SCS-C01 : AWS Certified Security – Specialty : Part 08

SCS-C01 : AWS Certified Security – Specialty : Part 08

1. A Developer is creating an AWS Lambda function that requires environment variables to store connection information and logging settings. The Developer is required to use an AWS KMS Customer Master Key (CMK) supplied by the Information Security department in order to adhere to company standards for securing Lambda environment variables.

   Which of the following are required for this configuration to work? (Choose two.)

   • The Developer must configure Lambda access to the VPC using the –vpc-config parameter.
   • The Lambda function execution role must have the kms:Decrypt permission added in the AWS IAM policy.
   • The KMS key policy must allow permissions for the Developer to use the KMS key.
   • The AWS IAM policy assigned to the Developer must have the kms:GenerateDataKey permission added.
   • The Lambda execution role must have the kms:Encrypt permission added in the AWS IAM policy.

2. A Developer signed in to a new account within an AWS Organizations organizational unit (OU) containing multiple accounts. Access to the Amazon S3 service is restricted with the following SCP:

   

   How can the Security Engineer provide the Developer with Amazon S3 access without affecting other accounts?

   • Move the SCP to the root OU of Organizations to remove the restriction to access Amazon S3.
   • Add an IAM policy for the Developer, which grants S3 access.
   • Create a new OU without applying the SCP restricting S3 access. Move the Developer account to this new OU.
   • Add an allow list for the Developer account for the S3 service.

3. A company has several workloads running on AWS. Employees are required to authenticate using on-premises ADFS and SSO to access the AWS Management Console. Developers migrated an existing legacy web application to an Amazon EC2 instance. Employees need to access this application from anywhere on the internet, but currently, there is no authentication system built into the application.

   How should the Security Engineer implement employee-only access to this system without changing the application?

   • Place the application behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). Use Amazon Cognito as authentication for the ALB. Define a SAML-based Amazon Cognito user pool and connect it to ADFS.
   • Implement AWS SSO in the master account and link it to ADFS as an identity provider. Define the EC2 instance as a managed resource, then apply an IAM policy on the resource.
   • Define an Amazon Cognito identity pool, then install the connector on the Active Directory server. Use the Amazon Cognito SDK on the application instance to authenticate the employees using their Active Directory user names and passwords.
   • Create an AWS Lambda custom authorizer as the authenticator for a reverse proxy on Amazon EC2. Ensure the security group on Amazon EC2 only allows access from the Lambda function.

4. An Application Developer is using an AWS Lambda function that must use AWS KMS to perform encrypt and decrypt operations for API keys that are less than 2 KB.

   Which key policy would allow the application to do this while granting least privilege?

   • 

   • 

   • 

   • 

5. A company is migrating its legacy workloads to AWS. The current security information events management (SIEM) system that analyzes logs is aging, and different SIEM systems are being evaluated to replace it. The company wants to change SIEMs without re-architecture the solution.

   What should the Security Engineer do to accomplish this with minimal operational impact?

   • Prepare an AMI with the SIEM log forwarder agent for each workload, and configure it to send logs to a centralized SIEM located in the Security team AWS account. Configure an Amazon EC2 instance base AMI to forward logs to its local log forwarder agent. Deploy an AMI in each workload.
   • Configure an Amazon EC2 base AMI with an Amazon Kinesis Agent, and configure it to send to Amazon Kinesis Data Streams in the Security team AWS account. Add an AWS Lambda function at Kinesis Data Streams to push streamed logs to the SIEM.
   • Configure an Amazon EC2 base AMI to send logs to a local AWS CloudTrail log file. Configure CloudTrail to send logs to Amazon CloudWatch. Set up a central SIEM in the Security team AWS account and configure a puller to get information on CloudWatch.
   • Select a pay-per-use SIEM in the AWS Marketplace. Deploy the AMI in each workload to provide elasticity when required. Use Amazon Athena to send real-time alerts.

6. An Application team has requested a new AWS KMS master key for use with Amazon S3, but the organizational security policy requires separate master keys for different AWS services to limit blast radius.

   How can an AWS KMS customer master key (CMK) be constrained to work with only Amazon S3?

   • Configure the CMK key policy to allow only the Amazon S3 service to use the kms:Encrypt action.
   • Configure the CMK key policy to allow AWS KMS actions only when the kms:ViaService condition matches the Amazon S3 service name.
   • Configure the IAM user’s policy to allow KMS to pass a role to Amazon S3.
   • Configure the IAM user’s policy to allow only Amazon S3 operations when they are combined with the CMK.

