Practice Free SCS-C03 Exam Online Questions
A company must immediately disable compromised IAM users across all AWS accounts and collect all actions performed by the user in the last 7 days.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Disable the IAM user and query CloudTrail logs in Amazon S3 using Athena.
- B . Remove IAM policies and query logs in Security Hub.
- C . Remove permission sets and query logs using CloudWatch Logs Insights.
- D . Disable the user in IAM Identity Center and query the organizational event data store.
D
Explanation:
AWS IAM Identity Center centrally manages user access across an AWS Organization. Disabling the user in Identity Center immediately revokes access to all AWS accounts. According to AWS Certified Security C Specialty documentation, organizational CloudTrail event data stores provide centralized, queryable access to all events across accounts.
Using CloudTrail Lake enables direct querying of activity without exporting logs. Disabling the user at the Identity Center level ensures full containment.
Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:
AWS Certified Security C Specialty Official Study Guide
AWS IAM Identity Center Incident Response
AWS CloudTrail Lake
A security engineer needs to build a solution to turn AWS CloudTrail back on in multiple AWS Regions in case it is ever turned off.
What is the MOST efficient way to implement this solution?
- A . Use AWS Config with a managed rule to initiate the AWS-EnableCloudTrail remediation.
- B . Create an Amazon EventBridge event with a cloudtrail.amazonaws.com event source and a StartLogging event name to invoke an AWS Lambda function to call the StartLogging API.
- C . Create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm with a cloudtrail.amazonaws.com event source and a StopLogging event name to invoke an AWS Lambda function to call the StartLogging API.
- D . Monitor AWS Trusted Advisor to ensure CloudTrail logging is enabled.
A
Explanation:
The most efficient approach is to useAWS Configbecause Config is designed for continuous compliance evaluation and can automatically triggermanaged remediationwhen a resource drifts from the desired state. A managed Config rule that detects when CloudTrail is not logging, combined with theAWS-EnableCloudTrailremediation action, provides an automated way to re-enable CloudTrail without building and maintaining custom event processing code. This is especially valuable in multi-Region environments because Config can evaluate configurations across Regions and enforce the intended posture consistently.
Option B is illogical: triggering on StartLogging does not help when CloudTrail is turned off. Option C is not as operationally efficient because CloudWatch alarms are not the standard mechanism for reacting to CloudTrail API events; EventBridge is the proper event bus for API call events, but you would still be writing and maintaining Lambda logic and multi-Region plumbing. Option D is manual and delayed, not automated remediation.
Therefore, AWS Config with a managed rule and the AWS-provided remediation to enable CloudTrail
is the most maintainable and efficient solution.
A company operates an Amazon EC2 instance that is registered as a target of a Network Load Balancer (NLB). The NLB is associated with a security group. The security group allows inbound TCP traffic on port 22 from 10.0.0.0/23.
The company maps the NLB to two subnets that share the same network ACL and route table. The route table has a route for 0.0.0.0/0 to an internet gateway. The network ACL has one inbound rule that has a priority of 20 and that allows TCP traffic on port 22 from 10.0.0.0/16.
A security engineer receives an alert that there is an unauthorized SSH session on the EC2 instance. The unauthorized session originates from 10.0.1.5. The company’s incident response procedure requires unauthorized SSH sessions to beimmediately interrupted. The instance must remain running, and its memory must remain intact.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Restart the EC2 instance from either the AWS Management Console or the AWS CLI.
- B . Add a new inbound rule that has a priority of 10 to the network ACL to deny TCP traffic on port 22 from 10.0.1.5.
- C . Remove the security group rule that allows inbound TCP traffic on port 22 from 10.0.0.0/16.
- D . Update the route table to remove the route to the internet gateway.
B
Explanation:
Network ACLs arestatelessand are evaluated in order based on rule number, with lower rule numbers taking precedence. According to AWS Certified Security C Specialty incident response guidance, network ACLs can be used toimmediately block traffic at the subnet levelwithout restarting instances or modifying their runtime state.
By adding a deny rule with alower priority number (10)that explicitly denies TCP traffic on port 22 from the offending IP address (10.0.1.5), the unauthorized SSH session is immediately interrupted. This approach satisfies the requirement to keep the instance running and to preserve memory for forensic analysis.
