SCS-C02 Exam Dumps - AWS Certified Security - Specialty

The correct answer is D. Enable CloudTrail to monitor data events for read and write operations to S3 buckets.

According to the AWS documentation1, CloudTrail data events are the resource operations performed on or within a resource. These are also known as data plane operations. Data events are often high-volume activities. For example, Amazon S3 object-level API activity (such as GetObject, DeleteObject, and PutObject) is a data event.

By default, trails do not log data events. To record CloudTrail data events, you must explicitly add the supported resources or resource types for which you want to collect activity. For more information, see Logging data events in the Amazon S3 User Guide2.

In this case, the security team wants EventBridge to watch for the s3:PutObjectAcl API invocation logs from CloudTrail. This API uses the acl subresource to set the access control list (ACL) permissions for a new or existing object in an S3 bucket3. This is a data event that affects the S3 object resource type. Therefore, the security team must enable CloudTrail to monitor data events for read and write operations to S3 buckets in order to invoke an EventBridge event for this API call.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Modifying the EventBridge event pattern by selecting Amazon S3 and All Events as the event type will not capture the s3:PutObjectAcl API call, because this is a data event and not a management event. Management events provide information about management operations that are performed on resources in your AWS account. These are also known as control plane operations4.

B. Modifying the EventBridge event pattern by selecting Amazon S3 and Bucket Level Operations as the event type will not capture the s3:PutObjectAcl API call, because this is a data event that affects the S3 object resource type and not the S3 bucket resource type. Bucket level operations are management events that affect the configuration or metadata of an S3 bucket5.

C. Enabling CloudTrail Insights to identify unusual API activity will not help the security team monitor new S3 objects or changes to any S3 bucket policy or setting that result in public access. CloudTrail Insights helps AWS users identify and respond to unusual activity associated with API calls and API error rates by continuously analyzing CloudTrail management events6. It does not analyze data events or generate EventBridge events.

References:

1: CloudTrail log event reference - AWS CloudTrail 2: Logging data events - AWS CloudTrail 3: PutObjectAcl - Amazon Simple Storage Service 4: [Logging management events - AWS CloudTrail] 5: [Amazon S3 Event Types - Amazon Simple Storage Service] 6: Logging Insights events for trails - AWS CloudTrail

AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. AWS Config continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations.

To evaluate configuration changes to a specific AWS resource and ensure that it meets compliance standards, the security engineer should use AWS Config to detect the configuration changes and to record the latest configuration in case of multiple configuration changes. This will allow the security engineer to view the current state of the resource and its compliance status, as well as its configuration history and timeline.

AWS Config records configuration changes as ConfigurationItems, which are point-in-time snapshots of the resource’s attributes, relationships, and metadata. If multiple configuration changes occur within a short period of time, AWS Config records only the latest ConfigurationItem for that resource. This indicates the cumulative impact of the set of changes on the resource’s configuration.

This solution will meet the requirement in the most operationally efficient way, as it leverages AWS Config’s features to monitor, record, and evaluate resource configurations without requiring additional tools or services.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not record the latest configuration in case of multiple configuration changes (A, C), or do not use a valid service for evaluating resource configurations (D).

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/config/latest/developerguide/WhatIsConfig.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/config/latest/developerguide/config-item-table.html

The key length for an RSA certificate that you use with CloudFront is 2048 bits, even though ACM supports larger keys. If you use an imported certificate with CloudFront, your key length must be 1024 or 2048 bits and cannot exceed 2048 bits. You must import the certificate in the US East (N. Virginia) Region. You must have permission to use and import the SSL/TLS certificate

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/cnames-and-https-requirements.html

The correct answer is A. Use IAM Access Analyzer policy generation to generate a policy that allows the CloudFormation script to run and manage the stack. Attach the policy to a new IAM role. Modify the security engineer’s IAM permissions to be able to pass the new role to CloudFormation.

According to the AWS documentation, IAM Access Analyzer is a service that helps you identify the resources in your organization and accounts, such as Amazon S3 buckets or IAM roles, that are shared with an external entity. You can also use IAM Access Analyzer to generate fine-grained policies that grant least privilege access based on access activity and access attempts.

To use IAM Access Analyzer policy generation, you need to enable IAM Access Analyzer in your account or organization. You can then use the IAM console or the AWS CLI to generate a policy for a resource based on its access activity or access attempts. You can review and edit the generated policy before applying it to the resource.

To use IAM Access Analyzer policy generation with CloudFormation, you can follow these steps:

Run the CloudFormation script in a pre-production environment and monitor its access activity or access attempts using IAM Access Analyzer.

Use IAM Access Analyzer policy generation to generate a policy that allows the CloudFormation script to run and manage the stack. The policy will include only the permissions that are necessary for the script to function.

Attach the policy to a new IAM role that has a trust relationship with CloudFormation. This will allow CloudFormation to assume the role and execute the script.

Modify the security engineer’s IAM permissions to be able to pass the new role to CloudFormation. This will allow the security engineer to launch the stack using the role.

Run the CloudFormation script in the production environment using the new role.

This solution will meet the requirements of least privilege and separation of duties, as it will limit the permissions of both CloudFormation and the security engineer to only what is needed for running and managing the stack.

Option B is incorrect because creating an IAM policy that allows ec2:* and rds:* permissions is not following the principle of least privilege, as it will grant more permissions than necessary for running and managing the stack. Moreover, modifying the security engineer’s IAM permissions to be able to assume the new role is not ensuring separation of duties, as it will allow the security engineer to bypass CloudFormation and directly access the resources.

Option C is incorrect because modifying the security engineer’s IAM permissions to be able to run the CloudFormation script is not ensuring separation of duties, as it will allow the security engineer to execute the script without using CloudFormation.

Option D is incorrect because creating an IAM policy that allows ec2:* and rds:* permissions is not following the principle of least privilege, as it will grant more permissions than necessary for running and managing the stack. Using the IAM policy simulator to confirm that the policy allows the AWS API calls that are necessary to build the stack is not sufficient, as it will not generate a fine-grained policy based on access activity or access attempts.

To address the issue of an Amazon EC2 instance receiving suspicious requests over an open TCP port, the most effective solution is to update the Network Access Control List (NACL) associated with the subnet where the EC2 instance resides. By adding a deny rule for the specific TCP port and source IP addresses involved in the suspicious activity, the security team can effectively block unwanted traffic at the subnet level. NACLs act as a stateless firewall for controlling traffic in and out of subnets, allowing for broad-based traffic filtering. This measure ensures that only legitimate traffic can reach the EC2 instance, thereby enhancing security without affecting the application's availability to other users. It's a more granular and immediate way to block specific traffic compared to modifying security group rules, which are stateful and apply at the instance level.

This solution meets the requirement of recovering the EC2 instances if the AWS account is compromised and the EBS snapshots are deleted. By creating a new AWS account with limited privileges, the company can isolate the backup snapshots from the main account and reduce the risk of accidental or malicious deletion. By allowing the new account to access the KMS key that encrypts the EBS snapshots, the company can ensure that the snapshots are copied in an encrypted form and can be decrypted when needed. By copying the encrypted snapshots to the new account on a recurring basis, the company can maintain a consistent backup schedule and minimize data loss.

CloudWatchLogsReadOnlyAccess doesn't include "logs:CreateLogStream" but it includes "logs:Get*" https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/logs/iam-identity-based-access-control-cwl.html#:~:text=oam%3A*%3A*%3Asink/*%22%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%20%20%20%20%5D%0A%7D-,CloudWatchLogsReadOnlyAccess,-The%20CloudWatchLogsReadOnly Access%20policy

The correct answer is D. Remove Amazon SES from the root SCP.

This answer is correct because the root SCP is the most restrictive policy that applies to all accounts in the organization. The root SCP explicitly denies access to Amazon SES by using the NotAction element, which means that any action that is not listed in the element is denied. Therefore, removing Amazon SES from the root SCP will allow the developers to access it, as long as there are no other SCPs or IAM policies that deny it.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Adding a resource policy that allows each member of the group to access Amazon SES is not a solution, because resource policies are not supported by Amazon SES1. Resource policies are policies that are attached to AWS resources, such as S3 buckets or SNS topics, to control access to those resources2. Amazon SES does not have any resources that can have resource policies attached to them.

B. Adding a resource policy that allows “Principal”: {“AWS”: “arn:aws:iam::account-number:group/Dev”} is not a solution, because resource policies do not support IAM groups as principals3. Principals are entities that can perform actions on AWS resources, such as IAM users, roles, or AWS accounts4. IAM groups are not principals, but collections of IAM users that share the same permissions5.

