351. If the network ACL does not have such rules, the vendors will not be able to connect to the application.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Modifying the security group that is associated with the EC2 instances to have the same outbound rules as inbound rules is not a solution, because security groups are stateful, which means that they automatically allow return traffic for inbound connections.Therefore, there is no need to add outbound rules to the security group for the vendors to access the application2.

C. Modifying the inbound rules on the internet gateway to allow the required ports is not a solution, because internet gateways do not have inbound or outbound rules. Internet gateways are VPC components that enable communication between instances in a VPC and the internet.They do not filter traffic based on ports or protocols3.

D. Modifying the network ACL that is associated with the CIDR range to have the same outbound rules as inbound rules is not a solution, because it does not address the issue of ephemeral ports.The outbound rules of the network ACL must matchthe ephemeral port range of the vendors’ machines, not necessarily the inbound rules of the network ACL4.

The most likely cause of the error is that the instance profile for the EC2 instance does not have the s3:PutObject permission for the S3 bucket. This permission is needed to upload logs to the bucket. Therefore, the security engineer should ensure that the instance profile has this permission.

One possible solution is to attach the AWSImageBuilderFullAccess policy to the instance profile for the EC2 instance. This policy grants full access to Image Builder resources and related AWS services, including the s3:PutObject permission for any bucket with “imagebuilder” in its name. However, this policy may grant more permissions than necessary, which violates the principle of least privilege.

Another possible solution is to create a custom policy that only grants the s3:PutObject permission for the specific S3 bucket that is used for logging. This policy can be attached to the instance profile along with the other policies that are required for Image Builder functionality: EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilder, EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilderECRContainerBuilds, and AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore. This solution follows the principle of least privilege more closely than the previous one.

Ensure that the following policies are attached to the instance profile for the EC2 instance: EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilder, EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilderECRContainerBuilds, and AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore.

Ensure that the instance profile for the EC2 instance has the s3:PutObject permission for the S3 bucket. This can be done by either attaching the AWSImageBuilderFullAccess policy or creating a custom policy with this permission.

1: Using managed policies for EC2 Image Builder - EC2 Image Builder 2: PutObject - Amazon Simple Storage Service 3: AWSImageBuilderFullAccess - AWS Managed Policy

The AWS documentation states that you can create an Amazon EventBridge rule to detect KMS API calls of DisableKey and ScheduleKeyDeletion. You can then create an AWS Lambda function to send an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) message to the company. You can add the Lambda function as the target of the EventBridge rule. This method will meet the requirements.

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.

CloudHSM allows full control of your keys such including Symmetric (AES), Asymmetric (RSA), Sha-256, SHA 512, Hash Based, Digital Signatures (RSA). On the other hand, AWS Key Management Service is a multi-tenant key storage that is owned and managed byAWS1.

To grant appropriate access to separate modules for read-write and read-only functionality in a serverless application hosted on AWS that uses Amazon Redshift as a data store, a security engineer should configure cluster security groups for each application module to control access to database users that are required for read-only and readwrite, and configure an IAM policy for each module specifying the ARN of an IAM user that allows the GetClusterCredentials API call.

Answer: C

The correct answer is B because it checks the configuration of the CloudWatch alarm that is supposed to monitor the CloudTrail log events. The analyst should verify that a metric filter was created to extract the relevant information from the log events, such as the event name, source, and user identity. The analyst should also verify that the metric filter wasmapped to an alarm that triggers when a certain threshold is reached, and that the alarm notification action is set up correctly to send alerts to the analyst1.

The other options are incorrect because they do not address the issue of the CloudWatch alarm not working as expected. Option A is incorrect because CloudTrail and S3 bucket access logging are not related to the monitoring of security group changes. CloudTrail logs the API calls made to AWS services, and S3 bucket access logging records the requestsmade to thebucket2. OptionC is incorrect because CloudWatch dashboards are used to display metrics and alarms in a graphical way, but they do not affect the functionality of the alarm3. Option D is incorrect because the IAM policy permissions for cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics and cloudwatch:ListMetrics are not required to monitor the CloudTrail log events. These permissions are used to retrieve the statistics and list of metrics for a given namespace4.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To implement WORM in Amazon S3 where no user, including the root account, can modify or delete objects:

S3 Object Lock in Compliance Mode:

Compliance mode ensures that the WORM policy cannot be bypassed, even by the root user.

Objects cannot be overwritten or deleted during the specified retention period.

https://docs.IAM.amazon.com/kms/latest/developerguide/services-parameter-store.html#parameter-store-cmk-fail

To set up a CloudFront distribution for an S3 bucket that hosts a static website, and to allow only specified IP addresses to access the website, the following steps are required:

Create a CloudFront origin access identity (OAI), which is a special CloudFront user that you can associate with your distribution. An OAI allows you to restrict access to your S3 content by using signed URLs or signed cookies. For more information, see Using an origin access identity to restrict access to your Amazon S3 content.