Option A violates the requirement because restarting the instance clears memory. Option C would disrupt all legitimate SSH access, not just the unauthorized session. Option D would block all internet access and could cause widespread service disruption.
AWS documentation emphasizes usingnetwork ACL deny rules for rapid, targeted containmentwhen immediate interruption is required without altering instance state.
AWS Certified Security C Specialty Official Study Guide
Amazon VPC Network ACL Documentation
AWS Incident Response Best Practices
AWS Config cannot deliver configuration snapshots to Amazon S3.
Which TWO actions will remediate this issue?
- A . Verify the S3 bucket policy allows config.amazonaws.com.
- B . Verify the IAM role has s3:GetBucketAcl and s3:PutObject permissions.
- C . Verify the S3 bucket can assume the IAM role.
- D . Verify IAM policy allows AWS Config to write logs.
- E . Modify AWS Config API permissions.
A,B
Explanation:
AWS Config requires permissions at two levels to deliver configuration data: the AWS Config service role and the S3 bucket policy. The AWS Certified Security C Specialty Study Guide states that the S3 bucket policy must explicitly allow the config.amazonaws.com service principal to write objects. Additionally, the IAM role used by AWS Config must allow s3:GetBucketAcl and s3:PutObject.
If either permission is missing, AWS Config cannot deliver snapshots and will log delivery errors in CloudTrail. This dual-permission model ensures least privilege while maintaining secure delivery of compliance data.
Other options reference incorrect principals or irrelevant permissions.
Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:
AWS Certified Security C Specialty Official Study Guide
AWS Config Prerequisites
A consultant agency needs to perform a security audit for a company’s production AWS account. Several consultants need access to the account. The consultant agency already has its own AWS account. The company requires multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all access to its production account. The company also forbids the use of long-term credentials.
Which solution will provide the consultant agency with access that meets these requirements?
- A . Create an IAM group. Create an IAM user for each consultant. Add each user to the group. Turn on MFA for each consultant.
- B . Configure Amazon Cognito on the company’s production account to authenticate against the consultant agency’s identity provider (IdP). Add MFA to a Cognito user pool.
- C . Create an IAM role in the consultant agency’s AWS account. Define a trust policy that requires MFA. In the trust policy, specify the company’s production account as the principal. Attach the trust policy to the role.
- D . Create an IAM role in the company’s production account. Define a trust policy that requires MFA. In the trust policy, specify the consultant agency’s AWS account as the principal. Attach the trust policy to the role.
D
Explanation:
AWS best practices strongly discourage the use of long-term credentials and recommend cross-account IAM roles with temporary credentials for third-party access. According to the AWS Certified Security C Specialty Study Guide, creating an IAM role in the resource-owning account and allowing a trusted external AWS account to assume that role is the recommended pattern for external access.
By creating the IAM role in the company’s production account and specifying the consultant agency’s AWS account as the trusted principal, the company retains full control over permissions. The trust policy can enforce MFA by using the aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent condition key, ensuring that all access requires MFA. Access is granted through AWS Security Token Service (STS), which issues short-lived credentials.
Option A violates the requirement to avoid long-term credentials. Option B is designed for application user authentication, not AWS account access. Option C incorrectly places the role in the consultant’s account, reducing the company’s control over access.
This solution satisfies MFA enforcement, eliminates long-term credentials, and aligns with AWS third-party access best practices.
Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:
AWS Certified Security C Specialty Official Study Guide
AWS IAM Cross-Account Access
AWS STS and MFA Enforcement
A company is running a containerized application on an Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) cluster that uses AWS Fargate. The application runs as several ECS services. The ECS services are in individual target groups for an internet-facing Application Load Balancer (ALB). The ALB is the origin for an Amazon CloudFront distribution. An AWS WAF web ACL is associated with the CloudFront distribution.
Web clients access the ECS services through the CloudFront distribution. The company learns that the web clients can bypass the web ACL and can access the ALB directly.
Which solution will prevent the web clients from directly accessing the ALB?