C. Removing the AWS Control Tower control (guardrail) that restricts access to Amazon SES is not a solution, because AWS Control Tower does not have any guardrails that restrict access to Amazon SES6. Guardrails are high-level rules that govern the overall behavior of an organization’s accounts7. AWS Control Tower provides a set of predefined guardrails that cover security, compliance, and operations domains8.

References:

1: Amazon Simple Email Service endpoints and quotas 2: Resource-based policies and IAM policies 3: Specifying a principal in a policy 4: Policy elements: Principal 5: IAM groups 6: AWS Control Tower guardrails reference 7: AWS Control Tower concepts 8: AWS Control Tower guardrails

Although you can use a IAM policy to prevent users launching resources in other regions. The best practice is to use SCP when using AWS organizations. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/orgs_manage_policies_scps_examples_general.html#example-scp-deny-region

The correct answer is A because GuardDuty can detect and alert on EC2 instance credential exfiltration events. These events indicate that the credentials obtained from the EC2 instance metadata service are being used from an IP address that is owned by a different AWS account than the one that owns the instance1. GuardDuty can also provide details such as the source and destination IP addresses, the AWS account ID of the attacker, and the API calls made using the exfiltrated credentials2.

The other options are incorrect because they do not provide the information needed to determine if the credentials were used to access the company’s resources from an external account. Option B is incorrect because Audit Manager does not generate InstanceCredentialExfiltration events. Audit Manager is a service that helps you continuously audit your AWS usage to simplify how you assess risk and compliance with regulations and industry standards3. Option C is incorrect because CloudTrail logs do not show the account ID of the caller for GetSessionToken API calls to AWS STS. CloudTrail logs show the account ID of the identity whose credentials were used to call the API4. Option D is incorrect because CloudWatch logs do not show the GetSessionToken API calls to AWS STS by default. CloudWatch logs can show the API calls made by AWS Lambda functions, Amazon API Gateway, and other AWS services that integrate with CloudWatch5.

To securely store the API key, the security team should do the following:

Create a secret in AWS Secrets Manager in the security account to store the API key using AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) for encryption. This allows the security team to encrypt and manage the API key centrally, and to configure automatic rotation schedules for it.

Grant access to the IAM role used by the Lambda function so that the function can retrieve the key from Secrets Manager and call the API. This allows the security team to avoid storing the API key with the source code, and to use IAM policies to control access to the secret.

The IAM Documentation mentions the following

To determine whether a log file was modified, deleted, or unchanged after CloudTrail delivered it you can use CloudTrail log file integrity validation. This feature is built using industry standard algorithms: SHA-256 for hashing and SHA-256 with RSA for digital signing. This makes it computationally infeasible to modify, delete or forge CloudTrail log files without detection. You can use the IAM CLI to validate the files in the location where CloudTrail delivered them

Validated log files are invaluable in security and forensic investigations. For example, a validated log file enables you to assert positively that the log file itself has not changed, or that particular user credentials performed specific API activity. The CloudTrail log file integrity validation process also lets you know if a log file has been deleted or changed, or assert positively that no log files were delivered to your account during a given period of time.

Options B.C and D is invalid because you need to check for log File Integrity Validation for cloudtrail logs

For more information on Cloudtrail log file validation, please visit the below URL:

http://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAMcloudtrail/latest/userguide/cloudtrail-log-file-validation-intro.html

The correct answer is: Use CloudTrail Log File Integrity Validation.

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You can establish a private connection between your VPC and Secrets Manager by creating an interface VPC endpoint. Interface endpoints are powered by AWS PrivateLink, a technology that enables you to privately access Secrets Manager APIs without an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or AWS Direct Connect connection. Reference: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/vpc-endpoint-overview.html

The correct answer is D. Configure a Secrets Manager interface VPC endpoint. Include the Lambda function’s private subnet during the configuration process.

A Secrets Manager interface VPC endpoint is a private connection between the VPC and Secrets Manager that does not require an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or AWS Direct Connect connection1. By configuring a Secrets Manager interface VPC endpoint, the security engineer can enable the custom Lambda function to communicate with Secrets Manager without sending or receiving network traffic through the internet. The security engineer must include the Lambda function’s private subnet during the configuration process to allow the function to use the endpoint2.

The other options are incorrect for the following reasons:

A. An egress-only internet gateway is a VPC component that allows outbound communication over IPv6 from instances in the VPC to the internet, and prevents the internet from initiating an IPv6 connection with the instances3. However, this option does not meet the requirement that the VPC must not send or receive network traffic through the internet. Moreover, an egress-only internet gateway is for use with IPv6 traffic only, and Secrets Manager does not support IPv6 addresses2.

B. A NAT gateway is a VPC component that enables instances in a private subnet to connect to the internet or other AWS services, but prevents the internet from initiating connections with those instances4. However, this option does not meet the requirement that the VPC must not send or receive network traffic through the internet. Additionally, a NAT gateway requires an elastic IP address, which is a public IPv4 address4.

C. A VPC peering connection is a networking connection between two VPCs that enables you to route traffic between them using private IPv4 addresses or IPv6 addresses5. However, this option does not work because Secrets Manager does not have a default VPC that can be peered with. Furthermore, a VPC peering connection does not provide a private connection to Secrets Manager APIs without an internet gateway or other devices2.

The correct answer is C. Specify Amazon CloudWatch as the destination for the access logs. Export the CloudWatch logs to an Amazon S3 bucket. Use Amazon Athena to query the logs and to filter the logs by host.

According to the AWS documentation1, AWS WAF offers logging for the traffic that your web ACLs analyze. The logs include information such as the time that AWS WAF received the request from your protected AWS resource, detailed information about the request, and the action setting for the rule that the request matched. You can send your logs to an Amazon CloudWatch Logs log group, an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket, or an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose.

To create a log analysis solution for the AWS WAF web ACLs, you can use Amazon Athena, which is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL2. You can use Athena to query and filter the AWS WAF logs by host or any other criteria. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to manage, and you pay only for the queries that you run.

To use Athena with AWS WAF logs, you need to export the CloudWatch logs to an S3 bucket. You can do this by creating a subscription filter that sends your log events to a Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream, which then delivers the data to an S3 bucket3. Alternatively, you can use AWS DMS to migrate your CloudWatch logs to S34.

After you have exported your CloudWatch logs to S3, you can create a table in Athena that points to your S3 bucket and use the AWS service log format that matches your log schema5. For example, if you are using JSON format for your AWS WAF logs, you can use the AWSJSONSerDe serde. Then you can run SQL queries on your Athena table and filter the results by host or any other field in your log data.

Therefore, this solution meets the requirements of creating a log analysis solution for the AWS WAF web ACLs with the most operational efficiency. This solution does not require setting up any additional infrastructure or services, and it leverages the existing capabilities of CloudWatch, S3, and Athena.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Specifying Amazon Redshift as the destination for the access logs is not possible, because AWS WAF does not support sending logs directly to Redshift. You would need to use an intermediate service such as Kinesis Data Firehose or AWS DMS to load the data from CloudWatch or S3 to Redshift. Deploying the Amazon Athena Redshift connector is not necessary, because you can query Redshift data directly from Athena without using a connector6. This solution would also incur additional costs and operational overhead of managing a Redshift cluster.

B. Specifying Amazon CloudWatch as the destination for the access logs is possible, but using Amazon CloudWatch Logs Insights to design a query to filter the logs by host is not efficient or scalable. CloudWatch Logs Insights is a feature that enables you to interactively search and analyze your log data in CloudWatch Logs7. However, CloudWatch Logs Insights has some limitations, such as a maximum query duration of 20 minutes, a maximum of 20 log groups per query, and a maximum retention period of 24 months8. These limitations may affect your ability to perform complex and long-running analysis on your AWS WAF logs.

D. Specifying Amazon CloudWatch as the destination for the access logs is possible, but using Amazon Redshift Spectrum to query the logs and filter them by host is not efficient or cost-effective. Redshift Spectrum is a feature of Amazon Redshift that enables you to run queries against exabytes of data in S3 without loading or transforming any data9. However, Redshift Spectrum requires a Redshift cluster to process the queries, which adds additional costs and operational overhead. Redshift Spectrum also charges you based on the number of bytes scanned by each query, which can be expensive if you have large volumes of log data10.

