Amazon Web Services SCS-C02 AWS Certified Security - Specialty Exam Practice Test

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Using AWS WAF with an Application Load Balancer (ALB) allows you to mitigate SQL injection attacks quickly by deploying managed rule groups designed for common web exploits. This method allows the existing EC2 instances to continue operating without changes, minimizing disruption.

By fronting the EC2 instances with an ALB, you can then:

Apply WAF rules

Redirect DNS records from Route 53 to the ALB

Restrict direct EC2 access via security groups

This approach is rapid, low effort, and preserves availability, making it ideal for critical, time-sensitive security mitigations.

The below diagram from an IAM blog shows how security groups can be monitored

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

Option A is invalid because you need to use Cloudwatch Events to check for chan,

Option B is invalid because you need to use Cloudwatch Events to check for chang

Option C is invalid because IAM inspector is not used to monitor the activity on Security Groups

For more information on monitoring security groups, please visit the below URL:

Ihttpsy/IAM.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-automatically-revert-and-receive-notifications-about-changes-to-your-amazonj 'pc-security-groups/

The correct answer is: Use Cloudwatch events to be triggered for any changes to the Security Groups. Configure the Lambda function for email notification as well.

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https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/Overview.Encryption.html

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/ebs-automatic-encryption/

To implement encryption at rest for both the EC2 instances and the Aurora DB cluster, the following steps are required:

For the EC2 instances, modify the EBS default encryption settings in the target AWS Region to enable encryption. This will ensure that any new EBS volumes created in that Region are encrypted by default using an AWS managed key. Alternatively, you can specify a customer managed key when creating new EBS volumes.For more information, see Amazon EBS encryption.

Use an Auto Scaling group instance refresh to replace the existing EC2 instances with new ones that have encrypted EBS volumes attached. An instance refresh is a feature that helps you update all instances in an Auto Scaling group in a rolling fashion without the need to manage the instance replacement process manually. For more information, see Replacing Auto Scaling instances based on an instance refresh.

For the Aurora DB cluster, create a new AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) encrypted DB cluster from a snapshot of the existing DB cluster. You can use either an AWS managed key or a customer managed key to encrypt the new DB cluster. You cannot enable or disable encryption for an existing DB cluster, so you have to create a new one from a snapshot.For more information, see Encrypting Amazon Aurora resources.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not enable encryption at rest for the resources (B, D), or they use the wrong service for encryption (E).

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/EBSEncryption.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/ec2/userguide/asg-instance-refresh.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/Overview.Encryption.html

To grant appropriate access to separate modules for read-write and read-only functionality in a serverless application hosted on AWS that uses Amazon Redshift as a data store, a security engineer should configure cluster security groups for each application module to control access to database users that are required for read-only and readwrite, and configure an IAM policy for each module specifying the ARN of an IAM user that allows the GetClusterCredentials API call.

To migrate the static website to AWS and meet the requirements, the following steps are required:

Migrate the website to Amazon S3, which is a highly scalable and durable object storage service that can host static websites. To do this, create an S3 bucket with the same name as the domain name of the website, enable static website hosting for the bucket, upload the website files to the bucket, and configure the bucket policy to allow public read access to the objects. For more information, see Hosting a static website on Amazon S3.

Import a public SSL certificate that is created by AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) to Amazon CloudFront, which is a global content delivery network (CDN) service that can improve the performance and security of web applications. To do this, request or import a public SSL certificate for the domain name of the website using ACM, create a CloudFront distribution with the S3 bucket as the origin, and associate the SSL certificate with the distribution. For more information, see Using alternate domain names and HTTPS.

Configure CloudFront to block traffic from outside the US, which is one of the requirements. To do this, create a CloudFront web ACL using AWS WAF, which is a web application firewall service that lets you control access to your web applications. In the web ACL, create a rule that uses a geo match condition to block requests that originate from countries other than the US. Associate the web ACL with the CloudFront distribution. For more information, see How AWS WAF works with Amazon CloudFront features.

Migrate DNS to Amazon Route 53, which is a highly available and scalable cloud DNS service that can route traffic to various AWS services. To do this, register or transfer your domain name to Route 53, create a hosted zone for your domain name, and create an alias record that points your domain name to your CloudFront distribution. For more information, see Routing traffic to an Amazon CloudFront web distribution by using your domain name.

The other options are incorrect because they either do not implement SSL/TLS encryption for the website (A), do not use managed services whenever possible (B), or do not block IP addresses from outside the US ©.

Verified References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/HostingWebsiteOnS3Setup.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/using-https-alternate-domain-names.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/waf-cloudfront.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/routing-to-cloudfront-distribution.html

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To implement WORM in Amazon S3 where no user, including the root account, can modify or delete objects:

S3 Object Lock in Compliance Mode:

Compliance mode ensures that the WORM policy cannot be bypassed, even by the root user.

Objects cannot be overwritten or deleted during the specified retention period.

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

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To achieve centralized visibility of security findings from Amazon GuardDuty detectors in multiple AWS accounts under an AWS Organization, the best approach is to integrate GuardDuty withAWS Security Hub.

