Free Amazon Web Services SCS-C03 Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 3

Amazon Inspector provides native CI/CD integration capabilities that allow security checks to occur before container images are pushed to Amazon ECR. According to AWS Certified Security – Specialty documentation, Inspector does not block image pushes automatically. Instead, prevention must occur inside the CI/CD pipeline itself.

By generating a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) using the Amazon Inspector SBOM generator and submitting it to Inspector for scanning, the pipeline can detect critical vulnerabilities before the image is uploaded. If vulnerabilities exceed policy thresholds, the pipeline fails, preventing deployment.

Post-push scanning solutions only detect vulnerabilities after exposure. Event-driven blocking does not prevent the initial risk.

AWS best practices require “shift-left” security controls to prevent vulnerable artifacts from entering production.

Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Study Guide

Amazon Inspector CI/CD Integration

Amazon RDS supports point-in-time recovery (PITR) using automated backups within the configured retention window. According to the AWS Certified Security – Specialty Study Guide, PITR allows recovery to any second within the retention period, making it the most precise recovery method following a security incident.

By restoring the database cluster to a point just before the attack occurred, such as 3:14 PM, the security engineer ensures that the restored database reflects the last known good state without including malicious changes. This method is more accurate than restoring from snapshots, which are created at fixed intervals and may not align with the exact recovery time.

Options B and C rely on snapshot timing and may reintroduce compromised data. Option D restores to an arbitrary time and does not meet the requirement to recover to the last known good version.

AWS documentation explicitly recommends point-in-time recovery for incident response scenarios that require precise restoration.

Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Study Guide

Amazon RDS Automated Backups and PITR

AWS Incident Response and Recovery Guidance

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

Amazon Cognito identity pools provide temporary AWS credentials by exchanging web identity tokens with AWS STS using AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity. According to AWS Certified Security – Specialty documentation, this is the correct mechanism for granting applications AWS credentials.

User pools authenticate users but do not issue AWS credentials. Identity pools integrate with IAM roles and STS, enabling secure, temporary access to AWS services.

Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:

AWS Certified Security – Specialty Official Study Guide

Amazon Cognito Identity Pools

AWS STS Web Identity Federation