References:

1: Logging AWS WAF web ACL traffic - Amazon Web Services 2: What Is Amazon Athena? - Amazon Athena 3: Streaming CloudWatch Logs Data to Amazon S3 - Amazon CloudWatch Logs 4: Migrate data from CloudWatch Logs using AWS Database Migration Service - AWS Database Migration Service 5: Querying AWS service logs - Amazon Athena 6: Querying data from Amazon Redshift - Amazon Athena 7: Analyzing log data with CloudWatch Logs Insights - Amazon CloudWatch Logs 8: CloudWatch Logs Insights quotas - Amazon CloudWatch 9: Querying external data using Amazon Redshift Spectrum - Amazon Redshift 10: Amazon Redshift Spectrum pricing - Amazon Redshift

To ensure that application content is accessible only through CloudFront and not directly, the security engineer should do the following:

Add an origin custom header. This is a header that CloudFront adds to the requests that it sends to the origin, but viewers cannot see or modify.

Set the viewer protocol policy to redirect HTTP to HTTPS. This ensures that the viewers always use HTTPS when they access the website through CloudFront.

Set the origin protocol policy to HTTPS only. This ensures that CloudFront always uses HTTPS when it connects to the origin.

Update the application to validate the CloudFront custom header. This means that the application checks if the request has the custom header and only responds if it does. Otherwise, it denies or ignores the request. This prevents users from bypassing CloudFront and accessing the content directly on the origin.

To see Security Hub findings for accounts that are outside the organization that includes the Security Hub administrator account, the following steps are required:

Send invitations to accounts that are outside the company’s organization from the Security Hub administrator account. This will allow the administrator account to view and manage findings from those accounts. The administrator account can send invitations by using the Security Hub console, API, or CLI. For more information, see Sending invitations to member accounts.

Send an administration request from the member accounts. This will allow the member accounts to accept the invitation from the administrator account and establish a relationship with it. The member accounts can send administration requests by using the Security Hub console, API, or CLI. For more information, see Sending administration requests.

This solution will enable the company to see Security Hub findings for many AWS accounts and AWS Regions, including accounts that are outside its own organization.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not establish a relationship between the administrator and member accounts (A, B), do not enable Security Hub for all member accounts (D), or do not use a valid service for Security Hub (F).

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/securityhub/latest/userguide/securityhub-member-accounts.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_examples_aws_deny-requested-region.html

To enable S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) for objects that are encrypted with SSE-KMS, the following steps are required:

Grant the IAM role the kms.Decrypt permission for the key in us-east-1 that encrypts source objects. This will allow the IAM role to decrypt the source objects before replicating them to the destination bucket. The kms.Decrypt permission must be granted in the key policy of the source KMS key or in an IAM policy attached to the IAM role.

Grant the IAM role the kms.Encrypt permission for the key in us-west-2 that encrypts objects that are in the destination S3 bucket. This will allow the IAM role to encrypt the replica objects with the destination KMS key before storing them in the destination bucket. The kms.Encrypt permission must be granted in the key policy of the destination KMS key or in an IAM policy attached to the IAM role.

This solution will remediate the issue of encrypted objects not being replicated to the destination bucket.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not grant the necessary permissions for CRR (A, C, D), or do not use a valid encryption method for CRR (E).

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/replication-config-for-kms-objects.html

To secure the images to limit their distribution, the company should take the following actions:

Update the S3 bucket policy to restrict access to a CloudFront origin access identity (OAI). This allows the company to use a special CloudFront user that can access objects in their S3 bucket, and prevent anyone else from accessing them directly.

Add a CloudFront geo restriction deny list of countries where the company lacks a license. This allows the company to use a feature that controls access to their content based on the geographic location of their viewers, and block requests from countries where they do not have a distribution license.

To create a process that will allow application teams to provision their own IAM roles, while limiting the scope of IAM roles and preventing privilege escalation, the following steps are required:

Create a service control policy (SCP) that defines the maximum permissions that can be granted to any IAM role in the organization. An SCP is a type of policy that you can use with AWS Organizations to manage permissions for all accounts in your organization. SCPs restrict permissions for entities in member accounts, including each AWS account root user, IAM users, and roles. For more information, see Service control policies overview.

Create a permissions boundary for IAM roles that matches the SCP. A permissions boundary is an advanced feature for using a managed policy to set the maximum permissions that an identity-based policy can grant to an IAM entity. A permissions boundary allows an entity to perform only the actions that are allowed by both its identity-based policies and its permissions boundaries. For more information, see Permissions boundaries for IAM entities.

Add the SCP to the root organizational unit (OU) so that it applies to all accounts in the organization. This will ensure that no IAM role can exceed the permissions defined by the SCP, regardless of how it is created or modified.

Instruct the application teams to attach the permissions boundary to any IAM role they create. This will prevent them from creating IAM roles that can escalate their own privileges or access resources they are not authorized to access.

This solution will meet the requirements with the least operational overhead, as it leverages AWS Organizations and IAM features to delegate and limit IAM role creation without requiring manual reviews or approvals.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not allow application teams to provision their own IAM roles (A), do not limit the scope of IAM roles or prevent privilege escalation (B), or do not take advantage of managed services whenever possible ©.

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/orgs_manage_policies_scp.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies_boundaries.html

The AWS documentation states that you can use the awslogs log driver to send log information to CloudWatch Logs. To use this method, you specify the parameters for awslogs-group and awslogs-region in the LogConfiguration property of the container definition. This method is the easiest way to send logs to CloudWatch Logs.

References: : Amazon Elastic Container Service Developer Guide

The condition of "s3:x-amz-server-side-encryption":"IAM:kms" ensures that objects uploaded need to be encrypted.

Options B,C and D are invalid because you have to ensure the condition of ns3:x-amz-server-side-encryption":"IAM:kms" is present

For more information on IAM KMS best practices, just browse to the below URL:

https://dl. IAMstatic.com/whitepapers/IAM-kms-best-praaices.pdf

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this is a way to configure a Classic Load Balancer with perfect forward secrecy cipher suites. Perfect forward secrecy is a property of encryption protocols that ensures that past and current TLS traffic stays secure even if the certificate private key is leaked. Cipher suites are sets of algorithms that determine how encryption is performed. A custom security policy is a set of cipher suites and protocols that you can select for your load balancer to support. An HTTPS listener is a process that checks for connection requests using encrypted SSL/TLS protocol. By using an HTTPS listener that uses a custom security policy that allows only perfect forward secrecy cipher suites, you can ensure that your Classic Load Balancer meets the requirements. The other options are either invalid or insufficient for configuring a Classic Load Balancer with perfect forward secrecy cipher suites.

https://d1.awsstatic.com/WWPS/pdf/aws_security_incident_response.pdf

This solution ensures that the Lambda functions are deployed inside the VPC and can communicate with the Amazon RDS DB instance securely. The security group attached to the Lambda functions only allows outbound traffic to the VPC CIDR range, and the DB instance security group only allows traffic from the Lambda security group. This solution ensures that the Lambda functions can communicate with the DB instance securely and that the DB instance is not exposed to the public internet.

The AWS documentation states that you can add an outbound allow rule for 192.168.2.0/24 in subnet-2-NACL and add an outbound allow rule for 192.168.1.0/24 in subnet-2-NACL. This will allow the EC2 instances that are running in these two subnets to communicate again.

References: : Amazon VPC User Guide

To allow cross-account access to a KMS key, the key policy of the KMS key must grant permission to the external account or principal, and the IAM policy of the external account or principal must delegate the key policy permission. In this case, the new Lambda function in the development account needs to use the KMS key in the security account, so the key policy of the KMS key must allow access to the IAM role of the new Lambda function in the development account (option E), and the IAM role of the new Lambda function in the development account must have an IAM policy that allows access to the KMS key in the security account (option C). Option A is incorrect because it creates an IAM role for the new Lambda function in the security account, not in the development account. Option B is incorrect because it attaches a key policy to an IAM role, which is not valid. Option D is incorrect because it allows access to the IAM role of the new Lambda function in the security account, not in the development account. Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kms/latest/developerguide/key-policy-modifying-external-accounts.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/ec2/userguide/key-policy-requirements-EBS-encryption.html

To preserve the data for 7 years and prevent anyone from changing or deleting it, the security officer needs to use a service that can store the data securely and enforce compliance controls. The most cost-effective way to do this is to use Amazon S3 Glacier, which is a low-cost storage service for data archiving and long-term backup. S3 Glacier allows you to create a vault, which is a container for storing archives. Archives are any data such as photos, videos, or documents that you want to store durably and reliably.