7. A company is developing a highly resilient application to be hosted on multiple Amazon EC2 instances. The application will store highly sensitive user data in Amazon RDS tables.

   The application must:

   – Include migration to a different AWS Region in the application disaster recovery plan.
   – Provide a full audit trail of encryption key administration events.
   – Allow only company administrators to administer keys.
   – Protect data at rest using application layer encryption.

   A Security Engineer is evaluating options for encryption key management.

   Why should the Security Engineer choose AWS CloudHSM over AWS KMS for encryption key management in this situation?

   • The key administration event logging generated by CloudHSM is significantly more extensive than AWS KMS.
   • CloudHSM ensures that only company support staff can administer encryption keys, whereas AWS KMS allows AWS staff to administer keys.
   • The ciphertext produced by CloudHSM provides more robust protection against brute force decryption attacks than the ciphertext produced by AWS KMS.
   • CloudHSM provides the ability to copy keys to a different Region, whereas AWS KMS does not.

8. A global company must mitigate and respond to DDoS attacks at Layers 3, 4 and 7. All of the company’s AWS applications are serverless with static content hosted on Amazon S3 using Amazon CloudFront and Amazon Route 53.

   Which solution will meet these requirements?

   • Use AWS WAF with an upgrade to the AWS Business support plan.
   • Use AWS Certificate Manager with an Application Load Balancer configured with an origin access identity.
   • Use AWS Shield Advanced.
   • Use AWS WAF to protect AWS Lambda functions encrypted with AWS KMS, and a NACL restricting all ingress traffic.

9. A Security Engineer signed in to the AWS Management Console as an IAM user and switched to the security role IAM role. To perform a maintenance operation, the Security Engineer needs to switch to the maintainer role IAM role, which lists the security role as a trusted entity. The Security Engineer attempts to switch to the maintainer role, but it fails.

   What is the likely cause of the failure?

   • The security role and the maintainer role are not assigned to the IAM user that the Security Engineer used to sign in to the account.
   • The Security Engineer should have logged in as the AWS account root user, which is allowed to assume any role directly.
   • The maintainer role does not include the IAM user as a trusted entity.
   • The security role does not include a statement in its policy to allow an sts:AssumeRole action.

10. A company is configuring three Amazon EC2 instances with each instance in a separate Availability Zone. The EC2 instances will be used as transparent proxies for outbound internet traffic for ports 80 and 443 so the proxies can block traffic to certain internet destinations as required by the company’s security policies. A Security Engineer completed the following:

    – Set up the proxy software on the EC2 instances.
    – Modified the route tables on the private subnets to use the proxy EC2 instances as the default route.
    – Created a security group rule opening inbound port 80 and 443 TCP protocols on the proxy EC2 instance security group.

    However, the proxy EC2 instances are not successfully forwarding traffic to the internet.

    What should the Security Engineer do to make the proxy EC2 instances route traffic to the internet?

    • Put all the proxy EC2 instances in a cluster placement group.
    • Disable source and destination checks on the proxy EC2 instances.
    • Open all inbound ports on the proxy EC2 instance security group.
    • Change the VPC’s DHCP domain-name-servers options set to the IP addresses of proxy EC2 instances.

11. For compliance reasons, a Security Engineer must produce a weekly report that lists any instance that does not have the latest approved patches applied. The Engineer must also ensure that no system goes more than 30 days without the latest approved updates being applied.

    What would be the MOST efficient way to achieve these goals?

    • Use Amazon Inspector to determine which systems do not have the latest patches applied, and after 30 days, redeploy those instances with the latest AMI version.
    • Configure Amazon EC2 Systems Manager to report on instance patch compliance, and enforce updates during the defined maintenance windows.
    • Examine AWS CloudTrail logs to determine whether any instances have not restarted in the last 30 days, and redeploy those instances.
    • Update the AMIs with the latest approved patches, and redeploy each instance during the defined maintenance window.

12. A company is operating an open-source software platform that is internet facing. The legacy software platform no longer receives security updates. The software platform operates using Amazon Route 53 weighted load balancing to send traffic to two Amazon EC2 instances that connect to an Amazon RDS cluster. A recent report suggests this software platform is vulnerable to SQL injection attacks, with samples of attacks provided. The company’s Security Engineer must secure this system against SQL injection attacks within 24 hours. The Security Engineer’s solution must involve the least amount of effort and maintain normal operations during implementation.

    What should the Security Engineer do to meet these requirements?