Create the S3 bucket policy so that only the OAI has access. This will prevent users from accessing the website directly by using S3 URLs, as they will receive an Access Denied error. To do this, use the AWS Policy Generator to create a bucket policy that grants s3:GetObject permission to the OAI, and attach it to the S3 bucket. For more information, see Restricting access to Amazon S3 content by using an origin access identity.

Create an AWS WAF web ACL and add an IP set rule. AWS WAF is a web application firewall service that lets you control access to your web applications. An IP set is a condition that specifies a list of IP addresses or IP address ranges that requests originate from. You can use an IP set rule to allow or block requests based on the IP addresses of the requesters.For more information, see Working with IP match conditions.

Associate the web ACL with the CloudFront distribution. This will ensure that the web ACL filters all requests for your website before they reach your origin. You can do this by using the AWS WAF console, API, or CLI. For more information, see Associating or disassociating a web ACL with a CloudFront distribution.

This solution will meet the requirements of allowing only specified IP addresses to access the website and preventing direct access by using S3 URLs.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not create a CloudFront distribution for the S3 bucket (A), do not use an OAI to restrict access to the S3 bucket ©, or do not use AWS WAF to block traffic from outside the specified IP addresses (D).

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/private-content-restricting-access-to-s3.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/web-acl-ip-conditions.html

To assess the impact of the exposed access key, the security engineer should recommend the following solution:

Analyze an IAM use report from AWS Trusted Advisor to see when the access key was last used. This allows the security engineer to use a tool that provides information about IAM entities and credentials in their account, and check if there was any unauthorized activity with the exposed access key.

To provide access to the three individuals who have IAM user accounts to access the Amazon Linux 2 Amazon EC2 instances that are using the same IAM instance profile, the most appropriate solution would be to assign an IAM policy to the instance profile to allow the EC2 instances to be managed by AWS Systems Manager, provide the IAM user accounts with permission to use Systems Manager, remove the SSH keys from the EC2 instances, and use Systems Manager Session Manager to select the EC2 instance and connect.

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager is a fully managed service that allows you to securely and remotely administer your EC2 instances without the need to open inbound ports, maintain bastion hosts, or manage SSH keys. Session Manager provides an interactive browser-based shell or CLI access to your instances, as well as port forwarding and auditing capabilities. Session Manager works with both Linux and Windows instances, and supports hybrid environments and edge devices.

EC2 Instance Connect is a feature that allows you to use SSH to connect to your Linux instances using short-lived keys that are generated on demand and delivered securely through the AWS metadata service. EC2 Instance Connect does not require any additional software installation or configuration on the instance, but it does require you to use SSH-RSA keys during the launch of new instances.

The correct answer is to use Session Manager, as it provides more security and flexibility than EC2 Instance Connect, and does not require SSH-RSA keys or inbound ports. Session Manager also works with Windows instances, while EC2 Instance Connect does not.

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/session-manager.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/Connect-using-EC2-Instance-Connect.html

https://repost.aws/questions/QUnV4R9EoeSdW0GT3cKBUR7w/what-is-the-difference-between-ec-2-instance-connect-and-session-manager-ssh-connections

One can use the CLI command list-access-keys to get the access keys. This command also returns the "CreateDate" of the keys. If the CreateDate is older than 2 months, then the keys can be deleted.

The Returns list-access-keys CLI command returns information about the access key IDs associated with the specified IAM user. If there are none, the action returns an empty list

Option A is incorrect because you might as use a script for such maintenance activities

Option C is incorrect because you would not rotate the users themselves

Option D is incorrect because you don't use IAM roles for such a purpose

For more information on the CLI command, please refer to the below Link:

http://docs.IAM.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/iam/list-access-keys.htmll

The correct answer is: Use a script to query the creation date of the keys. If older than 2 months, create new access key and update all applications to use it inactivate the old key and delete it.

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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.

The correct answer is C. Pull images from the public container registry. Publish the images to Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) repositories with scan on push configured in a centralized AWS account. Use a CI/CD pipeline to deploy the images to different AWS accounts. Use repository policies and identity-based policies to restrict access to which IAM principals and accounts can access the images.

This solution meets the requirements because:

Amazon ECR is a fully managed container registry service that supports Docker and OCI images and artifacts1. It integrates with Amazon ECS and other AWS services to simplify the development and deployment of container-based applications.

Amazon ECR provides image scanning on push, which uses the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) database from the open-source Clair project to detect software vulnerabilities in container images2.The scan results are available in the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, orAWS SDKs2.

Amazon ECR supports cross-account access to repositories, whichallows sharing images across multiple AWS accounts3.This can be achieved by using repository policies, which are resource-based policies that specify which IAM principals and accounts can access the repositories and what actions they can perform4.Additionally, identity-based policies can be used to control which IAM roles in each account can access the repositories5.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. This option does not use repository policies to restrict cross-account access to the images, which is a requirement.Identity-based policies alone are not sufficient to control access to Amazon ECR repositories5.

B. This option does not use Amazon ECR, which is a fully managed service that provides image scanning and cross-account access features. Hosting a private container registry on EC2 instances would require more management overhead and additional security measures.