S3 Glacier also offers a feature called Vault Lock, which helps you to easily deploy and enforce compliance controls for individual vaults with a Vault Lock policy. You can specify controls such as “write once read many” (WORM) in a Vault Lock policy and lock the policy from future edits. Once a Vault Lock policy is locked, the policy can no longer be changed or deleted. S3 Glacier enforces the controls set in the Vault Lock policy to help achieve your compliance objectives. For example, you can use Vault Lock policies to enforce data retention by denying deletes for a specified period of time.

To use S3 Glacier and Vault Lock, the security officer needs to follow these steps:

Create a vault in S3 Glacier using the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or AWS SDKs.

Create a Vault Lock policy in S3 Glacier that meets all the regulatory requirements using the IAM policy language. The policy can include conditions such as aws:CurrentTime or aws:SecureTransport to further restrict access to the vault.

Initiate the lock by attaching the Vault Lock policy to the vault, which sets the lock to an in-progress state and returns a lock ID. While the policy is in the in-progress state, you have 24 hours to validate your Vault Lock policy before the lock ID expires. To prevent your vault from exiting the in-progress state, you must complete the Vault Lock process within these 24 hours. Otherwise, your Vault Lock policy will be deleted.

Use the lock ID to complete the lock process. If the Vault Lock policy doesn’t work as expected, you can stop the Vault Lock process and restart from the beginning.

Upload the data to the vault using either direct upload or multipart upload methods.

For more information about S3 Glacier and Vault Lock, see S3 Glacier Vault Lock.

The other options are incorrect because:

Option A is incorrect because creating an Amazon S3 bucket and configuring it to use S3 Object Lock in compliance mode will not prevent anyone from changing or deleting the data. S3 Object Lock is a feature that allows you to store objects using a WORM model in S3. You can apply two types of object locks: retention periods and legal holds. A retention period specifies a fixed period of time during which an object remains locked. A legal hold is an indefinite lock on an object until it is removed. However, S3 Object Lock only prevents objects from being overwritten or deleted by any user, including the root user in your AWS account. It does not prevent objects from being modified by other means, such as changing their metadata or encryption settings. Moreover, S3 Object Lock requires that you enable versioning on your bucket, which will incur additional storage costs for storing multiple versions of an object.

Option B is incorrect because creating an Amazon S3 bucket and configuring it to use S3 Object Lock in governance mode will not prevent anyone from changing or deleting the data. S3 Object Lock in governance mode works similarly to compliance mode, except that users with specific IAM permissions can change or delete objects that are locked. This means that users who have s3:BypassGovernanceRetention permission can remove retention periods or legal holds from objects and overwrite or delete them before they expire. This option does not provide strong enforcement for compliance controls as required by the regulatory requirements.

Option D is incorrect because creating an Amazon S3 bucket and using a lifecycle rule to transition the data to a vault in S3 Glacier will not prevent anyone from changing or deleting the data. Lifecycle rules are actions that Amazon S3 automatically performs on objects during their lifetime. You can use lifecycle rules to transition objects between storage classes or expire them after a certain period of time. However, lifecycle rules do not apply any compliance controls on objects or prevent them from being modified or deleted by users. Moreover, transitioning objects from S3 to S3 Glacier using lifecycle rules will incur additional charges for retrieval requests and data transfers.

Note that the IP is known and the question wants us to deny access from that particular address and so we can use IP set match policy of WAF to block access.

The correct answer is A. Revoke all versions of the signing profile assigned to the developer.

According to the AWS documentation1, AWS Signer is a fully managed code-signing service that helps you ensure the trust and integrity of your code. You can use Signer to sign code artifacts, such as Lambda deployment packages, with code-signing certificates that you control and manage.

A signing profile is a collection of settings that Signer uses to sign your code artifacts. A signing profile includes information such as the following:

The type of signature that you want to create (for example, a code-signing signature).

The signing algorithm that you want Signer to use to sign your code.

The code-signing certificate and its private key that you want Signer to use to sign your code.

You can create multiple versions of a signing profile, each with a different code-signing certificate. You can also revoke a version of a signing profile if you no longer want to use it for signing code artifacts.

In this case, the company wants to ensure that all the code that the developer wrote can no longer be deployed to the Lambda functions. One way to achieve this is to revoke all versions of the signing profile that was assigned to the developer. This will prevent Signer from using that signing profile to sign any new code artifacts, and also invalidate any existing signatures that were created with that signing profile. This way, the company can ensure that only trusted and authorized code can be deployed to the Lambda functions.

The other options are incorrect because:

B. Examining the developer’s IAM roles and removing all permissions that grant access to Signer may not be sufficient to prevent the deployment of the developer’s code. The developer may have already signed some code artifacts with a valid signing profile before leaving the company, and those signatures may still be accepted by Lambda unless the signing profile is revoked.

C. Re-encrypting all source code with a new AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key may not be effective or practical. AWS KMS is a service that lets you create and manage encryption keys for your data. However, Lambda does not require encryption keys for deploying code artifacts, only valid signatures from Signer. Therefore, re-encrypting the source code may not prevent the deployment of the developer’s code if it has already been signed with a valid signing profile. Moreover, re-encrypting all source code may be time-consuming and disruptive for other developers who are working on the same code base.

D. Using Amazon CodeGuru to profile all the code that the Lambda functions use may not help with preventing the deployment of the developer’s code. Amazon CodeGuru is a service that provides intelligent recommendations to improve your code quality and identify an application’s most expensive lines of code. However, CodeGuru does not perform any security checks or validations on your code artifacts, nor does it interact with Signer or Lambda in any way. Therefore, using CodeGuru may not prevent unauthorized or untrusted code from being deployed to the Lambda functions.

References:

1: What is AWS Signer? - AWS Signer

AWS Nitro Enclaves are isolated and hardened virtual machines that run on EC2 instances and provide a secure environment for processing sensitive data. Nitro Enclaves have no persistent storage, interactive access, or external networking, and they can only communicate with the parent instance through a secure local channel. Nitro Enclaves also support cryptographic attestation, which allows verifying the identity and integrity of the enclave and its code. Nitro Enclaves are ideal for implementing data protection solutions such as tokenization, encryption, and key management.

Using Nitro Enclaves for the tokenization component of the application meets the requirements of isolating the sensitive data from other parts of the application, encrypting and storing the credit card numbers securely, and issuing tokens to replace the numbers. Other components of the application will not be able to access or store the credit card numbers, as they are only available within the enclave.

The correct answer is A and B. The principal’s identity-based policy grants access to put objects into the S3 bucket with no conditions, and the principal’s identity-based policy overrides the condition because the identity-based policy contains an explicit allow.

The reason is that when evaluating access requests, AWS uses a combination of resource-based policies (such as bucket policies) and identity-based policies (such as IAM user policies) to determine whether to allow or deny the action. According to the AWS documentation1, “If an explicit allow exists in either the resource-based policy or the identity-based policy, then AWS allows access to the resource.” Therefore, even if the bucket policy has a condition that checks the tag values, it will not be effective if the principal’s identity-based policy has an explicit allow for the PutObject action without any conditions. The explicit allow in the identity-based policy will override the condition in the bucket policy and grant access to the principal.

The other options are incorrect because:

C. The S3 bucket’s resource policy does not deny access to put objects. This is not a factor that causes the PutObject operation to succeed when the tag values are different. The bucket policy can either allow or deny access based on conditions, but it cannot prevent an explicit allow in the identity-based policy from taking effect.

D. The S3 bucket’s resource policy cannot allow actions to the principal. This is not true. The bucket policy can allow actions to specific principals by using the Principal element in the policy statement. According to the AWS documentation2, “The Principal element specifies the user (IAM user, federated user, or assumed-role user), AWS account, AWS service, or other principal entity that is allowed or denied access to a resource.”

E. The bucket policy does not apply to principals in the same zone of trust. This is not true. The bucket policy applies to any principal that is specified in the Principal element, regardless of whether they are in the same zone of trust or not. A zone of trust is a logical boundary that defines who can access a resource and under what conditions. According to the AWS documentation3, “A zone of trust can be as small as a single resource (for example, an Amazon S3 object) or as large as an entire AWS account.”

The correct answer is B because it checks the configuration of the CloudWatch alarm that is supposed to monitor the CloudTrail log events. The analyst should verify that a metric filter was created to extract the relevant information from the log events, such as the event name, source, and user identity. The analyst should also verify that the metric filter was mapped to an alarm that triggers when a certain threshold is reached, and that the alarm notification action is set up correctly to send alerts to the analyst1.