AWS Security Hub Overview:

Security Hub provides a unified view of security alerts and compliance checks across AWS accounts.

It supports integration with GuardDuty to automatically ingest and display findings in a centralized manner.

Requirement Analysis:

The application should only be accessible to subsidiary companies over TCP port 443.

Direct public internet access must be restricted.

Use AWS PrivateLink:

AWS PrivateLink allows secure access to services across accounts and VPCs without exposing them to the public internet.

Steps to Implement:

Parent Account:

Create aPrivateLink Endpoint Servicelinked to the Network Load Balancer (NLB).

Update the security group for the EC2 instances to allow traffic from the PrivateLink endpoint on TCP port 443.

Subsidiary Accounts:

CreateInterface Endpointsin the subsidiary VPCs. These endpoints securely route traffic to the parent company's application via PrivateLink.

Advantages of This Solution:

Compliance: Ensures secure communication without internet exposure.

Scalability: Easily supports all 1,500 subsidiaries.

Operational Simplicity: Centralized service in the parent account, while subsidiaries connect securely via endpoints.

AWS PrivateLink Documentation

Using Security Groups with AWS PrivateLink

Enable GuardDuty:

GuardDuty provides monitoring for EKS clusters by analyzing EKS audit logs.

Automatic Configuration:

No additional setup for the EKS deployment is needed. GuardDuty directly monitors API calls to detect suspicious or unauthenticated access.

Advantages:

Minimal Effort: No operational overhead for configuration.

Proactive Detection: Alerts for unauthorized or suspicious activity in near-real-time.

Amazon GuardDuty for EKS

EKS Audit Log Monitoring

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 C.

B. Allow port 443 from source 0.0.0.0/0.

This is correct because port 443 is used for HTTPS traffic, which must be able to access the website from any source IP address.

C. Allow port 22 from 192.168.100.0/24.

This is correct because port 22 is used for SSH, which is the management protocol for the web server. The management subnet is 192.168.100.0/24, so only this subnet should be allowed to access port 22.

A. Allow port 22 from source 0.0.0.0/0.

This is incorrect because it would allow anyone to access port 22, which is a security risk. SSH should be restricted to the management subnet only.

D. Allow port 22 from 10.0.1.0/24.

This is incorrect because it would allow the website subnet to access port 22, which is unnecessary and a security risk. SSH should be restricted to the management subnet only.

E. Allow port 443 from 10.0.1.0/24.

This is incorrect because it would limit the HTTPS traffic to the website subnet only, which defeats the purpose of having a public website.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/listener-authenticate-users.html

The correct combination of conditions to add to the IAM policy is A and C. These conditions will ensure that IAM users must use MFA to access certain services in the AWS production account, and that each session will expire after 2 hours.

Option A: “Bool” : { “aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent” : “true” } is a valid condition that checks if the principal (the IAM user) has authenticated with MFA before making the request. This condition will enforce MFA for the IAM users to accessthe specified services.This condition key is supported by all AWS services that support IAM policies1.

Option B: “Bool” : { “aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent” : “false” } is the opposite of option A. This condition will allow access only if the principal has not authenticated with MFA, which is not the desired requirement.This condition key is supported by all AWS services that support IAM policies1.

Option C: “NumericLessThan” : { “aws:MultiFactorAuthAge” : “7200” } is a valid condition that checks if the time since the principal authenticated with MFA is less than 7200 seconds (2 hours). This condition will enforce the session duration limit for the IAM users.This condition key is supported by all AWS services that support IAM policies1.

Option D: “NumericGreaterThan” : { “aws:MultiFactorAuthAge” : “7200” } is the opposite of option C. This condition will allow access only if the time since the principal authenticated with MFA is more than 7200 seconds (2 hours), which is not the desired requirement.This condition key is supported by all AWS services that support IAM policies1.

Option E: “NumericLessThan” : { “MaxSessionDuration” : “7200” } is not a valid condition key. MaxSessionDuration is a property of an IAM role, not a condition key. It specifies the maximum session duration (in seconds) for the role, which can be between 3600 and 43200 seconds (1 to 12 hours).This property can be set when creating or modifying arole, but it cannot be used as a condition in a policy2.

Answer: C

Centralize Access Management with IAM Roles:

Create roles in the testing and production accounts with permissions specific to resources in those accounts.

Add a policy that allowssts:AssumeRolefor trusted accounts.

Establish Trust Between Accounts:

Update the trust policies of the roles in the testing and production accounts to allow the roles in the development account to assume them.

Example Trust Policy:

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Allow",

"Principal": {

"AWS": "arn:aws:iam:::role/"

},

"Action": "sts:AssumeRole"

}

]

}

Role Switching for Access:

Developers in the development account can use the AWS Management Console or CLI to assume the roles in the testing or production accounts.

Advantages of This Solution:

Scalability: No need to create individual credentials for each developer in every account.

Security: Credentials are dynamically assumed and not shared across accounts.

Ease of Management: Centralized role management simplifies permissions and reduces administrative overhead.