D.This option uses AWS CodeArtifact, which is a fully managed artifact repository service that supports Maven, npm, NuGet, PyPI, and generic package formats6. However, AWS CodeArtifact does not support Docker or OCI container images, which are required for Amazon ECS applications.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cognito/latest/developerguide/user-pool-lambda-post-authentication.html

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

To prevent developers from configuring unauthenticated Lambda function URLs, the most effective approach is to use Service Control Policies (SCPs) at the organizational level. By explicitly denying actions such as lambda:CreateFunctionUrlConfig and lambda:UpdateFunctionUrlConfig when the lambda:FunctionUrlAuthType is set to NONE, the organization ensures that only authenticated function URLs are deployed in production.

This method imposes no additional workload on developers and leverages AWS Organizations' SCPs to enforce centralized security policy — a recommended practice in the Identity and Access Management domain.

this is a way to configure a Classic Load Balancer with perfect forward secrecy cipher suites. Perfect forward secrecy is a property of encryption protocols that ensures that past and current TLS traffic stays secure even if the certificate private key is leaked. Cipher suites are sets of algorithms that determine how encryption is performed. A custom security policy is a set of cipher suites and protocols that you can select for your load balancer to support. An HTTPS listener is a process that checks for connection requests using encrypted SSL/TLS protocol. By using an HTTPS listener that uses a custom security policy that allows only perfect forward secrecy cipher suites, you can ensure that your Classic Load Balancer meets the requirements. The other options are either invalid or insufficient for configuring a Classic Load Balancer with perfect forward secrecy cipher suites.

The solution to receiving automated email notifications when AWS access keys are detected on code repository sites is to use Amazon EventBridge with Amazon GuardDuty findings. Specifically, creating an EventBridge rule that targets Amazon GuardDuty findings, particularly theUnauthorizedAccess:IAMUser/InstanceCredentialExfiltrationfinding type, allows for the detection of potential unauthorized use or exposure of AWS credentials. When such a finding is detected, EventBridge can then trigger an action to send a notification via Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS). By configuring an SNS topic to send emails, stakeholders can be promptly informed of such security incidents. This approach leverages AWS's native security and monitoring services to provide timely alerts with minimal operational overhead, ensuring that the company can respond quickly to potential security breaches involving exposed AWS credentials.

To ensure minimal latency and regional availability of secrets, encrypting secrets in us-east-1 with a customer-managed KMS key and then replicating them to us-west-1 for encryption with the same key is the optimal approach. This method leverages customer-managed KMS keys for enhanced control and ensures that secrets are available in both regions, adhering to disaster recovery principles and minimizing latency by using regional endpoints.

Option B: This option meets the requirements of scanning ECS containers and ECR registries for vulnerabilities, and providing a centralized view of the findings for the audit team. AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. AWS Config conformance packs are a collection of AWS Config rules and remediation actions that can be easily deployed as a single entity in an account and a Region or across an organization in AWS Organizations. Conformance packs can help you manage configuration compliance of your AWS resources at scale by using a common framework and packaging model. You can use prebuilt conformance packs for vulnerability scanning, such as CIS Operating System SecurityConfiguration Benchmarks or Amazon Inspector Rules for Linux Instances1. You can also create custom conformance packs to scan for vulnerabilities in programming language libraries. AWS Config aggregator is a feature that enables you to aggregate configuration and compliance data from multiple accounts and Regions into a single accountand Region2. You can provide access for the audit team to use AWS Config in the account where the aggregator is configured, and view the aggregated data in the AWS Config console or API.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/Overview.Encryption.html

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/ebs-automatic-encryption/

To implement encryption at rest for both the EC2 instances and the Aurora DB cluster, the following steps are required:

For the EC2 instances, modify the EBS default encryption settings in the target AWS Region to enable encryption. This will ensure that any new EBS volumes created in that Region are encrypted by default using an AWS managed key. Alternatively, you can specify a customer managed key when creating new EBS volumes.For more information, see Amazon EBS encryption.

Use an Auto Scaling group instance refresh to replace the existing EC2 instances with new ones that have encrypted EBS volumes attached. An instance refresh is a feature that helps you update all instances in an Auto Scaling group in a rolling fashion without the need to manage the instance replacement process manually. For more information, see Replacing Auto Scaling instances based on an instance refresh.

For the Aurora DB cluster, create a new AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) encrypted DB cluster from a snapshot of the existing DB cluster. You can use either an AWS managed key or a customer managed key to encrypt the new DB cluster. You cannot enable or disable encryption for an existing DB cluster, so you have to create a new one from a snapshot.For more information, see Encrypting Amazon Aurora resources.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not enable encryption at rest for the resources (B, D), or they use the wrong service for encryption (E).

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/EBSEncryption.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/ec2/userguide/asg-instance-refresh.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/Overview.Encryption.html

The correct answer is C. Update the existing bucket policy in the Amazon S3 console with the new log file prefix, and then update the log file prefix in the CloudTrail console.

