SCS-C01 : AWS Certified Security – Specialty : Part 09

SCS-C01 : AWS Certified Security – Specialty : Part 09

SCS-C01 : AWS Certified Security – Specialty : Part 09

  1. A Website currently runs on Amazon EC2, with mostly static content on the site. Recently, the site was subjected to a DDoS attack, and a Security Engineer was tasked with redesigning the edge security to help mitigate this risk in the future.

    What are some ways the Engineer could achieve this? (Choose three.)

    • Use AWS X-Ray to inspect the traffic going to the EC2 instances.
    • Move the static content to Amazon S3, and front this with an Amazon CloudFront distribution.
    • Change the security group configuration to block the source of the attack traffic.
    • Use AWS WAF security rules to inspect the inbound traffic.
    • Use Amazon Inspector assessment templates to inspect the inbound traffic.
    • Use Amazon Route 53 to distribute traffic.

  2. A company manages three separate AWS accounts for its production, development, and test environments. Each Developer is assigned a unique IAM user under the development account. A new application hosted on an Amazon EC2 instance in the development account requires read access to the archived documents stored in an Amazon S3 bucket in the production account.

    How should access be granted?

    • Create an IAM role in the production account and allow EC2 instance in the development account to assume that role using the trust policy. Provide read access for the required S3 bucket to this role.
    • Use a custom identity broker to allow Developer IAM users to temporarily access the S3 bucket.
    • Create a temporary IAM user for the application to use in the production account.
    • Create a temporary IAM user in the production account and provide read access to Amazon S3. Generate the temporary IAM user’s access key and secret key and store these keys on the EC2 instance used by the application in the development account.

  3. A company requires that SSH commands used to access its AWS instance be traceable to the user who executed each command.

    How should a Security Engineer accomplish this?

    • Allow inbound access on port 22 at the security group attached to the instance. Use AWS Systems Manager Session Manager for shell access to Amazon EC2 instances with the user tag defined. Enable Amazon CloudWatch logging for Systems Manager sessions.
    • Use Amazon S3 to securely store one Privacy Enhanced Mail Certificate (PEM file) for each user. Allow Amazon EC2 to read from Amazon S3 and import every user that wants to use SSH to access EC2 instances. Allow inbound access on port 22 at the security group attached to the instance. Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the EC2 instance and configure it to ingest audit logs for the instance.
    • Deny inbound access on port 22 at the security group attached to the instance. Use AWS Systems Manager Session Manager for shell access to Amazon EC2 instances with the user tag defined. Enable Amazon CloudWatch logging for Systems Manager sessions.
    • Use Amazon S3 to securely store one Privacy Enhanced Mail Certificate (PEM file) for each team or group. Allow Amazon EC2 to read from Amazon S3 and import every user that wants to use SSH to access EC2 instance. Allow inbound access on port 22 at the security group attached to the instance. Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the EC2 instance and configure it to ingest audit logs for the instances.

  4. An organizational must establish the ability to delete an AWS KMS Customer Master Key (CMK) within a 24-hour timeframe to keep it from being used for encrypt or decrypt operations.

    Which of the following actions will address this requirement?

    • Manually rotate a key within KMS to create a new CMK immediately.
    • Use the KMS import key functionality to execute a delete key operation.
    • Use the schedule key deletion function within KMS to specify the minimum wait period for deletion.
    • Change the KMS CMK alias to immediately prevent any services from using the CMK.

  5. A company uses Microsoft Active Directory for access management for on-premises resources, and wants to use the same mechanism for accessing its AWS accounts. Additionally, the Development team plans to launch a public-facing application for which they need a separate authentication solution.

    Which combination of the following would satisfy these requirements? (Choose two.)

    • Set up domain controllers on Amazon EC2 to extend the on-premises directory to AWS.
    • Establish network connectivity between on-premises and the user’s VPC.
    • Use Amazon Cognito user pools for application authentication.
    • Use AD Connector for application authentication.
    • Set up federated sign-in to AWS through ADFS and SAML.