Cross-Account Access in AWS

Using Roles to Delegate Permissions

IAM Policies and Trust Relationships

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 possible steps to troubleshoot this issue are:

A. Ensure that the EC2 instance profile that is attached to the EC2 instances has permissions to create log streams and write logs.This is a necessary step because the CloudWatch agent uses the credentialsfrom the instance profile to communicate with CloudWatch1.

C. Check the CloudWatch agent configuration file on each EC2 instance to make sure that the CloudWatch agent is collecting the proper log files.This is a necessary step because the CloudWatch agent needs to know which logfiles to monitor and send to CloudWatch2.

D. Check the VPC endpoint policies of both VPC endpoints to ensure that the EC2 instances have permissions to use them.This is a necessary step because the VPC endpoint policies control which principals can access the AWS services through the endpoints3.

The other options are incorrect because:

B. Creating a metric filter on the logs is not a troubleshooting step, but a way to extract metric data from the logs. Metric filters do not affect the visibility of the logs in the AWS Management Console.

E. Creating a NAT gateway in the subnet is not a solution, because the EC2 instances do not need internet access to communicate with CloudWatch through the VPC endpoints.A NAT gateway would also incur additional costs.

F. Ensuring that the security groups allow all the EC2 instances to communicate with each other is not a necessary step, because the CloudWatch agent does not require log aggregation before sending. Each EC2 instance can send its own logs independently to CloudWatch.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Amazon OpenSearch Service provides near real-time log ingestion and indexing, full-text search, and analytics capabilities. Using the Security Analytics feature, you can define detection rules and configure alerts based on log patterns or threat indicators. These alerts can be routed to Amazon SNS topics for notification and automation workflows.

This meets the requirements for:

Near real-time log ingestion and search

Rule-based detection and alerting

Integration with SNS for notifications

This solution aligns with best practices under the Logging and Monitoring domain in the AWS Certified Security – Specialty curriculum.

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.

Option A is incorrect since you don't add a user to the IAM Role

Option C is incorrect since you don't assign multiple users to a policy

Option D is incorrect since this is not an ideal approach

An IAM group is used to collectively manage users who need the same set of permissions. By having groups, it becomes easier to manage permissions. So if you change the permissions on the group scale, it will affect all the users in that group

For more information on IAM Groups, just browse to the below URL:

https://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_eroups.html

The correct answer is: Use the IAM groups and add users, based upon their role, to different groups and apply the policy to group

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The correct answer is B because it preserves the forensic evidence from the instance in the correct order. The first step is to take a memory snapshot of the instance and store it in an S3 bucket, as memory data is volatile and can be lost when the instance is stopped. The second step is to stop the instance, which will prevent any further changes to the EBS volume. The third step is to take an EBS volume snapshot of the instance and store it in an S3 bucket, which will capture the disk state of the instance. The last two steps are to detach the instance from the Auto Scaling group and deregister it from the ALB, which will isolate the instance from the rest of the application.

The other options are incorrect because they do not preserve the forensic evidence in the correct order. Option A takes the EBS volume snapshot before the memory snapshot, which can result in inconsistent data. Option C detaches and deregisters the instance before taking any snapshots, which can affect the availability of the application. Option D stops the instance before taking the memory snapshot, which can cause the loss of memory data.

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.

Amazon Kinesis and Amazon Elasticsearch are both suitable for forensic-logging solutions. Amazon Kinesis can collect, process, and analyze streaming data in real time3. Amazon Elasticsearch can store, search, and analyze log data using the popular open-source tool Elasticsearch. The other options are not designed for forensic-logging purposes. Amazon Athena is a query service that can analyze data in S3, Amazon SQS is a message queue service that can decouple and scale microservices, and AmazonEMR is a big data platform that can run Apache Spark and Hadoop clusters.

When implementing DNSSEC for a subdomain in Amazon Route 53 and encountering a broken trust chain error, creating a Delegation Signer (DS) record in the parent hosted zone is the correct approach. The DS record is essential for establishing the trust chain between the parent and child zones by linking the DNSSEC-signed subdomain to its parentdomain. This step is crucial for DNS resolvers to validate the authenticity of DNS responses, thereby resolving the broken trust chain issue and ensuring the integrity and authenticity of the DNS data for the secured subdomain.

The correct combination of steps that the security engineer should take to meet these requirements are A. Ensure that the Amazon CloudWatch agent is installed on all the EC2 instances that the Auto Scaling groups launch. Generate a CloudWatch agent configuration file to forward the required logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs., B. Set the log retention for desired log groups to 7 years., and C. Attach an IAM role to the launch configuration or launch template that the Auto Scaling groups use. Configure the role to provide the necessary permissions to forward logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

A. This answer is correct because it meets the requirement of ensuring that no logging data is lost for each instance during scaling activities. By installing the CloudWatch agent on all the EC2 instances, the security engineer can collect and send system logs and application logs to CloudWatch Logs, which is a service that stores and monitors log data. By generating a CloudWatch agent configuration file, the security engineer can specify which logs to forward and how often.