According to the AWS documentation1, a bucket policy is a resource-based policy that you can use to grant access permissions to your Amazon S3 bucket and the objects in it. Only the bucket owner can associate a policy with a bucket. The permissions attached to the bucket apply to all of the objects in the bucket that are owned by the bucket owner.

When you create a trail in CloudTrail, you can specify an existing S3 bucket or create a new one to store your log files. CloudTrail automatically creates a bucket policy for your S3 bucket that grants CloudTrail write-only access to deliver log files to your bucket. The bucket policy also grants read-only access to AWS services that you can use to view and analyze your log data, such as Amazon Athena, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, and Amazon QuickSight.

If you want to update the log file prefix for an existing trail, you must also update the existing bucket policy in the S3 console with the new log file prefix. The log file prefix is part of the resource ARN that identifies the objects in your bucket that CloudTrail canaccess. If you don’t update the bucket policy with the new log file prefix, CloudTrail will not be able to deliver log files to your bucket, and you will receive an error message when you try to save the change in the CloudTrail console.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Creating a new trail with the updated log file prefix, and then deleting the original trail is not necessary and may cause data loss or inconsistency. You can simply update the existing trail and its associated bucket policy with the new log file prefix.

B. Updating the existing bucket policy in the S3 console to allow the Security Engineer’s Principal to perform PutBucketPolicy is not relevant to this issue. The PutBucketPolicy action allows you to create or replace a policy on a bucket, but it does not affect CloudTrail’s ability to deliver log files to your bucket. You still need to update the existing bucket policy with the new log file prefix.

D. Updating the existing bucket policy in the S3 console to allow the Security Engineer’s Principal to perform GetBucketPolicy is not relevant to this issue. The GetBucketPolicy action allows you to retrieve a policy on a bucket, but it does not affect CloudTrail’s ability to deliver log files to your bucket. You still need to update the existing bucket policy with the new log file prefix.

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

The correct combination of steps that the security engineer should take to meet these requirements are A. Ensure that the Amazon CloudWatch agent is installed on all the EC2 instances that the Auto Scaling groups launch. Generate a CloudWatch agent configuration file to forward the required logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs., B. Set the log retention for desired log groups to 7 years., and C. Attach an IAM role to the launch configuration or launch template that the Auto Scaling groups use. Configure the role to provide the necessary permissions to forward logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

A. This answer is correct because it meets the requirement of ensuring that no logging data is lost for each instance during scaling activities. By installing the CloudWatch agent on all the EC2 instances, the security engineer can collect and send system logs and application logs to CloudWatch Logs, which is a service that stores and monitors log data. By generating a CloudWatch agent configuration file, the security engineer can specify which logs to forward and how often.

B. This answer is correct because it meets the requirement of keeping the logs for only the required period of 7 years. By setting the log retention for desired log groups, the security engineer can control how long CloudWatch Logs retains log events before deleting them. The security engineer can choose a predefined retention period of 7 years, or use a custom value.

C. This answer is correct because it meets the requirement of providing the necessary permissions to forward logs to CloudWatch Logs. By attaching an IAM role to the launch configuration or launch template that the Auto Scaling groups use, the security engineer can grant permissions to the EC2 instances that are launched by the Auto Scaling groups. By configuring the role to provide the necessary permissions, such as cloudwatch:PutLogEvents and cloudwatch:CreateLogStream, the security engineer can allow the EC2 instances to send log data to CloudWatch Logs.

To ensure that all new EBS volumes and EBS snapshots are encrypted at rest and minimize operational overhead, the security engineer should do the following:

Use the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI to enable encryption by default for EBS volumes in each AWS Region where the company operates. This allows the security engineer to automatically encrypt any new EBS volumes and snapshots created from those volumes, without requiring any additional actions from users.

Understanding the Requirements:

The Lambda functions need access to S3 for writing summaries.

All traffic to S3 must stay within the AWS network and not traverse the internet.

Deploy Lambda Functions in a Private Subnet:

Place the Lambda functions in a private subnet to ensure they do not directly access the internet.

Create an S3 Gateway Endpoint:

Set up a VPC gateway endpoint for Amazon S3.

The endpoint ensures all traffic to S3 stays within AWS's private network.

Update Route Table:

Modify the route table for the private subnet to include the gateway endpoint.

IAM Permissions for the Lambda Function:

Ensure the Lambda function's execution role has permissions to write to the specified S3 bucket.

Advantages:

Cost-Effective: Eliminates NAT gateway costs for S3 traffic.

Secure: Keeps all S3 traffic within AWS's private network.

VPC Endpoint for Amazon S3

Using Lambda in VPC

The fastest way to identify the federated user who terminated a production Amazon EC2 instance is to filter the IAM CloudTrail event history for the TerminateInstances event and identify the assumed IAM role. Then, review the AssumeRoleWithSAML event call in CloudTrail to identify the corresponding username. This method does not require any additional tools or queries, and it directly links the IAM role with the federated user.

Option A is incorrect because the role session name may not be the same as the federated user name, and it may not be unique or descriptive enough to identify the user.

Option C is incorrect because the IAM Access Advisor tab only shows when a role was last accessed, not by whom or for what purpose. It also does not show the specific time of access, only the date.