  6. A company wants to encrypt the private network between its on-premises environment and AWS. The company also wants a consistent network experience for its employees.

    What should the company do to meet these requirements?

    • Establish an AWS Direct Connect connection with AWS and set up a Direct Connect gateway. In the Direct Connect gateway configuration, enable IPsec and BGP, and then leverage native AWS network encryption between Availability Zones and Regions.
    • Establish an AWS Direct Connect connection with AWS and set up a Direct Connect gateway. Using the Direct Connect gateway, create a private virtual interface and advertise the customer gateway private IP addresses. Create a VPN connection using the customer gateway and the virtual private gateway.
    • Establish a VPN connection with the AWS virtual private cloud over the Internet.
    • Establish an AWS Direct Connect connection with AWS and establish a public virtual interface. For prefixes that need to be advertised, enter the customer gateway public IP addresses. Create a VPN connection over Direct Connect using the customer gateway and the virtual private gateway.

  7. A company’s Security Engineer has been tasked with restricting a contractor’s IAM account access to the company’s Amazon EC2 console without providing access to any other AWS services. The contractor’s IAM account must not be able to gain access to any other AWS service, even if the IAM account is assigned additional permissions based on IAM group membership.

    What should the Security Engineer do to meet these requirements?

    • Create an Inline IAM user policy that allows for Amazon EC2 access for the contractor’s IAM user.
    • Create an IAM permissions boundary policy that allows Amazon EC2 access. Associate the contractor’s IAM account with the IAM permissions boundary policy.
    • Create an IAM group with an attached policy that allows for Amazon EC2 access. Associate the contractor’s IAM account with the IAM group.
    • Create an IAM role that allows for EC2 and explicitly denies all other services. Instruct the contractor to always assume this role.

  8. A company recently performed an annual security assessment of its AWS environment. The assessment showed the audit logs are not available beyond 90 days and that unauthorized changes to IAM policies are made without detection.

    How should a Security Engineer resolve these issues?

    • Create an Amazon S3 lifecycle policy that archives AWS CloudTrail trail logs to Amazon S3 Glacier after 90 days. Configure Amazon Inspector to provide a notification when a policy change is made to resources.
    • Configure AWS Artifact to archive AWS CloudTrail logs. Configure AWS Trusted Advisor to provide a notification when a policy change is made to resources.
    • Configure Amazon CloudWatch to export log groups to Amazon S3. Configure AWS CloudTrail to provide a notification when a policy change is made to resources.
    • Create an AWS CloudTrail trail that stores audit logs in Amazon S3. Configure an AWS Config rule to provide a notification when a policy change is made to resources.

  9. A Security Engineer is asked to update an AWS CloudTrail log file prefix for an existing trail. When attempting to save the change in the CloudTrail console, the Security Engineer receives the following error message: “There is a problem with the bucket policy.”

    What will enable the Security Engineer to save the change?

    • Create a new trail with the updated log file prefix, and then delete the original trail. 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.
    • Update the existing bucket policy in the Amazon S3 console to allow the Security Engineer’s Principal to perform PutBucketPolicy, and then update the log file prefix in the CloudTrail console.
    • 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.
    • Update the existing bucket policy in the Amazon S3 console to allow the Security Engineer’s Principal to perform GetBucketPolicy, and then update the log file prefix in the CloudTrail console.

  10. A company needs a forensic-logging solution for hundreds of applications running in Docker on Amazon EC2. The solution must perform real-time analytics on the logs, must support the replay of messages, and must persist the logs.

    Which AWS services should be used to meet these requirements? (Choose two.)

    • Amazon Athena
    • Amazon Kinesis
    • Amazon SQS
    • Amazon Elasticsearch
    • Amazon EMR

  11. A company’s architecture requires that its three Amazon EC2 instances run behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The EC2 instances transmit sensitive data between each other. Developers use SSL certificates to encrypt the traffic between the public users and the ALB. However, the Developers are unsure of how to encrypt the data in transit between the ALB and the EC2 instances and the traffic between the EC2 instances.

