Free Amazon Web Services SCS-C03 Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 2

EventBridge natively consumes CloudTrail management events and provides near-real-time notifications.

AWS abuse notifications are delivered as AWS Health events. According to the AWS Certified Security – Specialty Study Guide, Amazon EventBridge integrates natively with AWS Health and can be used to detect specific event types such as AWS_ABUSE_DOS_REPORT in near real time.

By creating an EventBridge rule that filters for the abuse report event type and publishes directly to Amazon SNS, the solution remains fully managed, low latency, and cost effective.

Polling APIs introduces delay and complexity. CloudTrail does not log abuse notifications. EventBridge with AWS Health is the recommended mechanism for reacting to AWS service events.

Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Study Guide

AWS Health and EventBridge Integration

AWS Abuse Notification Handling

AWS IAM Identity Center delegated administration requires foundational configuration to be completed in the organization’s management account before delegation. According to the AWS Certified Security – Specialty documentation, IAM Identity Center must be enabled with a directory in the management account before any delegation can occur.

Permission sets must be created in the management account because they define the permissions that will later be delegated to member accounts. Additionally, user assignments must initially exist in the management account to establish baseline access control before delegation is configured.

Option A is too generic and not a required prerequisite step. Option C is unrelated to Identity Center delegation. Option E is incorrect because IAM Identity Center uses identities from its directory or external IdPs, not IAM users.

AWS guidance clearly outlines directory creation, permission set definition, and initial user assignments as mandatory preparatory steps for delegated administration.

Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Study Guide

AWS IAM Identity Center Delegated Administration

AWS Organizations and Identity Center Integration

AWS Lambda automatically sends function execution logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs when logging is enabled in the function code. However, this logging capability depends on the Lambda execution role having the appropriate permissions. According to the AWS Certified Security – Specialty Study Guide, the execution role must include permissions such as logs:CreateLogGroup, logs:CreateLogStream, and logs:PutLogEvents.

If these permissions are missing, Lambda cannot create log groups or streams, and no execution logs will appear in CloudWatch Logs—even though the function was successfully invoked. This is the most common reason Lambda logs are unavailable during forensic investigations.

Option B is incorrect because Lambda logs are stored in CloudWatch Logs regardless of whether the invocation source is API Gateway, EventBridge, or another AWS service. Option C is incorrect because CloudWatch Logs does not require direct S3 permissions from the Lambda execution role. Option D is irrelevant because Lambda versions do not affect logging behavior.

AWS documentation emphasizes verifying execution role permissions as a first step when Lambda logs are missing.

Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Study Guide

AWS Lambda Execution Roles

Amazon CloudWatch Logs Integration with Lambda

The fastest, least-effort way to mitigate SQL injection at the edge—without modifying legacy application code—is to place the application behind a component that supportsAWS WAFand applymanaged SQL injection protections. AnApplication Load Balancerintegrates directly with AWS WAF, allowing the security engineer to deploy a web ACL (including AWS Managed Rules for SQL injection and custom patterns based on the provided samples) and immediately start blocking malicious payloads before they reach the EC2 instances and the database.

Option A also preserves normal operations during rollout: you can create the ALB, register the existing EC2 instances as targets, validate health checks and traffic behavior, apply WAF protections, and then shift Route 53 weighted records to the ALB with minimal downtime. Finally, tightening the EC2 security groups to prevent direct internet access ensures all inbound web traffic is forced through the ALB + WAF inspection point, reducing exposure quickly.

Option B is risky because it uses only one EC2 origin (reducing availability) and adds CloudFront origin configuration complexity under a 24-hour deadline. Option C requires code changes on unsupported software and is unlikely to be safely delivered in time. Option D is invalid because AWS WAF cannot be attached directly to EC2 instances, and changing DB-port exposure doesn’t address SQL injection on the web layer.

When Amazon CloudFront is used in front of an Application Load Balancer, CloudFront becomes the immediate source of incoming requests to the ALB. As a result, AWS WAF logs record theCloudFront edge location IP addressesas the client IPs, not the original viewer IP addresses. This behavior is explicitly documented in the AWS Certified Security – Specialty Study Guide and the AWS WAF and CloudFront integration documentation.

To preserve the original client IP address, CloudFront automatically adds theX-Forwarded-For HTTP header, which contains the IP address of the originating client followed by any proxy addresses involved in forwarding the request. AWS WAF logs include this header, making it the authoritative source for identifying true client IP addresses when CloudFront is used.