The other options are incorrect because they do not address the issue of the CloudWatch alarm not working as expected. Option A is incorrect because CloudTrail and S3 bucket access logging are not related to the monitoring of security group changes. CloudTrail logs the API calls made to AWS services, and S3 bucket access logging records the requests made to the bucket2. Option C is incorrect because CloudWatch dashboards are used to display metrics and alarms in a graphical way, but they do not affect the functionality of the alarm3. Option D is incorrect because the IAM policy permissions for cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics and cloudwatch:ListMetrics are not required to monitor the CloudTrail log events. These permissions are used to retrieve the statistics and list of metrics for a given namespace4.

The correct answer is A. Create an AWS Service Catalog portfolio in the organization’s management account. Upload the CloudFormation template. Add the template to the portfolio’s product list. Share the portfolio with the OU.

According to the AWS documentation, AWS Service Catalog is a service that allows you to create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS. You can use Service Catalog to centrally manage commonly deployed IT services and help achieve consistent governance and compliance requirements, while enabling users to quickly deploy only the approved IT services they need.

To use Service Catalog with multiple AWS accounts, you need to enable AWS Organizations with all features enabled. This allows you to centrally manage your accounts and apply policies across your organization. You can also use Service Catalog as a service principal for AWS Organizations, which lets you share your portfolios with organizational units (OUs) or accounts in your organization.

To create a Service Catalog portfolio, you need to use an administrator account, such as the organization’s management account. You can upload your CloudFormation template as a product in your portfolio, and define constraints and tags for it. You can then share your portfolio with the OU that contains the accounts for the web applications. This will allow the developers in those accounts to launch products from the shared portfolio using the Service Catalog end user console.

Option B is incorrect because CloudFormation modules are reusable components that encapsulate one or more resources and their configurations. They are not meant to be used as templates for deploying entire stacks of resources. Moreover, sharing a module with an OU does not grant access to launch stacks from it.

Option C is incorrect because creating an IAM role that has a trust policy that allows cross-account access to the portfolio is not secure. It would allow any user in the OU accounts to assume the role and access the portfolio, regardless of their job function or access requirements.

Option D is incorrect because sharing a module with an OU does not grant access to launch stacks from it. It also does not limit access to the deployment plan to only the developers who need access.

The AWS documentation states that you can create a new AMI without the potentially compromised credentials and create an 1AM role that includes the correct permissions. You can then create a launch template for the Auto Scaling group to reference the new AMI and 1AM role. This method is the most secure way to remediate the security concerns without causing downtime for the application.

References: : AWS Security Best Practices

To avoid AccessDeniedExceptions when users first attempt to encrypt using the CMK, the security specialist should recommend the following solution:

Instruct the engineering team to pass the grant token returned in the CreateGrant response to users. This allows the engineering team to use the grant token as a form of temporary authorization for the grant.

Instruct users to use that grant token in their call to encrypt. This allows the users to use the grant token as a proof that they have permission to use the CMK, and to avoid any eventual consistency issues with the grant creation.

The AWS documentation states that you can create an Amazon EventBridge rule to detect KMS API calls of DisableKey and ScheduleKeyDeletion. You can then create an AWS Lambda function to send an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) message to the company. You can add the Lambda function as the target of the EventBridge rule. This method will meet the requirements.

References: : AWS KMS Developer Guide

To configure DNSSEC for a domain registered with Route 53, the most operationally efficient solution is to migrate the zone to Route 53 with DNSSEC signing enabled, create a key-signing key (KSK) that is based on an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) customer managed key, and add a delegation signer (DS) record to the parent zone. This way, Route 53 handles the zone-signing key (ZSK) and the signing of the records in the hosted zone, and the customer only needs to manage the KSK in AWS KMS and provide the DS record to the domain registrar. Option A is incorrect because it does not involve migrating the zone to Route 53, which would simplify the DNSSEC configuration. Option B is incorrect because it creates both a ZSK and a KSK based on AWS KMS customer managed keys, which is unnecessary and less efficient than letting Route 53 manage the ZSK. Option C is incorrect because it does not involve migrating the zone to Route 53, and it requires running the dnssec-signzone command manually, which is less efficient than letting Route 53 sign the zone automatically. Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/domain-configure-dnssec.html

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/12/announcing-amazon-route-53-support-dnssec/

The correct answer is B. Use data key caching. Use the local cache that the AWS Encryption SDK provides with a caching cryptographic materials manager.

This answer is correct because data key caching can improve performance, reduce cost, and help the company stay within the service limits of AWS KMS. Data key caching stores data keys and related cryptographic material in a cache, and reuses them for encryption and decryption operations. This reduces the number of requests to AWS KMS endpoints and avoids throttling. The AWS Encryption SDK provides a local cache and a caching cryptographic materials manager (caching CMM) that interacts with the cache and enforces security thresholds that the company can set1.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Using keyrings with the AWS Encryption SDK does not address the problem of throttling or cost optimization. Keyrings are used to generate, encrypt, and decrypt data keys, but they do not cache or reuse them. Using each keyring individually or combining them into a multi-keyring does not reduce the number of requests to AWS KMS endpoints2.

C. Using KMS key rotation does not address the problem of throttling or cost optimization. Key rotation is a security practice that creates new cryptographic material for a KMS key every year, but it does not affect the data that the KMS key protects. Key rotation does not reduce the number of requests to AWS KMS endpoints, and it might incur additional costs for storing multiple versions of key material3.

D. Using keyrings with the AWS Encryption SDK does not address the problem of throttling or cost optimization, as explained in option A. Moreover, using any of the wrapping keys in the multi-keyring to decrypt the data is not a valid option, because only one of the wrapping keys can decrypt a given data key. The wrapping key that encrypts a data key is stored in the encrypted data key structure, and only that wrapping key can decrypt it4.

References:

1: Data key caching - AWS Encryption SDK 2: Using keyrings - AWS Encryption SDK 3: Rotating AWS KMS keys - AWS Key Management Service 4: How keyrings work - AWS Encryption SDK

You can use IAM CloudTrail to get a history of IAM API calls and related events for your account. This history includes calls made with the IAM Management Console, IAM Command Line Interface, IAM SDKs, and other IAM services.

Options A,B and D are invalid because you need to ensure that you use the services of CloudTrail, IAM Config, IAM Credential Reports

For more information on Cloudtrail, please visit the below URL:

http://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAMcloudtrail/latest/userguide/cloudtrail-user-guide.html

IAM Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit and evaluate the configurations of your IAM resources. Config continuously monitors and records your IAM resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations. With Config, you can review changes in configurations and relationships between IAM resources, dive into detailed resource configuration histories, and determine your overall compliance against the configurations specified in your internal guidelines. This enables you to simplify compliance auditing, security analysis, char management and operational troubleshooting.

For more information on the config service, please visit the below URL

https://IAM.amazon.com/config/

You can generate and download a credential report that lists all users in your account and the status of their various credentials, including passwords, access keys, and MFA devices. You can get a credential report from the IAM Management Console, the IAM SDKs and Command Line Tools, or the IAM API.

For more information on Credentials Report, please visit the below URL:

http://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id credentials_getting-report.html

The correct answer is: CloudTrail, IAM Config, IAM Credential Reports Submit your Feedback/Queries to our Experts

To protect the sensitive data against any data breach and minimize management overhead, the security engineer should recommend the following solution:

Enable Amazon RDS encryption to encrypt the database and snapshots. This allows the security engineer to use AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) to encrypt data at rest for the database and any backups or replicas.

Enable Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) encryption on Amazon EC2 instances. This allows the security engineer to use AWS KMS to encrypt data at rest for the EC2 instances and any snapshots or volumes.

Store the database credentials in AWS Secrets Manager with automatic rotation. This allows the security engineer to encrypt and manage secrets centrally, and to configure automatic rotation schedules for them.

Set up TLS for the connection to the RDS hosted database. This allows the security engineer to encrypt data in transit between the EC2 instances and the database.

To improve the security at the edge of the solution to defend against a large, layer 7 DDoS attack, the security engineer should do the following:

Configure AWS WAF with a rate-based rule that imposes a rate limit that automatically blocks requests when the rate limit is exceeded. This allows the security engineer to use a rule that tracks the number of requests from a single IP address and blocks subsequent requests if they exceed a specified threshold within a specified time period.