    Which combination of activities must the company implement to meet its encryption requirements? (Choose two.)

    • Configure SSL/TLS on the EC2 instances and configure the ALB target group to use HTTPS.
    • Ensure that all resources are in the same VPC so the default encryption provided by the VPC is used to encrypt the traffic between the EC2 instances.
    • In the ALB, select the default encryption to encrypt the traffic between the ALB and the EC2 instances.
    • In the code for the application, include a cryptography library and encrypt the data before sending it between the EC2 instances.
    • Configure AWS Direct Connect to provide an encrypted tunnel between the EC2 instances.

  12. A Security Engineer has launched multiple Amazon EC2 instances from a private AMI using an AWS CloudFormation template. The Engineer notices instances terminating right after they are launched.

    What could be causing these terminations?

    • The IAM user launching those instances is missing ec2:RunInstances permissions
    • The AMI used was encrypted and the IAM user does not have the required AWS KMS permissions
    • The instance profile used with the EC2 instances is unable to query instance metadata
    • AWS currently does not have sufficient capacity in the Region

  13. Authorized Administrators are unable to connect to an Amazon EC2 Linux bastion host using SSH over the Internet. The connection either fails to respond or generates the following error message:

    Network error: Connection timed out.

    What could be responsible for the connection failure? (Choose three.)

    • The NAT gateway in the subnet where the EC2 instance is deployed has been misconfigured.
    • The internet gateway of the VPC has been misconfigured.
    • The security group denies outbound traffic on ephemeral ports.
    • The route table is missing a route to the internet gateway.
    • The NACL denies outbound traffic on ephemeral ports.
    • The host-based firewall is denying SSH traffic.

  14. After multiple compromises of its Amazon EC2 instances, a company’s Security Officer is mandating that memory dumps of compromised instances be captured for further analysis. A Security Engineer just received an EC2 abuse notification report from AWS stating that an EC2 instance running the most recent Windows Server 2019 Base AMI is compromised.

    How should the Security Engineer collect a memory dump of the EC2 instance for forensic analysis?

    • Give consent to the AWS Security team to dump the memory core on the compromised instance and provide it to AWS Support for analysis.
    • Review memory dump data that the AWS Systems Manager Agent sent to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.
    • Download and run the EC2Rescue for Windows Server utility from AWS.
    • Reboot the EC2 Windows Server, enter safe mode, and select memory dump.

  15. A company’s Information Security team wants to analyze Amazon EC2 performance and utilization data in near-real time for anomalies. A Security Engineer is responsible for log aggregation. The Engineer must collect logs from all of the company’s AWS accounts in a centralized location to perform the analysis.

    How should the Security Engineer do this?

    • Log in to each account four times a day and filter the AWS CloudTrail log data, then copy and paste the logs in to the Amazon S3 bucket in the destination account.
    • Set up Amazon CloudWatch to stream data to an Amazon S3 bucket in each source account. Set up bucket replication for each source account into a centralized bucket owned by the Security Engineer.
    • Set up an AWS Config aggregator to collect AWS configuration data from multiple sources.
    • Set up Amazon CloudWatch cross-account log data sharing with subscriptions in each account. Send the logs to Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose in the Security Engineer’s account.

  16. Two Amazon EC2 instances in different subnets should be able to connect to each other but cannot. It has been confirmed that other hosts in the same subnets are able to communicate successfully, and that security groups have valid ALLOW rules in place to permit this traffic.

    Which of the following troubleshooting steps should be performed?

    • Check inbound and outbound security groups, looking for DENY rules
    • Check inbound and outbound Network ACL rules, looking for DENY rules
    • Review the rejected packet reason codes in the VPC Flow Logs
    • Use AWS X-Ray to trace the end-to-end application flow

  17. A Security Engineer creates an Amazon S3 bucket policy that denies access to all users. A few days later, the Security Engineer adds an additional statement to the bucket policy to allow read-only access to one other employee. Even after updating the policy, the employee still receives an access denied message.