Option D is incorrect because using Amazon Athena to run SQL queries on the IAM CloudTrail logs is not the fastest way to identify the federated user, as it requires creating a table schema and running multiple queries. It also assumes that the federation is done using web identity providers, not SAML providers, as indicated by the AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity event. References:

AWS Identity and Access Management

Logging AWS STS API Calls with AWS CloudTrail

[Using Amazon Athena to Query S3 Data for CloudTrail Analysis]

One can use the IAM Encryption CLI to encrypt the data before sending it across to the S3 bucket. Options A and C are invalid because this would still mean that data is transferred in plain text Option D is invalid because you cannot just enable client side encryption for the S3 bucket For more information on Encrypting and Decrypting data, please visit the below URL:

https://IAM.amazonxom/blogs/securirv/how4o-encrvpt-and-decrypt-your-data-with-the-IAM-encryption-cl

The correct answer is: Use the IAM Encryption CLI to encrypt the data first Submit your Feedback/Queries to our Experts

Each subnet has a route table, so modify the routing associated with DB instance subnets to prevent internet access.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Amazon Inspector is an automated vulnerability management service that continuously scans Amazon EC2 instances for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure. It uses a combination of the EC2 instance’s metadata and installed packages to detect CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures).

AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager automates the process of patching managed instances with both security-related and other types of updates. Together, these services provide detection and remediation capabilities, fulfilling both the detection and mitigation requirements.

This approach is directly aligned with AWS Security Specialty best practices for Infrastructure Security.

Option A: This option meets the requirements of following security best practices and configuring sensitive database credentials in the CloudFormation template. A dynamic reference is a way to specify external values that are stored and managed in other services,such as Secrets Manager, in the stack templates1. When using a dynamic reference, CloudFormation retrieves the value of the specified reference when necessary during stack and change set operations1. Dynamic references can be used for certain resources that support them, such as AWS::RDS::DBInstance1. By using a dynamic reference to reference the database credentials in Secrets Manager, the company can leverage the existing integration between these services and avoid hardcoding the secret information in the template. Secrets Manager is a service that helps you protect secrets needed to access your applications, services, and IT resources2. Secrets Manager enables you to rotate, manage,and retrieve database credentials, API keys, and other secrets throughout theirlifecycle2.

To mitigate a credential stuffing attack against a web-based application behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB), creating an AWS WAF web ACL with a custom rule to block requests containing the known malicious user agent string is an effective solution. This approach allows for precise targeting of the attack vector (the user agent string of the device emulator) without impacting legitimate users. AWS WAF provides the capability to inspect HTTP(S) requests and block those that match defined criteria, such as specific strings in the user agent header, thereby preventing malicious requests from reaching the application.

Verify NAT Gateway Configuration (Option A):

Ensure that a NAT gateway exists in each public subnet to allow private subnet instances to access the internet for updates or API calls without exposing them directly.

Modify Private Subnet Route Tables (Option D):

Update the route tables associated with private subnets to route traffic destined for0.0.0.0/0through the NAT gateway in the same Availability Zone.

Advantages:

Network Segmentation: Ensures private subnets route traffic securely through NAT gateways.

Availability: Distributes NAT gateway resources across Availability Zones.

NAT Gateway Documentation

VPC Route Table Documentation

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 correct answer is D. Remove Amazon SES from the root SCP.

This answer is correct because the root SCP is the most restrictive policy that applies to all accounts in the organization. The root SCP explicitly denies access to Amazon SES by using the NotAction element, which means that any action that is not listed in the element is denied. Therefore, removing Amazon SES from the root SCP will allow the developers to access it, as long as there are no other SCPs or IAM policies that deny it.

The other options are incorrect because:

A.Adding a resource policy that allows each member of the group to access Amazon SES is not a solution, because resource policies are not supported by Amazon SES1.Resource policies are policies that are attached to AWS resources, suchas S3 buckets or SNS topics, to control access to those resources2. Amazon SES does not have any resources that can have resource policies attached to them.

B.Adding a resource policy that allows “Principal”: {“AWS”: “arn:aws:iam::account-number:group/Dev”} is not a solution, because resource policies do not support IAM groups asprincipals3.Principals are entities that can perform actions on AWS resources, such as IAM users, roles, or AWSaccounts4.IAM groups are not principals, but collections of IAM users that share the same permissions5.

C.Removing the AWS Control Tower control (guardrail) that restricts access to Amazon SES is not a solution, because AWS Control Tower does not have any guardrails that restrict access to Amazon SES6.Guardrails are high-level rules that govern the overall behavior of an organization’s accounts7.AWS Control Tower provides a set of predefined guardrails that cover security, compliance, and operations domains8.

To improve the security at the edge of the solution to defend against a large, layer 7 DDoS attack, the security engineer should do the following:

Configure AWS WAF with a rate-based rule that imposes a rate limit that automatically blocks requests when the rate limit is exceeded. This allows the security engineer to use a rule that tracks the number of requests from a single IP address and blocks subsequent requests if they exceed a specified threshold within a specified time period.