B. This answer is correct because it meets the requirement of keeping the logs for only the required period of 7 years. By setting the log retention for desired log groups, the security engineer can control how long CloudWatch Logs retains log events before deleting them. The security engineer can choose a predefined retention period of 7 years, or use a custom value.

C. This answer is correct because it meets the requirement of providing the necessary permissions to forward logs to CloudWatch Logs. By attaching an IAM role to the launch configuration or launch template that the Auto Scaling groups use, the security engineer can grant permissions to the EC2 instances that are launched by the Auto Scaling groups. By configuring the role to provide the necessary permissions, such as cloudwatch:PutLogEvents and cloudwatch:CreateLogStream, the security engineer can allow the EC2 instances to send log data to CloudWatch Logs.

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 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 securityengineer 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 capturefailed 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.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/config/latest/developerguide/rds-storage-encrypted.html

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To log object-level activity and validate log file integrity:

CloudTrail Data Events with Log File Validation:

CloudTrail data events log object-level activity in S3 buckets.

Enable log file validation to ensure integrity using a digital signature.

To resolve CloudTrail's failure to deliver events to S3, verifying the S3 bucket policy for CloudTrail's write permissions (A) and ensuring the existence of the specified S3 bucket (D) are critical initial steps. These actions ensure that CloudTrail has the necessary permissions and a valid destination for log file delivery, addressing common configuration issues that can interrupt event logging.

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.

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

The most likely cause of the error is that the instance profile for the EC2 instance does not have the s3:PutObject permission for the S3 bucket. This permission is needed to upload logs to the bucket. Therefore, the security engineer should ensure that the instance profile has this permission.

One possible solution is to attach the AWSImageBuilderFullAccess policy to the instance profile for the EC2 instance. This policy grants full access to Image Builder resources and related AWS services, including the s3:PutObject permission for any bucket with “imagebuilder” in its name. However, this policy may grant more permissions than necessary, which violates the principle of least privilege.

Another possible solution is to create a custom policy that only grants the s3:PutObject permission for the specific S3 bucket that is used for logging. This policy can be attached to the instance profile along with the other policies that are required for Image Builder functionality: EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilder, EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilderECRContainerBuilds, and AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore. This solution follows the principle of least privilege more closely than the previous one.

Ensure that the following policies are attached to the instance profile for the EC2 instance: EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilder, EC2InstanceProfileForImageBuilderECRContainerBuilds, and AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore.

Ensure that the instance profile for the EC2 instance has the s3:PutObject permission for the S3 bucket. This can be done by either attaching the AWSImageBuilderFullAccess policy or creating a custom policy with this permission.

1: Using managed policies for EC2 Image Builder - EC2 Image Builder 2: PutObject - Amazon Simple Storage Service 3: AWSImageBuilderFullAccess - AWS Managed Policy

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

B. ENI security groups: Even if the security group configuration appears correct at a general level, a specific Elastic Network Interface (ENI) attached to the EC2 instance may not have the intended security group applied, which can block traffic.

D. ALB target registration: If the web server is not properly registered with the ALB or marked as unhealthy, traffic will not be routed to it, even if everything else is configured correctly.

These items are commonly overlooked and are vital to verify when troubleshooting EC2 connectivity behind load balancers in complex architectures with virtual appliances and routing layers. This is covered under Infrastructure Security.

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 importthe SSL/TLS certificate

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

https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/kms/import-key-material.html

aws kms import-key-material \

--key-id 1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-1234567890ab \

--encrypted-key-material fileb://EncryptedKeyMaterial.bin \

--import-token fileb://ImportToken.bin \

--expiration-model KEY_MATERIAL_EXPIRES \

--valid-to 2021-09-21T19:00:00Z

The correct answer is A. A customer managed CMK that uses customer provided key material.

A customer managed CMK is a KMS key that you create, own, and manage in your AWS account. You have full control over the key configuration, permissions, rotation, and deletion.You can use a customer managed CMK to encrypt and decrypt data in AWS services that are integrated with AWS KMS, such as Amazon EBS1.

A customer managed CMK can use either AWS provided key material or customer provided key material. AWS provided key material is generated by AWS KMS and never leaves the service unencrypted. Customer provided key material is generated outside of AWS KMS and imported into a customer managed CMK.You can specify an expiration date for the imported key material, after which the CMK becomes unusable until you reimport new key material2.

To meet the criteria of automatically expiring the key material in 90 days, you need to use customer provided key material and set the expiration date accordingly. This way, you can ensure that the data encrypted with the CMK will not be accessible after 90 days unless you reimport new key material and re-encrypt the data.

The other options are incorrect for the following reasons:

B. A customer managed CMK that uses AWS provided key material does not expire automatically. You can enable automatic rotation of the key material every year, but this does not prevent access to the data encrypted with the previous key material.You would need to manually delete the CMK and its backing key material to make the data inaccessible3.

C. An AWS managed CMK is a KMS key that is created, owned, and managed by an AWS service on your behalf. You have limited control over the key configuration, permissions, rotation, and deletion. You cannot use an AWS managed CMK to encrypt data in other AWS services or applications.You also cannot set an expiration date for the key material of an AWS managed CMK4.