    • Create an Application Load Balancer with the existing EC2 instances as a target group. Create an AWS WAF web ACL containing rules that protect the application from this attack, then apply it to the ALB. Test to ensure the vulnerability has been mitigated, then redirect the Route 53 records to point to the ALB. Update security groups on the EC2 instances to prevent direct access from the internet.
    • Create an Amazon CloudFront distribution specifying one EC2 instance as an origin. Create an AWS WAF web ACL containing rules that protect the application from this attack, then apply it to the distribution. Test to ensure the vulnerability has been mitigated, then redirect the Route 53 records to point to CloudFront.
    • Obtain the latest source code for the platform and make the necessary updates. Test the updated code to ensure that the vulnerability has been mitigated, then deploy the patched version of the platform to the EC2 instances.
    • Update the security group that is attached to the EC2 instances, removing access from the internet to the TCP port used by the SQL database. Create an AWS WAF web ACL containing rules that protect the application from this attack, then apply it to the EC2 instances. Test to ensure the vulnerability has been mitigated, then restore the security group to the original setting.

13. A recent security audit found that AWS CloudTrail logs are insufficiently protected from tampering and unauthorized access.

    Which actions must the Security Engineer take to access these audit findings? (Choose three.)

    • Ensure CloudTrail log file validation is turned on.
    • Configure an S3 lifecycle rule to periodically archive CloudTrail logs into Glacier for long-term storage.
    • Use an S3 bucket with tight access controls that exists in a separate account.
    • Use Amazon Inspector to monitor the file integrity of CloudTrail log files.
    • Request a certificate through ACM and use a generated certificate private key to encrypt CloudTrail log files.
    • Encrypt the CloudTrail log files with server-side encryption AWS KMS-managed keys (SSE-KMS).

14. A company’s Developers plan to migrate their on-premises applications to Amazon EC2 instances running Amazon Linux AMIs. The applications are accessed by a group of partner companies. The Security Engineer needs to implement the following host-based security measures for these instances:

    – Block traffic from documented known bad IP addresses.
    – Detect known software vulnerabilities and CIS Benchmarks compliance.

    Which solution addresses these requirements?

    • Launch the EC2 instances with an IAM role attached. Include a user data script that uses the AWS CLI to retrieve the list of bad IP addresses from AWS Secrets Manager, and uploads it as a threat list in Amazon GuardDuty. Use Amazon Inspector to scan the instances for known software vulnerabilities and CIS Benchmarks compliance.
    • Launch the EC2 instances with an IAM role attached. Include a user data script that uses the AWS CLI to create NACLs blocking ingress traffic from the known bad IP addresses in the EC2 instance’s subnets. Use AWS Systems Manager to scan the instances for known software vulnerabilities, and AWS Trusted Advisor to check instances for CIS Benchmarks compliance.
    • Launch the EC2 instances with an IAM role attached. Include a user data script that uses the AWS CLI to create and attach security groups that only allow an allow listed source IP address range inbound. Use Amazon Inspector to scan the instances for known software vulnerabilities, and AWS Trusted Advisor to check instances for CIS Benchmarks compliance.
    • Launch the EC2 instances with an IAM role attached. Include a user data script that creates a cron job to periodically retrieve the list of bad IP addresses from Amazon S3, and configures iptables on the instances blocking the list of bad IP addresses. Use Amazon Inspector to scan the instances for known software vulnerabilities and CIS Benchmarks compliance.

15. A Security Architect has been asked to review an existing security architecture and identity why the application servers cannot successfully initiate a connection to the database servers. The following summary describes the architecture:

    1. An Application Load Balancer, an internet gateway and a NAT gateway are configured in the pubic subnet.
    2. Database, application, and web servers are configured on three different private subnets.
    3. The VPC has two route tables: one for the public subnet and one for all other subnets. The route table for the public subnet has a 0.0.0.0/0 route to the internet gateway. The route table for all other subnets has a 0.0.0.0/0 route to the NAT gateway. All private subnets can route to each other.
    4. Each subnet has a network ACL implemented that limits all inbound and outbound connectivity to only the required ports and protocols.
    5. There are 3 Security Groups (SGs): database, application, and web. Each group limits all inbound and outbound connectivity to the minimum required.

    Which of the following accurately reflects the access control mechanisms the Architect should verify?