The correct answer is C. The GuardDuty integration with Security Hub was never activated in the AWS account where the finding was generated.

According to the AWS documentation1, GuardDuty findings are automatically sent to Security Hub only if the GuardDuty integration with Security Hub is enabled in the same account and Region. This means that the security tooling account, which is the delegated administrator for both GuardDuty and Security Hub, must enable the GuardDuty integration with Security Hub in each member account and Region where GuardDuty is enabled. Otherwise, the findings from GuardDuty will not be visible in Security Hub.

The other options are incorrect because:

VPC flow logs are not required for GuardDuty to generate DNS findings. GuardDuty uses VPC DNS logs, which are automatically enabled for all VPCs, to detect malicious or unauthorized DNS activity.

The DHCP option configured for a custom OpenDNS resolver does not affect GuardDuty’s ability to generate DNS findings. GuardDuty uses its own threat intelligence sources to identify malicious domains, regardless of the DNS resolver used by the EC2 instance.

Cross-Region aggregation in Security Hub is not relevant for this scenario, because the company operates out of a single AWS Region. Cross-Region aggregation allows Security Hub to aggregate findings from multiple Regions into a single Region.

References:

1: Managing GuardDuty accounts with AWS Organizations : Amazon GuardDuty Findings : How Amazon GuardDuty Works : Cross-Region aggregation in AWS Security Hub

To rotate database credentials every 30 days, the most secure and efficient solution is to store the database credentials in AWS Secrets Manager and configure automatic credential rotation for every 30 days. Secrets Manager can handle the rotation of the credentials in both the secret and the database, and it can use AWS KMS to encrypt the credentials. Option B is incorrect because it requires creating a custom Lambda function to rotate the credentials, which is more effort than using Secrets Manager. Option C is incorrect because it stores the database credentials in an environment file or a configuration file, which is less secure than using Secrets Manager. Option D is incorrect because it combines the drawbacks of option B and option C. Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/rotating-secrets.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/rotate-secrets_turn-on-for-other.html

The correct answer is B and D. In the dedicated security account, create an Amazon S3 bucket. Configure S3 Object Lock in compliance mode and a retention period of 2 years on the S3 bucket. Set the bucket policy to allow the organization’s member accounts to write to the S3 bucket. Create an AWS CloudTrail trail for the organization. Configure logs to be delivered to the logging Amazon S3 bucket in the dedicated security account.

According to the AWS documentation, AWS CloudTrail is a service that enables governance, compliance, operational auditing, and risk auditing of your AWS account. With CloudTrail, you can log, continuously monitor, and retain account activity related to actions across your AWS infrastructure. CloudTrail provides event history of your AWS account activity, including actions taken through the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and other AWS services.

To use CloudTrail with multiple AWS accounts and regions, you need to enable AWS Organizations with all features enabled. This allows you to centrally manage your accounts and apply policies across your organization. You can also use CloudTrail as a service principal for AWS Organizations, which lets you create an organization trail that applies to all accounts in your organization. An organization trail logs events for all AWS Regions and delivers the log files to an S3 bucket that you specify.

To create an organization trail, you need to use an administrator account, such as the organization’s management account or a delegated administrator account. You can then configure the trail to deliver logs to an S3 bucket in the dedicated security account. This will ensure that all account activity across all member accounts and regions is logged and reported to the security account.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon S3 is an object storage service that offers scalability, data availability, security, and performance. You can use S3 to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web. You can also use S3 features such as lifecycle management, encryption, versioning, and replication to optimize your storage.

To use S3 with CloudTrail logs, you need to create an S3 bucket in the dedicated security account that will store the logs from the organization trail. You can then configure S3 Object Lock on the bucket to prevent objects from being deleted or overwritten for a fixed amount of time or indefinitely. You can also enable compliance mode on the bucket, which prevents any user, including the root user in your account, from deleting or modifying a locked object until it reaches its retention date.

To set a retention period of 2 years on the S3 bucket, you need to create a default retention configuration for the bucket that specifies a retention mode (either governance or compliance) and a retention period (either a number of days or a date). You can then set the bucket policy to allow the organization’s member accounts to write to the S3 bucket. This will ensure that all logs are retained in a secure storage location within the security account for 2 years and no changes or deletions are allowed.

Option A is incorrect because setting the bucket policy to allow the organization’s management account to write to the S3 bucket is not sufficient, as it will not grant access to the other member accounts in the organization.

Option C is incorrect because using an S3 Lifecycle configuration that expires objects after 2 years is not secure, as it will allow users to delete or modify objects before they expire.

Option E is incorrect because using Lambda and Kinesis Data Firehose to forward logs from one S3 bucket to another is not necessary, as CloudTrail can directly deliver logs to an S3 bucket in another account. It also introduces additional operational overhead and complexity.

Amazon S3 is a service that provides scalable, durable, and secure object storage. You can use Amazon S3 to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web1

AWS Elastic Load Balancing is a service that distributes incoming application or network traffic across multiple targets, such as EC2 instances, containers, or IP addresses. You can use Elastic Load Balancing to increase the availability and fault tolerance of your applications2

Elastic Load Balancing supports access logging, which captures detailed information about requests sent to your load balancer. Each log contains information such as the time the request was received, the client’s IP address, latencies, request paths, and server responses. You can use access logs to analyze traffic patterns and troubleshoot issues3

You can configure your load balancer to store access logs in an Amazon S3 bucket that you specify. You can also specify the interval for publishing the logs, which can be 5 or 60 minutes. The logs are stored in a hierarchical folder structure by load balancer name, IP address, year, month, day, and time.

Amazon Athena is a service that allows you to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. You can use Athena to run ad-hoc queries and get results in seconds. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to manage and you pay only for the queries that you run.

You can use Athena to search the access logs that are stored in your S3 bucket. You can create a table in Athena that maps to your S3 bucket and then run SQL queries on the table. You can also use the Athena console or API to view and download the query results.

You can also use Athena to create queries for the required metrics, such as the number of requests per cipher or protocol. You can then publish the metrics to Amazon CloudWatch, which is a service that monitors and manages your AWS resources and applications. You can use CloudWatch to collect and track metrics, create alarms, and automate actions based on the state of your resources.

By using this solution, you can meet the requirements of ensuring that all the load balancer logs are centralized and searchable for auditing and that metrics are generated to show which ciphers are in use.

The AWS documentation states that you can create an Amazon EventBridge rule with a pattern that matches Security Hub findings events with high severity. You can then configure the rule to send the findings to a target Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic. You can subscribe the desired email addresses to the SNS topic. This method is the least operational overhead way to meet the requirements.

References: : AWS Security Hub User Guide

Utilizing AWS Config with a custom AWS Config rule (ec2-managedinstance-applications-required) enables detection of EC2 instances lacking the required software across all accounts in an organization. By creating an Amazon EventBridge rule that triggers on AWS Config events, and configuring it to invoke an AWS Lambda function, automated actions can be taken to ensure compliance. The Lambda function can leverage AWS Systems Manager Run Command to install the necessary software on non-compliant instances. This approach ensures continuous compliance and automated remediation, aligning with best practices for cloud security and management.

The correct answer is D.

To stop the data exfiltration from the compromised EC2 instances, the security engineer needs to implement a solution that can deny access to any S3 bucket that is outside the company’s organization. The solution should also allow the EC2 instances to access the required S3 buckets within the company’s organization for the analysis process.

Option A is incorrect because updating the policy on the S3 gateway endpoint will not affect the access to S3 buckets that are outside the company’s organization. The S3 gateway endpoint only applies to S3 buckets that are in the same AWS Region as the VPC. The compromised EC2 instances can still access S3 buckets in other Regions or other AWS accounts through the internet gateway or NAT device.

Option B is incorrect because updating the policy on the instance profile role will not prevent the compromised EC2 instances from using other credentials or methods to access S3 buckets outside the company’s organization. The instance profile role only applies to requests that are made using the credentials of that role. The compromised EC2 instances can still use other IAM users, roles, or access keys to access S3 buckets outside the company’s organization.

Option C is incorrect because adding a network ACL rule to block outgoing connections on port 443 will also block legitimate connections to S3 buckets within the company’s organization. The network ACL rule will prevent the EC2 instances from accessing any S3 bucket through HTTPS, regardless of whether it is inside or outside the company’s organization.