The steps that the Security Engineer should take to check for known vulnerabilities and limit the attack surface are:

B. Review the application security groups to ensure that only the necessary ports are open. This is a good practice to reduce the exposure of the EC2 instances to potential attacks from the Internet.Application security groups are a feature of Azure that allow you to group virtual machines and define network security policies based on those groups1.

D. Use Amazon Inspector to periodically scan the backend instances. This is a service that helps you to identify vulnerabilities and exposures in your EC2 instances and applications.Amazon Inspector can perform automated security assessments based on predefined or custom rules packages2.

The correct answer is D.

To design a solution that will proactively monitor for suspicious behavior across all the accounts that contain production workloads, the security engineer needs to use a service that can aggregate and analyze security findings from multiple sources. AWS Security Hub is a service that provides a comprehensive view of your security posture across your AWS accounts and enables you to check your environment against security standards and best practices. Security Hub also integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Config, and AWS Systems Manager, to collect and correlate security findings.

To automate remediation of incidents across the production accounts, the security engineer needs to use a service that can trigger actions based on events. Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus service that allows you to connect your applications with data from a variety of sources. EventBridge can use rules to match events and route them to targets for processing. You can use EventBridge to invoke a custom AWS Lambda function from the Security Hub findings. Lambda is a serverless compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers.

To publish a notification to an Amazon SNS topic when a critical security finding is detected, the security engineer needs to use a service that can send messages to subscribers. 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 configure the Lambda function to also publish notifications to the SNS topic.

To send all security incident logs to a dedicated account, the security engineer needs to use a service that can aggregate and store log data from multiple sources. AWS Security Hub allows you to aggregate security findings from multiple accounts into a single account using the delegated administrator feature. This feature enables you to designate an AWS account as the administrator for Security Hub in an organization. The administrator account can then view and manage Security Hub findings from all member accounts.

Therefore, option D is correct because it meets all the requirements of the solution. Option A is incorrect because GuardDuty does not provide a comprehensive view of your security posture across your AWS accounts. GuardDuty is primarily a threat detection service that monitors for malicious or unauthorized behavior. Option B is incorrect because Config and Systems Manager are not designed to automate remediation of incidents based on Security Hub findings. Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources, while Systems Manager is a service that allows you to manage your infrastructure on AWS at scale. Option C is incorrect because GuardDuty does not provide a comprehensive view of your security posture across your AWS accounts.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

B. ENI security groups: Even if the security group configuration appears correct at a general level, a specific Elastic Network Interface (ENI) attached to the EC2 instance may not have the intended security group applied, which can block traffic.

D. ALB target registration: If the web server is not properly registered with the ALB or marked as unhealthy, traffic will not be routed to it, even if everything else is configured correctly.

These items are commonly overlooked and are vital to verify when troubleshooting EC2 connectivity behind load balancers in complex architectures with virtual appliances and routing layers. This is covered under Infrastructure Security.

The correct answer is B. Store the API key value in AWS Secrets Manager. In the template, replace all references to the value with {{resolve:secretsmanager:MySecretId:SecretString}}.

This answer is correct because AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps you protect secrets that are needed to access your applications, services, and IT resources. You can store and manage secrets such as database credentials, API keys, and other sensitive data in Secrets Manager.You can also use Secrets Manager to rotate, manage, and retrieve your secrets throughout their lifecycle1.Secrets Manager integrates with AWS CloudFormation, which allows you to reference secrets fromyour templates using the {{resolve:secretsmanager:…}} syntax2. This way, you can avoid exposing your secrets in plaintext and still use them in your resources.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Storing the API key value as a SecureString parameter in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store is not a solution, because AWS CloudFormation does not support references to SecureString parameters.This means that you cannot use the {{resolve:ssm:…}} syntax to retrieve encrypted parameter values from Parameter Store3. You would have to use a custom resource or a Lambda function to decrypt the parameter value, which adds complexity and overhead to your template.

C. Storing the API key value in Amazon DynamoDB is not a solution, because AWS CloudFormation does not support references to DynamoDB items.This means that you cannot use the {{resolve:dynamodb:…}} syntax to retrieve item values fromDynamoDB tables4. You would have to use a custom resource or a Lambda function to query the DynamoDB table, which adds complexity and overhead to your template.

D. Storing the API key value in a new Amazon S3 bucket is not a solution, because AWS CloudFormation does not support references to S3 objects.This means that you cannot use the {{resolve:s3:…}} syntax to retrieve object values from S3 buckets5. You would have to use a custom resource or a Lambda functionto download the object from S3, which adds complexity and overhead to your template.

Q: Which data sources does GuardDuty analyze? GuardDuty analyzes CloudTrail management event logs, CloudTrail S3 data event logs, VPC Flow Logs, DNS query logs, and Amazon EKS audit logs. GuardDuty can also scan EBS volume data for possible malware when GuardDuty Malware Protection is enabled and identifies suspicious behavior indicative of malicious software in EC2 instance or container workloads. The service is optimized to consume large data volumes for near real-time processing of security detections. GuardDuty gives you access to built-in detection techniques developed and optimized for the cloud, which are maintained and continuously improved upon by GuardDuty engineering.