Option A is incorrect because VPC Flow Logs capture network-level metadata and will only show CloudFront IP addresses, not the original client IPs. Option C is incorrect because disabling connection reuse does not change how client IPs are logged in AWS WAF. Option D is unnecessary and unsupported as a requirement because CloudFront already provides the required information through standard headers.

AWS documentation consistently states thatX-Forwarded-Foris the correct and supported mechanism for tracing client IPs in CloudFront-protected applications.

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Study Guide

AWS WAF Developer Guide – Logging

Amazon CloudFront Developer Guide – Request Headers

WithSSE-KMS, authorization is a two-part check: the caller must have S3 permissions to read the objectandthe caller must be allowed to use the KMS key for decryption. Even if an IAM policy grants kms:Decrypt, the request will still fail if theKMS key policydoes not allow the principal (or does not allow the account to delegate use of the key). KMS key policies are authoritative: they can prevent key usage even when IAM policies appear to allow it.

A common misconfiguration is editing the key policy and removing the statement that grants the AWS account (or key administrators) the ability to manage and delegate permissions for the key—often described as removing “Enable IAM user permissions” or otherwise blocking the account from using IAM policies to authorize key usage. In that case, the IAM user’s kms:Decrypt permission in IAM is not sufficient because the key policy no longer permits it, resulting in Access Denied when S3 attempts to call KMS on the user’s behalf during GetObject.

Option A is not required for decrypting data (DescribeKey is useful for discovery but not necessary for GetObject). Option B would not inherently cause access denied if permissions align. Option C is incorrect because same-account S3 access can be granted purely via IAM without a bucket policy. Therefore, the key policy change is a valid reason.

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager providessecure, auditable, and portless accessto EC2 instances. According to the AWS Certified Security – Specialty Study Guide, Session Manager allows administrators to connect to instanceswithout opening inbound SSH or RDP ports, fully satisfying strict compliance requirements.

Session Manager integrates directly withAWS IAM Identity Center, ensuring that all access is authenticated and authorized using centralized identity management. Additionally, Session Manager automatically records session activity and can send logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs or Amazon S3, providing a complete audit trail of all commands executed during a session.

Option A (EC2 serial console) does not provide comprehensive auditing and is intended for recovery scenarios. Option B requires inbound network access and security group rules, violating the “no exposed management ports” requirement. Option D explicitly opens ports, which directly violates compliance constraints.

AWS documentation clearly identifiesSystems Manager Session Manager as the recommended solution for secure, auditable, and identity-integrated instance accessin regulated environments.

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Study Guide

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager Documentation

AWS IAM Identity Center Best Practices

To keep S3 accessoff the public internet, the standard AWS approach is to use anAmazon S3 gateway VPC endpoint(AWS PrivateLink for S3 is not used; S3 uses gateway endpoints). A gateway endpoint adds routes in the VPC route tables so traffic destined for S3 stays on the AWS backbone network rather than traversing an internet gateway, NAT gateway, or public IP paths. This satisfies the “cannot send traffic over the public internet” requirement while allowing the application in Account A to reach S3 in the same Region.

Cross-account bucket access is controlled byIAM and the S3 bucket policy, not by networking between the two accounts’ VPCs. The bucket resides in S3 (a regional service), not inside Account B’s VPC, so connecting VPC-to-VPC (peering, transit gateway, VPN) does not inherently provide private access to S3. Those options would add complexity and still typically require internet/NAT unless S3 endpoints are used.

With the gateway endpoint in Account A, the application can privately reach S3, and because permissions are already granted to write to the bucket in Account B, the write operations will succeed without public internet routing.

Password policies are enforced at the identity provider where authentication occurs. According to the AWS Certified Security – Specialty Study Guide, when IAM is federated with an external identity provider such as on-premises Active Directory, IAM does not manage or enforce password policies. Instead, password requirements such as minimum length must be enforced directly in Active Directory Group Policy Objects.

Amazon Cognito user pools maintain their own user directory and authentication logic. Cognito provides configurable password policies, including minimum length, complexity, and expiration. To enforce a minimum password length for application users, the Cognito user pool password policy must be updated.

IAM password policies apply only to IAM users that authenticate directly with IAM and do not affect federated users or Cognito users. SCPs and IAM policies cannot enforce password length requirements.

Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Study Guide

AWS IAM Federation and Password Policies

Amazon Cognito User Pool Security Settings