D. Operation system-native encryption that uses GnuPG is not a solution that uses AWS KMS. GnuPG is a command line tool that implements the OpenPGP standard for encrypting and signing data. It does not integrate with Amazon EBS or other AWS services.It also does not provide a way toautomatically expire the key material used for encryption5.

Use AWS Systems Manager Session Manager:

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager provides a secure way to access Amazon EC2 instances without requiring SSH keys, opening inbound ports, or maintaining bastion hosts.

This complies with the company's requirement of not managing SSH keys or maintaining bastion hosts.

Configure Session Manager Logging to CloudWatch:

In the Systems Manager Console, configure Session Manager to upload session logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

This ensures all session activity logs are recorded and stored securely.

Encrypt Logs in CloudWatch:

Use an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key to encrypt the logs in CloudWatch Logs. Ensure that the CloudWatch log group is configured to use an encrypted KMS key.

This meets the requirement to encrypt logs.

Monitor Logs for Compliance and Security:

Monitor the CloudWatch Logs to ensure proper access and record all activity for compliance purposes.

AWS Systems Manager Session Manager Documentation

Encrypting CloudWatch Logs with KMS

AWS Best Practices for Accessing EC2 Instances

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

To prevent developers from configuring unauthenticated Lambda function URLs, the most effective approach is to use Service Control Policies (SCPs) at the organizational level. By explicitly denying actions such as lambda:CreateFunctionUrlConfig and lambda:UpdateFunctionUrlConfig when the lambda:FunctionUrlAuthType is set to NONE, the organization ensures that only authenticated function URLs are deployed in production.

This method imposes no additional workload on developers and leverages AWS Organizations' SCPs to enforce centralized security policy — a recommended practice in the Identity and Access Management domain.

Collect Operating System Logs:

Install the Amazon CloudWatch agent on the bastion hosts to collect logs, including failed login attempts from/var/log/auth.logor equivalent files.

Create a Metric Filter:

Use CloudWatch Logs to create a metric filter for failed login attempts by identifying log patterns (e.g.,Failed password).

Set Up a CloudWatch Alarm:

Define an alarm in CloudWatch to trigger when the metric exceeds a threshold of 5 failed attempts within a 5-minute period.

Configure SNS for Notifications:

Use Amazon SNS to send alerts to system administrators.

Use SNS message filtering to ensure only the designated administrator for the specific bastion host receives the notification.

Monitoring CloudWatch Logs

SNS Message Filtering

The following may be causing the problem for the Auditor:

A. The external ID used by the Auditor is missing or incorrect. This is a possible cause, because the external ID is a unique identifier that is used to establish a trust relationship between the accounts.The external ID must match the one that is specified in the role’s trust policy in the destination account1.

C. The Auditor has not been granted sts:AssumeRole for the role in the destination account. This is a possible cause, because sts:AssumeRole is the API action that allows the Auditor to assume the cross-account role and obtain temporary credentials.The Auditor must have an IAM policy that allows them to call sts:AssumeRole for the role ARN in the destination account2.

F. The role ARN used by the Auditor is missing or incorrect. This is a possible cause, because the role ARN is the Amazon Resource Name of the cross-account role that the Auditor wants to assume.The role ARN must be valid and exist in the destination account3.

Enabling AWS CloudTrail with a trail applied to all regions and specifying a single S3 bucket for storage is the simplest method to record and retain API call activity for security analysis. This configuration ensures comprehensive coverage across all current and future AWS regions, centralizing log collection and simplification of log management.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/example-bucket-policies-vpc-endpoint.html

because these are the factors that could affect the outbound connection to the internet from a server in a private subnet. The outbound network ACL rules on the private subnet and both the inbound and outbound rules on the public subnet must allow the traffic to pass through8. The security group applied to the application load balancer and NAT gateway must also allow the traffic from the private subnet9. The 0.0.0.0/0 route in the private subnet route table must point to the NAT gateway in the public subnet, not the internet gateway10. The other options are either irrelevant or incorrect for troubleshooting the outbound connection issue.

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 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 yourlogs 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 format for your AWS WAF logs, you can use the AWSSerDe 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 somelimitations, 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 ofbytes scanned by each query, which can be expensive if you have large volumes of log data10.

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

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Amazon Inspector offers automated, continuous vulnerability scanning for Amazon EC2 instances. The new version includes Malware Protection, which scans for malicious software as part of its inspection process.

This capability enables both detection of software vulnerabilities and malicious activity (like viruses or rootkits), thus covering both parts of the requirement: vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure.

This falls under Infrastructure Security and aligns with recommended practices for securing compute resources on AWS.