Option D is correct because applying an SCP on the AWS account will effectively deny access to any S3 bucket that is outside the company’s organization. The SCP will apply to all IAM users, roles, and resources in the AWS account, regardless of how they access S3. The SCP will use the aws:ResourceOrgID and aws:PrincipalOrgID condition keys to check whether the S3 bucket and the principal belong to the same organization as the AWS account. If they do not match, the SCP will deny the S3 actions.

References:

Using service control policies

AWS Organizations service control policy examples

To restrict the contractor’s IAM account access to the EC2 console without providing access to any other AWS services, the security engineer should do the following:

Create an IAM permissions boundary policy that allows EC2 access. This is a policy that defines the maximum permissions that an IAM entity can have.

Associate the contractor’s IAM account with the IAM permissions boundary policy. This means that even if the contractor’s IAM account is assigned additional permissions based on IAM group membership, those permissions are limited by the permissions boundary policy.

these are the solutions that can securely rotate the secrets for the production RDS database using Secrets Manager. Secrets Manager is a service that helps you manage secrets such as database credentials, API keys, and passwords. You can use Secrets Manager to rotate secrets automatically by using a Lambda function that runs on a schedule. The Lambda function needs to have access to both the RDS instance and the Secrets Manager service. Option B places the RDS instance in a private subnet and the Lambda function in the same VPC in another private subnet. The private subnet with the Lambda function needs to use a NAT gateway to access Secrets Manager over the internet. Option E places the RDS instance and the Lambda function in the same private subnet and configures a Secrets Manager interface endpoint, which is a private connection between the VPC and Secrets Manager. The other options are either insecure or incorrect for rotating secrets using Secrets Manager.

If you lose the private key for an EBS-backed instance, you can regain access to your instance. You must stop the instance, detach its root volume and attach it to another instance as a data volume, modify the authorized_keys file with a new public key, move the volume back to the original instance, and restart the instance. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/TroubleshootingInstancesConnecting.html#replacing-lost-key-pai

the most secure way to meet the requirements. TLS is a protocol that provides encryption and authentication for data in transit. ALB is a service that distributes incoming traffic across multiple EC2 instances. HIDS is a system that monitors and detects malicious activity on a host. ECDHE is a type of cipher suite that supports perfect forward secrecy, which is a property that ensures that past and current TLS traffic stays secure even if the certificate private key is leaked. By creating a listener on the ALB that does not enable PFS cipher suites, and using encrypted connections to the servers using ECDHE cipher suites, you can ensure that the HIDS agents can capture the traffic of the EC2 instance without compromising the privacy of the users. The other options are either less secure or less compatible with the third-party solution.

This answer is correct because it meets the requirements of returning the application to service, resolving the issue, and ensuring that logging is not turned off in the future. By editing the rules in the web ACL to include rules with Count actions, the security engineer can test the effect of each rule without blocking or allowing requests. By reviewing the logs, the security engineer can identify which rule is causing the problem and modify or delete it accordingly. By modifying the IAM policy of all AWS WAF administrators, the security engineer can restrict their permissions to prevent them from removing the logging configuration for any AWS WAF web ACLs.

The correct answer is B. Create an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic. Subscribe the third-party ticketing email system to the SNS topic. Create an Amazon EventBridge rule that includes an event pattern that matches High severity GuardDuty findings. Specify the SNS topic as the target for the Event-Bridge rule.

According to the AWS documentation1, you can use Amazon EventBridge to create rules that match events from GuardDuty and route them to targets such as Amazon SNS topics. You can use event patterns to filter events based on criteria such as severity, type, or resource. For example, you can create a rule that matches only High severity findings and sends them to an SNS topic that is subscribed by a third-party ticketing email system. This way, you can automate the creation of tickets for High severity findings and notify the security team.

For this scenario you would need to set up static website hosting because a custom domain name is listed as a requirement. "Amazon S3 website endpoints do not support HTTPS or access points. If you want to use HTTPS, you can use Amazon CloudFront to serve a static website hosted on Amazon S3." This is not secure. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/website-hosting-custom-domain-walkthrough.html CloudFront signed URLs allow much more fine-grained control as well as HTTPS access with custom domain names: https://docs.aws.a mazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/private-content-signed-urls.html

Multi-factor authentication can add one more layer of security to your IAM account Even when you go to your Security Credentials dashboard one of the items is to enable MFA on your root account

C:\Users\wk\Desktop\mudassar\Untitled.jpg

Option A is invalid because you need to have a good password policy Option B is invalid because there is no IAM Geo-Lock Option D is invalid because this is not a recommended practices For more information on MFA, please visit the below URL

http://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id credentials mfa.htmll

The correct answer is: Use MFA on all users and accounts, especially on the root account.

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The correct answer is B. Configure CloudTrail to send events to Amazon CloudWatch Logs. Create a metric filter for the relevant log group. Create a filter pattern with eventName matching ConsoleLogin and errorMessage matching “Failed authentication”. Create a CloudWatch alarm with a threshold of 3 and a period of 5 minutes.

This answer is correct because it meets the requirements of sending an alert when three or more failed sign-in attempts to the AWS Management Console occur during a 5-minute period. By configuring CloudTrail to send events to CloudWatch Logs, the security engineer can create a metric filter that matches the desired pattern of failed sign-in events. Then, by creating a CloudWatch alarm based on the metric filter, the security engineer can set a threshold of 3 and a period of 5 minutes, and choose an action such as sending an email or an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) message when the alarm is triggered12.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Turning on Insights events on the trail and configuring an alarm on the insight is not a solution, because Insights events are used to analyze unusual activity in management events, such as spikes in API call volume or error rates. Insights events do not capture failed sign-in attempts to the AWS Management Console3.

C. Creating an Amazon Athena table from the CloudTrail events and running a query for failed sign-in events is not a solution, because it does not provide a mechanism to send an alert based on the query results. Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that allows analyzing data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL, but it does not support creating notifications or alarms from queries4.

D. Creating an analyzer in AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer and configuring it to send an Amazon SNS notification when a failed sign-in event occurs 3 times for any IAM user within a period of 5 minutes is not a solution, because IAM Access Analyzer is not a service that monitors sign-in events, but a service that helps identify resources that are shared with external entities. IAM Access Analyzer does not generate findings for failed sign-in attempts to the AWS Management Console5.

References:

1: Sending CloudTrail Events to CloudWatch Logs - AWS CloudTrail 2: Creating Alarms Based on Metric Filters - Amazon CloudWatch 3: Analyzing unusual activity in management events - AWS CloudTrail 4: What is Amazon Athena? - Amazon Athena 5: Using AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer - AWS Identity and Access Management

Adjusting the IAM policy attached to the IAM role used by EC2 instances to include the necessary AWS Logs API actions for publishing logs to CloudWatch Logs addresses the issue. This ensures that the EC2 instances have the required permissions to interact with CloudWatch Logs, facilitating the successful publication of logs from the instances.

 these are the strategies that can reduce the attack surface and enhance the security of the containers. Containers are a method of packaging and running applications in isolated environments. Using containers to automate security deployments can help ensure that security patches and updates are applied consistently and quickly across the container fleet. Segregating containers by host, function, and data classification can help limit the impact of a compromise and enforce the principle of least privilege. The other options are either irrelevant or risky for securing containers.

To redesign the edge security to help mitigate the DDoS attack risk in the future, the engineer could do the following:

Move the static content to Amazon S3, and front this with an Amazon CloudFront distribution. This allows the engineer to use a global content delivery network that can cache static content at edge locations and reduce the load on the origin servers.

Use AWS WAF security rules to inspect the inbound traffic. This allows the engineer to use web application firewall rules that can filter malicious requests based on IP addresses, headers, body, or URI strings, and block them before they reach the web servers.

Use Amazon Route 53 to distribute traffic. This allows the engineer to use a scalable and highly available DNS service that can route traffic based on different policies, such as latency, geolocation, or health checks.