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

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

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.

To ensure that the load balancer only accepts connections over port 443, the security engineer should do the following:

Create a security group with a single inbound rule that allows connections from 0.0.0.0/0 on port 443. This means that the security group allows HTTPS traffic from any source IP address.

Ensure this security group is the only one associated with the ALB. This means that the security group overrides any other rules that might allow HTTP traffic on port 80.

For seamless encryption of Amazon S3 objects without direct key management, AWS Key Management Service (KMS) with AWS managed keys offers a highly scalable and manageable solution. TheScheduleKeyDeletionAPI withPendingWindowInDaysset to 0 allows for immediate deletion of the keys, meeting the requirement for immediate key removal. This approach leverages the managed infrastructure of KMS, reducing the overhead of key management while ensuring scalability and security. The integration of KMS with S3 and the ability to schedule key deletion provides a balance between ease of use and security control.

The correct answer is B and E. To troubleshoot the issue, the security engineer should verify that the SQS resource policy does not explicitly deny access to the role used by the instances, and that the role attached to the instances contains policies that allow access to the queue. These actions will ensure that the instances have the necessary permissions to retrieve messages from Amazon SQS, while maintaining the principle of least privilege.

The other options are incorrect because they are either unnecessary or overly permissive. Option A is incorrect because configuring and assigning an MFA device to the role used by the instances is not required to access Amazon SQS. MFA is an optional security feature that adds an extra layer ofprotection on top of the user name and password1. Option C is incorrect because verifying that the access key attached to the role used by the instances is active is not relevant to the issue. Access keys are used to make programmatic requests to AWS services, not to retrieve messages from Amazon SQS2. Option D is incorrect because attaching the AmazonSQSFullAccess managed policy to the role used by the instances is overly permissive and violates the principle of least privilege. This policy grants full access to all Amazon SQS actions and resources, which may expose the instances to unnecessary risks3.

The correct answer is B because it preserves the forensic evidence from the instance in the correct order. The first step is to take a memory snapshot of the instance and store it in an S3 bucket, as memory data is volatile and can be lost when the instance is stopped. The second step is to stop the instance, which will prevent any further changes to the EBS volume. The third step is to take an EBS volume snapshot of the instance and store it in an S3 bucket, which will capture the disk state of the instance. The last two steps are to detach the instance from the Auto Scaling group and deregister it from the ALB, which will isolate the instance from the rest of the application.

The other options are incorrect because they do not preserve the forensic evidence in the correct order. Option A takes the EBS volume snapshot before the memory snapshot, which can result in inconsistent data. Option C detaches and deregisters the instance before taking any snapshots, which can affect the availability of the application. Option D stops the instance before taking the memory snapshot, which can cause the loss of memory data.

This answer is correct because it meets the requirements of returning the application to service, resolving the issue, and ensuring that logging is not turned off in the future. By editing the rules in the web ACL to include rules with Count actions, the security engineer can test the effect of each rule without blocking or allowing requests. By reviewing the logs, the security engineer can identify which rule is causing the problem and modify or delete it accordingly. By modifying the IAM policy of all AWS WAF administrators, the security engineer can restrict their permissions to prevent them from removing the logging configuration for any AWS WAF web ACLs.

You can establish a private connection between your VPC and Secrets Manager by creating an interface VPC endpoint. Interface endpoints are powered by AWS PrivateLink, a technology that enables you to privately access Secrets Manager APIs without an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or AWS Direct Connect connection. Reference:https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/vpc-endpoint-overview.html

The correct answer is D. Configure a Secrets Manager interface VPC endpoint. Include the Lambda function’s private subnet during the configuration process.

A Secrets Manager interface VPC endpoint is a private connection between the VPC and Secrets Manager that does not require an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or AWS Direct Connect connection1. By configuring a Secrets Manager interface VPC endpoint, the security engineer can enable the custom Lambda function to communicate with Secrets Manager without sending or receiving network traffic through the internet.The security engineer must include the Lambda function’s private subnet during the configuration process to allow the function to use the endpoint2.

The other options are incorrect for the following reasons:

A.An egress-only internet gateway is a VPC component that allows outbound communication over IPv6 from instances in the VPC to the internet, and prevents the internet from initiating an IPv6 connection with the instances3. However, this option does not meet the requirement that the VPC must not send or receive network traffic through the internet.Moreover, an egress-only internet gateway is for use with IPv6 traffic only, and Secrets Manager does not support IPv6 addresses2.

B.A NAT gateway is a VPC component that enables instances in a private subnet to connect to the internet or other AWS services, but prevents the internet from initiating connections with those instances4. However, this option does not meet therequirement that the VPC must not send or receive network traffic through the internet.Additionally, a NAT gateway requires an elasticIP address, which is a public IPv4 address4.