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 wasmapped 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 requestsmade to thebucket2. OptionC 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 reason why there were no alerts on the sudo commands. Sudo commands are commands that allow a user to execute commands as another user, usually the superuser or root. CloudWatch Logs agent is a software agent that can send log data from an EC2 instance to CloudWatch Logs, a service that monitors and stores log data. The CloudWatch Logs agent needs an IAM instance profile, which is a container for an IAM role that allows applications running on an EC2 instance to make API requests to AWS services. If the IAM instance profile on the EC2 instance was not properly configured to allow the CloudWatch Logs agent to push the logs to CloudWatch, then there would be no alerts on the sudo commands. The other options are either irrelevant or invalid for explaining why there were no alerts on the sudo commands.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To ensure encryption for all data in transit between EC2 instances and EBS volumes,TLS encryptionmust be implemented. While EBS volume encryption secures data at rest, the requirement here is to secure datain transit.

TLS Encryption with ACM Certificates:

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) simplifies the process of deploying TLS encryption by managing certificates.

EC2 instances can use these certificates for secure data transmission to EBS.

The correct answer is B. Store the API key value in AWS Secrets Manager. In the template, replace all references to the value with {{resolve:secretsmanager:MySecretId:SecretString}}.

This answer is correct because AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps you protect secrets that are needed to access your applications, services, and IT resources. You can store and manage secrets such as database credentials, API keys, and other sensitive data in Secrets Manager.You can also use Secrets Manager to rotate, manage, and retrieve your secrets throughout their lifecycle1.Secrets Manager integrates with AWS CloudFormation, which allows you to reference secrets fromyour templates using the {{resolve:secretsmanager:…}} syntax2. This way, you can avoid exposing your secrets in plaintext and still use them in your resources.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Storing the API key value as a SecureString parameter in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store is not a solution, because AWS CloudFormation does not support references to SecureString parameters.This means that you cannot use the {{resolve:ssm:…}} syntax to retrieve encrypted parameter values from Parameter Store3. You would have to use a custom resource or a Lambda function to decrypt the parameter value, which adds complexity and overhead to your template.

C. Storing the API key value in Amazon DynamoDB is not a solution, because AWS CloudFormation does not support references to DynamoDB items.This means that you cannot use the {{resolve:dynamodb:…}} syntax to retrieve item values fromDynamoDB tables4. You would have to use a custom resource or a Lambda function to query the DynamoDB table, which adds complexity and overhead to your template.

D. Storing the API key value in a new Amazon S3 bucket is not a solution, because AWS CloudFormation does not support references to S3 objects.This means that you cannot use the {{resolve:s3:…}} syntax to retrieve object values from S3 buckets5. You would have to use a custom resource or a Lambda functionto download the object from S3, which adds complexity and overhead to your template.

The correct answer is A because it allows the security engineer to add the X-Frame-Options header to the HTTPS responses from the application origin without modifying the origin itself. A Lambda@Edge function is a Lambda function that runs in response to CloudFront events, such as viewer request, origin request, origin response, or viewer response. By configuring the function to runin response to the origin response event, the security engineer can modify the response headers that CloudFront receives from the origin before sending them to the viewer1. The function can include code to add the X-Frame-Options header with the desired value, suchas DENY or SAMEORIGIN, to prevent frame-related cross-site scripting attacks2.

The other options are incorrect because they are either less efficient or less secure than option A. Option B is incorrect because configuring the Lambda@Edge function to run in response to the viewer request event is not optimal, as it adds latency to the request processing and does not modify the response headers that CloudFront receives from the origin. Option C is incorrect because adding X-Frame-Options to custom headers in the origin settings does not affect the response headers that CloudFront sends to the viewer. Custom headers are only used to send additional information to the origin when CloudFront forwards a request3. Option D is incorrect because customizing the EC2 hosted application to add the X-Frame-Options header to the responses requires changing the origin code, which may not be feasible or desirable for the security engineer.

Using Amazon EventBridge to create a rule for ACM Certificate Approaching Expiration events and configuring an SNS topic as the target provides an operationally efficient way to monitor and alert on certificate expirations. This method leverages AWS's native capabilities for event monitoring and notifications, reducing the need for custom implementations and ensuring timely alerts.

This answer is correct because downloading the updated SAML metadata file from the identity service provider ensures that AWS has the latest information about the identity provider, including the new public key. Updating the file in the AWS identity provider entitydefined in IAM by using the AWS CLI allows AWS to verify the signature of the SAML assertions sent by the identity provider. This solution also minimizes operational overhead because it can be automated with a script or a cron job.

this is the accurate reflection of the access control mechanisms that the Architect should verify. Access control mechanisms are methods that regulate who can access what resources and how. Security groups and network ACLs are two types of access control mechanisms that can be applied to EC2 instances and subnets. Security groups are stateful, meaning they remember and return traffic that was previously allowed. Network ACLs are stateless, meaning they do not remember or return traffic that was previously allowed. Security groups and network ACLs can have inbound and outbound rules that specify the source, destination, protocol, and port of the traffic. By verifying the outbound security group configuration on database servers, the inbound security group configuration on application servers, and the inbound and outbound network ACL configuration on both the database and application server subnets, the Architect can check if there are any misconfigurations or conflicts thatprevent the application servers from initiating a connection to the database servers. The other options are either inaccurate or incomplete for verifying the access control mechanisms.