    • Outbound SG configuration on database servers
      Inbound SG configuration on application servers
      Inbound and outbound network ACL configuration on the database subnet
      Inbound and outbound network ACL configuration on the application server subnet
    • Inbound SG configuration on database servers
      Outbound SG configuration on application servers
      Inbound and outbound network ACL configuration on the database subnet
      Inbound and outbound network ACL configuration on the application server subnet
    • Inbound and outbound SG configuration on database servers
      Inbound and outbound SG configuration on application servers
      Inbound network ACL configuration on the database subnet
      Outbound network ACL configuration on the application server subnet
    • Inbound SG configuration on database servers
      Outbound SG configuration on application servers
      Inbound network ACL configuration on the database subnet
      Outbound network ACL configuration on the application server subnet

16. Developers in an organization have moved from a standard application deployment to containers. The Security Engineer is tasked with ensuring that containers are secure.

    Which strategies will reduce the attack surface and enhance the security of the containers? (Choose two.)

    • Use the containers to automate security deployments.
    • Limit resource consumption (CPU, memory), networking connections, ports, and unnecessary container libraries.
    • Segregate container by host, function, and data classification.
    • Use Docker Notary framework to sign task definitions.
    • Enable container breakout at the host kernel.

17. Auditors for a health care company have mandated that all data volumes be encrypted at rest. Infrastructure is deployed mainly via AWS CloudFormation; however, third-party frameworks and manual deployment are required on some legacy systems.

    What is the BEST way to monitor, on a recurring basis, whether all EBS volumes are encrypted?

    • On a recurring basis, update all IAM user policies to require that EC2 instances are created with an encrypted volume.
    • Configure an AWS Config rule to run on a recurring basis for volume encryption.
    • Set up Amazon Inspector rules for volume encryption to run on a recurring schedule.
    • Use CloudWatch Logs to determine whether instances were created with an encrypted volume.
    Explanation:
    Using AWS Config Rules, you can run continuous assessment checks on your resources to verify that they comply with your own security policies, industry best practices, and compliance regimes such as PCI/HIPAA. For example, AWS Config provides a managed AWS Config Rules to ensure that encryption is turned on for all EBS volumes in your account. You can also write a custom AWS Config Rule to essentially “codify” your own corporate security policies. AWS Config alerts you in real time when a resource is misconfigured, or when a resource violates a particular security policy.

18. A company became aware that one of its access keys was exposed on a code sharing website 11 days ago. A Security Engineer must review all use of the exposed keys to determine the extent of the exposure. The company enabled AWS CloudTrail in all regions when it opened the account.

    Which of the following will allow the Security Engineer to complete the task?

    • Filter the event history on the exposed access key in the CloudTrail console. Examine the data from the past 11 days.
    • Use the AWS CLI to generate an IAM credential report. Extract all the data from the past 11 days.
    • Use Amazon Athena to query the CloudTrail logs from Amazon S3. Retrieve the rows for the exposed access key for the past 11 days.
    • Use the Access Advisor tab in the IAM console to view all of the access key activity for the past 11 days.

19. A Development team has built an experimental environment to test a simple static web application. It has built an isolated VPC with a private and a public subnet. The public subnet holds only an Application Load Balancer, a NAT gateway, and an internet gateway. The private subnet holds all of the Amazon EC2 instances.
    There are 3 different types of servers. Each server type has its own Security Group that limits access to only required connectivity. The Security Groups have both inbound and outbound rules applied. Each subnet has both inbound and outbound network ACLs applied to limit access to only required connectivity.

    Which of the following should the team check if a server cannot establish an outbound connection to the internet? (Choose three.)

    • The route tables and the outbound rules on the appropriate private subnet security group.
    • The outbound network ACL rules on the private subnet and the inbound network ACL rules on the public subnet.
    • The outbound network ACL rules on the private subnet and both the inbound and outbound rules on the public subnet.
    • The rules on any host-based firewall that may be applied on the Amazon EC2 instances.
    • The Security Group applied to the Application Load Balancer and NAT gateway.
    • That the 0.0.0.0/0 route in the private subnet route table points to the Internet gateway in the public subnet.

20. Example.com is hosted on Amazon EC2 instance behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). Third-party host intrusion detection system (HIDS) agents that capture the traffic of the EC2 instance are running on each host. The company must ensure they are using privacy enhancing technologies for users, without losing the assurance the third-party solution offers.

    What is the MOST secure way to meet these requirements?

    • Enable TLS pass through on the ALB, and handle decryption at the server using Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE) cipher suites.
    • Create a listener on the ALB that uses encrypted connections with Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE) cipher suites, and pass the traffic in the clear to the server.
    • Create a listener on the ALB that uses encrypted connections with Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE) cipher suites, and use encrypted connections to the servers that do not enable Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS).
    • Create a listener on the ALB that does not enable Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) cipher suites, and use encrypted connections to the servers using Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE) cipher suites.