    What is the likely cause of this access denial?

    • The ACL in the bucket needs to be updated
    • The IAM policy does not allow the user to access the bucket
    • It takes a few minutes for a bucket policy to take effect
    • The allow permission is being overridden by the deny

  18. A company plans to use custom AMIs to launch Amazon EC2 instances across multiple AWS accounts in a single Region to perform security monitoring and analytics tasks. The EC2 instances are launched in EC2 Auto Scaling groups. To increase the security of the solution, a Security Engineer will manage the lifecycle of the custom AMIs in a centralized account and will encrypt them with a centrally managed AWS KMS CMK. The Security Engineer configured the KMS key policy to allow cross-account access. However, the EC2 instances are still not being properly launched by the EC2 Auto Scaling groups.

    Which combination of configuration steps should the Security Engineer take to ensure the EC2 Auto Scaling groups have been granted the proper permissions to execute tasks?

    • Create a customer-managed CMK in the centralized account. Allow other applicable accounts to use that key for cryptographical operations by applying proper cross-account permissions in the key policy. Create an IAM role in all applicable accounts and configure its access policy to allow the use of the centrally managed CMK for cryptographical operations. Configure EC2 Auto Scaling groups within each applicable account to use the created IAM role to launch EC2 instances.
    • Create a customer-managed CMK in the centralized account. Allow other applicable accounts to use that key for cryptographical operations by applying proper cross-account permissions in the key policy. Create an IAM role in all applicable accounts and configure its access policy with permissions to create grants for the centrally managed CMK. Use this IAM role to create a grant for the centrally managed CMK with permissions to perform cryptographical operations and with the EC2 Auto Scaling service-linked role defined as the grantee principal.
    • Create a customer-managed CMK or an AWS managed CMK in the centralized account. Allow other applicable accounts to use that key for cryptographical operations by applying proper cross-account permissions in the key policy. Use the CMK administrator to create a CMK grant that includes permissions to perform cryptographical operations that define EC2 Auto Scaling service-linked roles from all other accounts as the grantee principal.
    • Create a customer-managed CMK or an AWS managed CMK in the centralized account. Allow other applicable accounts to use that key for cryptographical operations by applying proper cross-account permissions in the key policy. Modify the access policy for the EC2 Auto Scaling roles to perform cryptographical operations against the centrally managed CMK.

  19. An organization wants to log all AWS API calls made within all of its AWS accounts, and must have a central place to analyze these logs.

    What steps should be taken to meet these requirements in the MOST secure manner? (Choose two.)

    • Turn on AWS CloudTrail in each AWS account.
    • Turn on CloudTrail in only the account that will be storing the logs.
    • Update the bucket ACL of the bucket in the account that will be storing the logs so that other accounts can log to it.
    • Create a service-based role for CloudTrail and associate it with CloudTrail in each account.
    • Update the bucket policy of the bucket in the account that will be storing the logs so that other accounts can log to it.

  20. A company uses HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) to stream live video content to paying subscribers by using Amazon CloudFront. HLS splits the video content into chunks so that the user can request the right chunk based on different conditions. Because the video events last for several hours, the total video is made up of thousands of chunks.

    The origin URL is not disclosed, and every user is forced to access the CloudFront URL. The company has a web application that authenticates the paying users against an internal repository and a CloudFront key pair that is already issued.

    What is the simplest and MOST effective way to protect the content?

    • Develop the application to use the CloudFront key pair to create signed URLs that users will use to access the content.
    • Develop the application to use the CloudFront key pair to set the signed cookies that users will use to access the content.
    • Develop the application to issue a security token that Lambda@Edge will receive to authenticate and authorize access to the content.
    • Keep the CloudFront URL encrypted inside the application, and use AWS KMS to resolve the URL on-the-fly after the user is authenticated.