When using server-side encryption with AWS KMS keys (SSE-KMS), the requester must have both Amazon S3 permissions and AWS KMS permissions to access the objects. The Amazon S3 permissions are for the bucket and object operations, such as s3:ListBucket and s3:GetObject. The AWS KMS permissions are for the key operations, such as kms:GenerateDataKey and kms:Decrypt. In this case, the IAM role has the necessary Amazon S3 permissions, but not the AWS KMS permissions to use the customer managed key that encrypts the objects. Therefore, the IAM role receives an access denied message when trying to access the objects. Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/troubleshoot-403-errors.html

https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/s3-access-denied-error-kms

https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/cross-account-access-denied-error-s3

Option C is the best solution to ensure the durability and availability of log data from EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. By using an Amazon CloudWatch agent, the logs can be sent to Amazon CloudWatch Logs, which is a fully managed service that can store, monitor, and analyze log data. CloudWatch Logs also allows you to set retention policies for your log groups, so you can keep the logs for a minimum of 1 year for auditing purposes. CloudWatch Logs also supports encryption, access control, and compliance features to protect your log data12

This option involves creating a VPC Endpoint between the two VPCs that allows private communication between them without going through the internet or exposing any public IP addresses. In this option, a VPC endpoint for Amazon RDS will be established, and an interface VPC endpoint will be created that points to the service endpoint in the Aurora database's VPC. This way, the Lambda functions can use the private IP address of the Aurora database to access it through the VPC endpoint without exposing any public IP addresses or allowing public internet access to the database.

The correct answer is D. Import a new third-party certificate into AWS Certificate Manager (ACM). Associate the certificate with the ALB. Install the certificate on the EC2 instances.

This answer is correct because it meets the requirements of complete encryption of the traffic between external users and the application. By importing a third-party certificate into ACM, the security engineer can use it to secure the communication between the ALB and the clients. By installing the same certificate on the EC2 instances, the security engineer can also secure the communication between the ALB and the instances. This way, both the front-end and back-end connections are encrypted with SSL/TLS1.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Creating a new Amazon-issued certificate in AWS Secrets Manager is not a solution, because AWS Secrets Manager is not a service for issuing certificates, but for storing and managing secrets such as database credentials and API keys2. AWS Secrets Manager does not integrate with ALB or EC2 for certificate deployment.

B. Creating a new Amazon-issued certificate in AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) and exporting it from ACM is not a solution, because ACM does not allow exporting Amazon-issued certificates3. ACM only allows exporting private certificates that are issued by an AWS Private Certificate Authority (CA)4.

C. Importing a new third-party certificate into AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is not a solution, because IAM is not a service for managing certificates, but for controlling access to AWS resources5. IAM does not integrate with ALB or EC2 for certificate deployment.

References:

1: How SSL/TLS works 2: What is AWS Secrets Manager? 3: Exporting an ACM Certificate 4: Exporting Private Certificates from ACM 5: What is IAM?

This solution meets the requirement of receiving an email notification about critical findings in AWS Security Hub. Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus that can receive events from AWS services and third-party sources, and route them to targets based on rules and filters. Amazon SNS is a fully managed pub/sub service that can send messages to various endpoints, such as email, SMS, mobile push, and HTTP. By creating an EventBridge rule that detects critical Security Hub findings and sends them to an SNS topic, the company can leverage the existing integration between these services and avoid writing custom code or managing servers. By subscribing an email endpoint to the SNS topic, the company can receive published messages in their inbox.

The correct answer is A and C.

When using ABAC, the principal’s identity-based policy and the S3 bucket’s resource policy are both evaluated to determine the effective permissions. If either policy grants access to the principal, the action is allowed. If either policy denies access to the principal, the action is denied. Therefore, to enforce the tag-based condition, both policies must deny access when the tag values do not match.

In this case, the principal’s identity-based policy grants access to put objects into the S3 bucket with no conditions (A), which means that the policy does not check for the tag values. This policy overrides the condition in the bucket policy because an explicit allow always takes precedence over an implicit deny. The bucket policy can only allow or deny actions to the principal based on the condition, but it cannot override the identity-based policy.

The S3 bucket’s resource policy does not deny access to put objects ©, which means that it also does not check for the tag values. The bucket policy can only allow or deny actions to the principal based on the condition, but it cannot override the identity-based policy.

Therefore, the combination of factors A and C are causing the PutObject operation to succeed when the tag values are different.

References:

Using ABAC with Amazon S3

Bucket policy examples

To set up a CloudFront distribution for an S3 bucket that hosts a static website, and to allow only specified IP addresses to access the website, the following steps are required:

Create a CloudFront origin access identity (OAI), which is a special CloudFront user that you can associate with your distribution. An OAI allows you to restrict access to your S3 content by using signed URLs or signed cookies. For more information, see Using an origin access identity to restrict access to your Amazon S3 content.

Create the S3 bucket policy so that only the OAI has access. This will prevent users from accessing the website directly by using S3 URLs, as they will receive an Access Denied error. To do this, use the AWS Policy Generator to create a bucket policy that grants s3:GetObject permission to the OAI, and attach it to the S3 bucket. For more information, see Restricting access to Amazon S3 content by using an origin access identity.

Create an AWS WAF web ACL and add an IP set rule. AWS WAF is a web application firewall service that lets you control access to your web applications. An IP set is a condition that specifies a list of IP addresses or IP address ranges that requests originate from. You can use an IP set rule to allow or block requests based on the IP addresses of the requesters. For more information, see Working with IP match conditions.

Associate the web ACL with the CloudFront distribution. This will ensure that the web ACL filters all requests for your website before they reach your origin. You can do this by using the AWS WAF console, API, or CLI. For more information, see Associating or disassociating a web ACL with a CloudFront distribution.

This solution will meet the requirements of allowing only specified IP addresses to access the website and preventing direct access by using S3 URLs.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not create a CloudFront distribution for the S3 bucket (A), do not use an OAI to restrict access to the S3 bucket ©, or do not use AWS WAF to block traffic from outside the specified IP addresses (D).

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/private-content-restricting-access-to-s3.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/web-acl-ip-conditions.html

"When you create an Amazon GuardDuty filter, you choose specific filter criteria, name the filter and can enable the auto-archiving of findings that the filter matches. This allows you to further tune GuardDuty to your unique environment, without degrading the ability to identify threats. With auto-archive set, all findings are still generated by GuardDuty, so you have a complete and immutable history of all suspicious activity."

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager is a fully managed service that allows you to securely and remotely administer your EC2 instances without the need to open inbound ports, maintain bastion hosts, or manage SSH keys. Session Manager provides an interactive browser-based shell or CLI access to your instances, as well as port forwarding and auditing capabilities. Session Manager works with both Linux and Windows instances, and supports hybrid environments and edge devices.

EC2 Instance Connect is a feature that allows you to use SSH to connect to your Linux instances using short-lived keys that are generated on demand and delivered securely through the AWS metadata service. EC2 Instance Connect does not require any additional software installation or configuration on the instance, but it does require you to use SSH-RSA keys during the launch of new instances.

The correct answer is to use Session Manager, as it provides more security and flexibility than EC2 Instance Connect, and does not require SSH-RSA keys or inbound ports. Session Manager also works with Windows instances, while EC2 Instance Connect does not.

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/session-manager.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/Connect-using-EC2-Instance-Connect.html

https://repost.aws/questions/QUnV4R9EoeSdW0GT3cKBUR7w/what-is-the-difference-between-ec-2-instance-connect-and-session-manager-ssh-connections

The correct answer is C. Edit the existing trail in the Organizations management account and apply it to the organization.

The reason is that this is the simplest and most effective way to ensure that there is at least one trail configured for all existing accounts and for any account that is created in the future. According to the AWS documentation1, “If you have created an organization in AWS Organizations, you can create a trail that logs all events for all AWS accounts in that organization. This is sometimes called an organization trail.” The documentation1 also states that “The management account for the organization can edit an existing trail in their account, and apply it to an organization, making it an organization trail. Organization trails log events for the management account and all member accounts in the organization.” Therefore, by editing the existing trail in the management account and applying it to the organization, the security team can ensure that all accounts are sending CloudTrail logs to a centralized S3 logging bucket.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Create a new trail and configure it to send CloudTrail logs to Amazon S3. Use Amazon EventBridge to send notification if a trail is deleted or stopped. This option is not sufficient to ensure that there is at least one trail configured for all accounts, because it does not prevent users from deleting or stopping the trail in their accounts. Even if EventBridge sends a notification, the security team would have to manually restore or restart the trail, which is not efficient or scalable.

B. Deploy an AWS Lambda function in every account to check if there is an existing trail and create a new trail, if needed. This option is not optimal because it requires deploying and maintaining a Lambda function in every account, which adds complexity and cost. Moreover, it does not prevent users from deleting or stopping the trail after it is created by the Lambda function.

D. Create an SCP to deny the cloudtrail:Delete and cloudtrail:Stop actions. Apply the SCP to all accounts. This option is not sufficient to ensure that there is at least one trail configured for all accounts, because it does not create or apply a trail in the first place. It only prevents users from deleting or stopping an existing trail, but it does not guarantee that a trail exists in every account.