To prevent users from directly accessing an Application Load Balancer and allow access only through CloudFront, complete these high-level steps: Configure CloudFront to add a custom HTTP header to requests that it sends to the Application Load Balancer. Configure the Application Load Balancer to only forward requests that contain the custom HTTP header. (Optional) Require HTTPS to improve the security of this solution.https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/restrict-access-to-load-balancer.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. Thiswill 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.

To provide access to the three individuals who have IAM user accounts to access the Amazon Linux 2 Amazon EC2 instances that are using the same IAM instance profile, the most appropriate solution would be to assign an IAM policy to the instance profile to allow the EC2 instances to be managed by AWS Systems Manager, provide the IAM user accounts with permission to use Systems Manager, remove the SSH keys from the EC2 instances, and use Systems Manager Session Manager to select the EC2 instance and connect.

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 correct answer is C. Pull images from the public container registry. Publish the images to Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) repositories with scan on push configured in a centralized AWS account. Use a CI/CD pipeline to deploy the images to different AWS accounts. Use repository policies and identity-based policies to restrict access to which IAM principals and accounts can access the images.

This solution meets the requirements because:

Amazon ECR is a fully managed container registry service that supports Docker and OCI images and artifacts1. It integrates with Amazon ECS and other AWS services to simplify the development and deployment of container-based applications.

Amazon ECR provides image scanning on push, which uses the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) database from the open-source Clair project to detect software vulnerabilities in container images2.The scan results are available in the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, orAWS SDKs2.

Amazon ECR supports cross-account access to repositories, whichallows sharing images across multiple AWS accounts3.This can be achieved by using repository policies, which are resource-based policies that specify which IAM principals and accounts can access the repositories and what actions they can perform4.Additionally, identity-based policies can be used to control which IAM roles in each account can access the repositories5.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. This option does not use repository policies to restrict cross-account access to the images, which is a requirement.Identity-based policies alone are not sufficient to control access to Amazon ECR repositories5.

B. This option does not use Amazon ECR, which is a fully managed service that provides image scanning and cross-account access features. Hosting a private container registry on EC2 instances would require more management overhead and additional security measures.

D.This option uses AWS CodeArtifact, which is a fully managed artifact repository service that supports Maven, npm, NuGet, PyPI, and generic package formats6. However, AWS CodeArtifact does not support Docker or OCI container images, which are required for Amazon ECS applications.

The solution to receiving automated email notifications when AWS access keys are detected on code repository sites is to use Amazon EventBridge with Amazon GuardDuty findings. Specifically, creating an EventBridge rule that targets Amazon GuardDuty findings, particularly theUnauthorizedAccess:IAMUser/InstanceCredentialExfiltrationfinding type, allows for the detection of potential unauthorized use or exposure of AWS credentials. When such a finding is detected, EventBridge can then trigger an action to send a notification via Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS). By configuring an SNS topic to send emails, stakeholders can be promptly informed of such security incidents. This approach leverages AWS's native security and monitoring services to provide timely alerts with minimal operational overhead, ensuring that the company can respond quickly to potential security breaches involving exposed AWS credentials.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To enable GuardDuty to monitor Kubernetes-based applications:

Enable Control Plane Logs:

GuardDuty uses control plane logs to detect malicious or unauthorized activity in Amazon EKS.

Enable EKS control plane logs (API, audit, authenticator) and ingest them into CloudWatch.

The fastest way to identify the federated user who terminated a production Amazon EC2 instance is to filter the IAM CloudTrail event history for the TerminateInstances event and identify the assumed IAM role. Then, review the AssumeRoleWithSAML event call in CloudTrail to identify the corresponding username. This method does not require any additional tools or queries, and it directly links the IAM role with the federated user.

Option A is incorrect because the role session name may not be the same as the federated user name, and it may not be unique or descriptive enough to identify the user.

Option C is incorrect because the IAM Access Advisor tab only shows when a role was last accessed, not by whom or for what purpose. It also does not show the specific time of access, only the date.

Option D is incorrect because using Amazon Athena to run SQL queries on the IAM CloudTrail logs is not the fastest way to identify the federated user, as it requires creating a table schema and running multiple queries. It also assumes that the federation is done using web identity providers, not SAML providers, as indicated by the AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity event. References:

AWS Identity and Access Management

Logging AWS STS API Calls with AWS CloudTrail

[Using Amazon Athena to Query S3 Data for CloudTrail Analysis]

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

To configure end-to-end encryption between the Elastic Load Balancer and the EC2 instances with the least operational effort, the most appropriate solution would be to use Amazon issued AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) certificates on the EC2 instances and the Elastic Load Balancer to configure end-to-end encryption.

 AWS Certificate Manager - Amazon Web Services : Elastic Load Balancing - Amazon Web Services : Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Amazon Web Services : AWS Certificate Manager - Amazon Web Services

Enable Amazon GuardDuty:

GuardDuty is a threat detection service that natively supports detecting cryptocurrency mining activity on Amazon EC2 instances.