- A . Create an AWS PrivateLink endpoint. Specify the existing ALB as the target. Update the CloudFront distribution by setting the PrivateLink endpoint as the origin.
- B . Create a new internal ALB. Move all the ECS services to the internal ALB. Delete the internet-facing ALB. Update the CloudFront distribution by setting the internal ALB as the origin.
- C . Modify the listener rules for the existing ALB. Add a condition to forward only the requests that
come from IP addresses in the CloudFront origin prefix list. - D . Update the CloudFront distribution by adding an X-Shared-Secret custom header for the origin. Modify the listener rules for the existing ALB to forward only the requests in which the X-Shared-Secret header has the correct value.
D
Explanation:
The correct solution is option D because it effectively prevents direct access to the internet-facing ALB while allowing legitimate traffic that originates from Amazon CloudFront. By configuring CloudFront to include a custom HTTP header (such as X-Shared-Secret) in all origin requests, and then configuring ALB listener rules to only forward requests that contain the expected header value, the ALB will reject any requests that bypass CloudFront.
This approach is a documented AWS best practice when CloudFront is placed in front of an ALB and AWS WAF is associated with the CloudFront distribution. AWS WAF only evaluates traffic that flows through CloudFront; therefore, preventing direct access to the ALB is critical to ensure that all requests are inspected by the web ACL.
Option A is invalid because CloudFront does not support AWS PrivateLink endpoints as origins. Option B is incorrect because CloudFront cannot use an internal ALB as an origin; CloudFront requires a publicly reachable origin. Option C is not recommended because CloudFront IP ranges change frequently, making IP-based allow lists operationally complex and error-prone, and AWS does not provide a supported CloudFront prefix list for ALB listener rules.
AWS Security Specialty guidance explicitly recommends using custom origin headers to restrict ALB access to CloudFront-only traffic, making option D the correct and secure solution.
A company is planning to deploy a new log analysis environment. The company needs to analyze logs from multiple AWS services in near real time. The solution must provide the ability to search the logs
and must send alerts to an existing Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic when specific logs match detection rules.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Analyze the logs by using Amazon OpenSearch Service. Search the logs from the OpenSearch API. Use OpenSearch Service Security Analytics to match logs with detection rules and to send alerts to the SNS topic.
- B . Analyze the logs by using AWS Security Hub. Search the logs from the Findings page in Security Hub. Create custom actions to match logs with detection rules and to send alerts to the SNS topic.
- C . Analyze the logs by using Amazon CloudWatch Logs. Use a subscription filter to match logs with detection rules and to send alerts to the SNS topic. Search the logs manually by using CloudWatch Logs Insights.
- D . Analyze the logs by using Amazon QuickSight. Search the logs by listing the query results in a dashboard. Run queries to match logs with detection rules and to send alerts to the SNS topic.
A
Explanation:
Amazon OpenSearch Service is designed for near real-time log ingestion, indexing, and search across large volumes of data. According to the AWS Certified Security C Specialty Study Guide, OpenSearch supports advanced log analytics use cases and integrates with OpenSearch Security Analytics, which provides prebuilt and custom detection rules.
Security Analytics can continuously evaluate incoming logs from multiple AWS services and generate alerts when detection rules are matched. These alerts can be forwarded to Amazon SNS with minimal configuration. OpenSearch also provides powerful search and query capabilities through APIs and dashboards.
Option C supports detection but lacks advanced correlation and scalable search capabilities. Option B is not a log analytics service. Option D is a visualization service and does not support real-time detection.
AWS guidance recommends OpenSearch Service for centralized, near real-time log analysis and alerting.
Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:
AWS Certified Security C Specialty Official Study Guide
Amazon OpenSearch Service Security Analytics
AWS Logging and Monitoring Architecture
A company has a large fleet of Amazon Linux 2 Amazon EC2 instances that run an application processing sensitive data. Compliance requirements include no exposed management ports, full session logging, and authentication through AWS IAM Identity Center. DevOps engineers occasionally need access for troubleshooting.
Which solution will provide remote access while meeting these requirements?
- A . Grant access to the EC2 serial console and allow IAM role access.
- B . Enable EC2 Instance Connect and configure security groups accordingly.