C.A VPC peering connection is a networking connection between two VPCs that enables you to route traffic between them using private IPv4 addresses or IPv6 addresses5. However, this option does not work because Secrets Manager does not have a default VPC that can be peered with.Furthermore, a VPC peering connection does not provide a private connection to Secrets Manager APIs without an internetgateway or other devices2.

To meet the requirements of storing scanned copies of customer receipts on Amazon S3, where files will be between 100 KB and 5 MB in PDF format, each retail store must have a unique encryption key, and each object must be encrypted with a unique key, the most appropriate solution would be to create a dedicated AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) customer managed key for each retail store. Then, use the S3 Put operation to upload the objects to Amazon S3, specifying server-side encryption with AWS KMS keys (SSE-KMS) and the key ID of the store’s key.

https://IAM.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/cross-account-access-s3/

The reason is that this solution will meet the requirements of collecting, reviewing, and managing the evidence from both on-premises and AWS resources to demonstrate compliance with company policy. According to the web search results12, “AWS Audit Manager helps you continuously audit your AWS usage to simplify how you manage risk and compliance with regulations and industry standards. AWS Audit Manager makes it easier to evaluate whether your policies, procedures, and activities—also known as controls—are operating as intended.” The results1 also state that “In addition to the evidence that Audit Manager collects from your AWS environment, you can also upload and centrally manage evidence from your on-premises or multicloud environment.” Therefore, by creating an assessment in AWS Audit Manager, the security engineer can use a prebuilt or custom framework that contains the relevant controls for the company policy, upload manual evidence from the on-premises workloads, and add the evidence to the assessment. After Audit Manager collects the necessary evidence from the AWS resources, the security engineer can generate an assessment report that includes all the evidence from both sources.

The other options are incorrect because:

B. Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the on-premises workloads. Use AWS Config to deploy a conformance pack from a sample conformance pack template or a custom YAML template. Generate an assessment report after AWS Config identifies noncompliant workloads and resources. This option is not sufficient to meet the requirements, because it does not collect or manage the evidence from both sources. It only monitors and evaluates the configuration compliance of theworkloads and resources using AWS Config rules. According to the web search results3, “A conformance pack is a collection of AWS Config rules and remediation actions that can be easily deployed as a single entity in an account and a Region or across an organization in AWS Organizations.” However, a conformance pack does not provide a way to upload or include manual evidence from the on-premises workloads, nor does it generate an assessment report that contains all the evidence.

C. Set up the appropriate security standard in AWS Security Hub. Upload manual evidence from the on-premises workloads. Wait for Security Hub to collect the evidence from the AWS resources. Download the list of controls as a .csv file. This option is not optimal to meet the requirements, because it does not provide a comprehensive or audit-ready report that contains all the evidence. It only provides a list of controls and their compliance status in a .csv file format. According to the web search results4, “Security Hub provides you with a comprehensive view of your security state within AWS and helps you check your environment against security industry standards and best practices.” However, Security Hub does not provide a way to upload or include manual evidence from the on-premises workloads, nor does it generate an assessment report that contains all the evidence.

D. Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the on-premises workloads. Create a CloudWatch dashboard to monitor the on-premises workloads and the AWS resources. Run a query on the workloads and resources. Download the results. This option is not sufficient to meet the requirements, because it does not collect or manage the evidence from both sources. It only monitors and analyzes the metrics and logs of the workloads and resources using CloudWatch. According to the web search results, “Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service built for DevOps engineers, developers, site reliability engineers (SREs), and IT managers.” However, CloudWatch does not provide a way to upload or include manual evidence from the on-premises workloads, nor does it generate an assessment report that contains all the evidence.

the aws kms get-key-rotation-status command returns a boolean value that indicates whetherautomatic rotation of the customer master key (CMK) is enabled1. This commandalsoshowsthe date and time when the CMK was last rotated2. The other options are not valid ways to check the CMK rotation status.

Multi-factor authentication can add one more layer of security to your IAM account Even when you go to your Security Credentials dashboard one of the items is to enable MFA on your root account

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Option A is invalid because you need to have a good password policy Option B is invalid because there is no IAM Geo-Lock Option D is invalid because this is not a recommended practices For more information on MFA, please visit the below URL

http://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id credentials mfa.htmll

The correct answer is: Use MFA on all users and accounts, especially on the root account.

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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 solution ensures that the Lambda functions are deployed inside the VPC and can communicate with the Amazon RDS DB instance securely. The security group attached to the Lambda functions only allows outbound traffic to the VPC CIDR range, and the DB instance security group only allows traffic from the Lambda security group. This solution ensures that the Lambda functions can communicate with the DB instance securely and that the DB instance is not exposed to the public internet.

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.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

IAM paths allow organizations to logically group IAM resources such as roles. By setting IAM paths for different teams, the company can identify and control access granularly. The iam:PassRole action is critical for delegating permissions, especially to AWS services. By attaching a Service Control Policy (SCP) that denies iam:PassRole for all roles except those in the platform team's IAM path, the organization enforces centralized delegation control.

This approach fulfills the need for logical grouping (via paths) and enforces delegated access through SCPs, in line with IAM and Governance best practices.