- C . Assign an EC2 instance role that allows access to AWS Systems Manager. Create an IAM policy that grants access to Systems Manager Session Manager and assign it to an IAM Identity Center role.
- D . Use Systems Manager Automation to temporarily open remote access ports.
C
Explanation:
AWS Systems Manager Session Manager provides secure, auditable shell access to EC2 instances without opening inbound ports. According to AWS Certified Security C Specialty guidance, Session Manager records all session activity to CloudWatch Logs or Amazon S3 and integrates with IAM Identity Center for centralized authentication.
This solution meets all requirements: no exposed ports, full audit logging, and identity-based access
control. EC2 Instance Connect and serial console access do not integrate with Identity Center and may expose management paths.
Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:
AWS Certified Security C Specialty Official Study Guide
AWS Systems Manager Session Manager
AWS IAM Identity Center Integration
A company runs ECS services behind an internet-facing ALB that is the origin for CloudFront. An AWS WAF web ACL is associated with CloudFront, but clients can bypass it by accessing the ALB directly.
Which solution will prevent direct access to the ALB?
- A . Use AWS PrivateLink with the ALB.
- B . Replace the ALB with an internal ALB.
- C . Restrict ALB listener rules to CloudFront IP ranges.
- D . Require a custom header from CloudFront and validate it at the ALB.
D
Explanation:
AWS best practices recommend using a shared secret header between CloudFront and ALB origins to prevent direct access. CloudFront injects a custom header, and the ALB listener rules validate its presence.
IP-based controls are brittle due to CloudFront IP changes. PrivateLink and internal ALBs are not supported as CloudFront origins. Header validation is the most reliable and widely recommended pattern.
Referenced AWS Specialty Documents:
AWS Certified Security C Specialty Official Study Guide
CloudFront Origin Protection
AWS WAF and ALB Integration
A company has enabled AWS Config for its organization in AWS Organizations. The company has deployed hundreds of Amazon S3 buckets across the organization. A security engineer needs to identify any S3 buckets that are not encrypted with AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS). The security engineer also must prevent objects that are not encrypted with AWS KMS from being uploaded to the S3 buckets.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
- A . Use thes3-default-encryption-kmsAWS Config managed rule to identify unencrypted S3 buckets. Create an SCP to allow thes3:PutObjectaction only when the object is encrypted with AWS KMS.
- B . Use thes3-default-encryption-kmsAWS Config managed rule to identify unencrypted S3 buckets. Create bucket policies for each S3 bucket to deny thes3:PutObjectaction only when the object has server-side encryption with S3 managed keys (SSE-S3).
- C . Use thes3-bucket-ssl-requests-onlyAWS Config managed rule to identify unencrypted S3 buckets. Create an SCP to allow thes3:PutObjectaction only when the object is encrypted with AWS KMS.
- D . Use thes3-bucket-ssl-requests-onlyAWS Config managed rule to identify unencrypted S3 buckets. Create bucket policies for each S3 bucket to allow thes3:PutObjectaction only when the object is encrypted with AWS KMS.
A
Explanation:
The correct Config rule for finding buckets that are not usingSSE-KMS by defaultiss3-default-encryption-kms. It evaluates the bucket’s default encryption settings and flags buckets that do not have KMS default encryption enabled. The s3-bucket-ssl-requests-only rule focuses on enforcing HTTPS-only requests and does not validate encryption-at-rest settings, so it cannot satisfy the “identify not encrypted with KMS” requirement.
For preventing uploads of objects that are not encrypted with KMS, an organization-wide control is needed. AnSCPcan restrict s3:PutObject so that uploads succeed only when the request specifiesSSE-KMS(and optionally a specific KMS key). This provides broad, low-touch enforcement across many accounts and buckets. While bucket policies can also enforce SSE-KMS, managing and verifying hundreds of bucket policies is more operationally heavy than a centrally managed SCP guardrail.
Option B enforcesSSE-S3, which does not meet the requirement forKMSencryption. Option D uses the wrong Config rule and relies on an “allow-only” pattern rather than explicit deny logic, making it an unreliable fit for the stated goal. Therefore, A is the best answer.