Enable GuardDuty for the account and all AWS Regions to ensure comprehensive coverage.

Monitor GuardDuty Findings:

GuardDuty generates findings for activities associated with cryptocurrency mining (e.g., unauthorized mining, DNS queries to known mining domains).

Create an EventBridge Rule:

Define an EventBridge rule that triggers on specific GuardDuty findings related to cryptocurrency activity.

Configure the rule to send notifications to an Amazon SNS topic.

Example Rule:

{

"Source": ["aws.guardduty"],

"DetailType": ["GuardDuty Finding"],

"Detail": {

"type": ["CryptoCurrency:EC2/BitcoinTool.B"]

}

}

Advantages of GuardDuty:

Automated Threat Detection: Requires no additional setup or custom rules.

Near-Real-Time Alerts: Delivers findings and notifications with minimal delay.

Amazon GuardDuty Documentation

Creating EventBridge Rules for GuardDuty Findings

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

https://docs.IAM.amazon.com/kms/latest/developerguide/services-parameter-store.html#parameter-store-cmk-fail

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 AWSCLI 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.

Enable AWS Config Managed Rule:

Activate therestricted-sshAWS Config managed rule to evaluate security groups for SSH access from0.0.0.0/0.

Create an EventBridge Rule:

Configure an EventBridge rule to trigger on compliance change events generated by therestricted-sshmanaged rule.

Set Target to SNS:

Configure the EventBridge rule to target an SNS topic that notifies the security team when a noncompliant security group is detected.

Advantages:

Provides near-real-time notifications.

Fully integrates with AWS native services for compliance monitoring.

AWS Config Managed Rules

Amazon EventBridge Documentation

"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."

NACL acts as a firewall at the subnet level of the VPC and we can deny the offending IP address block at the subnet level using NACL rules to block the incoming traffic to the VPC instances. Since NACL rules are applied as per the Rule numbers make sure that this rule number should take precedence over other rule numbers if there are any such rules that will allow traffic from these IP ranges. The lowest rule number has more precedence over a rule that has a higher number.

The IAM Documentation mentions the following as a best practices for IAM users

For extra security, enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for privileged IAM users (users who are allowed access to sensitive resources or APIs). With MFA, users have a device that generates a unique authentication code (a one-time password, or OTP). Users must provide both their normal credentials (like their user name and password) and the OTP. The MFA device can either be a special piece of hardware, or it can be a virtual device (for example, it can run in an app on a smartphone).

Options C is invalid because these options are not available

Option D is invalid because there is not root access for users

For more information on IAM best practices, please visit the below URL:

https://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/best-practices.html

The correct answer is: Modify the Network ACLs associated with all public subnets in the VPC to deny access from the IP Address block.

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This answer is correct because AWS Shield Advanced is a service that provides comprehensive protection against DDoS attacks of any size or duration. It also provides metrics and reports on the DDoS attack vectors, duration, and size. You can create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm that monitors Shield Advanced metrics such as DDoSAttackBitsPerSecond, DDoSAttackPacketsPerSecond, and DDoSAttackRequestsPerSecond to receive alerts if a DDoS attack occurs against your account.

For more information, see Monitoring AWS Shield Advanced with Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Shield Advanced metrics and alarms.

To securely and cost-effectively retain log data archives for several years, the company should do the following:

Archive the data to Amazon S3 Glacier and apply a Vault Lock policy. This allows the company to use a low-cost storage class that is designed for long-term archival of data that is rarely accessed. It also allows the company to enforce compliance controls on their S3 Glacier vault by locking a vault access policy that cannot be changed.

The combination of the following actions should the Engineer take to enable users to be authenticated into the web application and call APIs are:

B. Configure a SAML identity provider in Amazon Cognito to map attributes to the Amazon Cognito user pool attributes.This is a necessary step to federate the existing users from the SAML identity provider to the Amazon Cognito user pool, which will be used for authentication and authorization1.

C. Configure the SAML identity provider to add the Amazon Cognito user pool as a relying party.This is a necessary step to establish a trust relationship between the SAML identity provider and the Amazon Cognito user pool, which will allow the users to sign in using their existing credentials2.

F. Update API Gateway to use a COGNITO_USER_POOLS authorizer.This is a necessary step to enable API Gateway to use the Amazon Cognito user pool as an authorizer for the RESTful services, which will validate the identity or access tokens that are issued by AmazonCognito when a user signs in successfully3.

The other options are incorrect because:

A.Creating a custom authorization service using AWS Lambda is not a necessary step, because Amazon Cognito user pools can provide built-in authorization features, such as scopes and groups, that can be used to control access toAPI resources4.

D.Configuring an Amazon Cognitoidentity pool to integrate with social login providers is not a necessary step, because the users already exist in a directory that is exposed through a SAML identity provider, and there is no requirement to support social login providers5.

E.Updating DynamoDB to store the user email addresses and passwords is not a necessary step, because the user credentials are already stored in the SAML identity provider, and there is no need to duplicate them in DynamoDB6.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The most scalable and lowest-latency solution for end-to-end TLS is to configure a Network Load Balancer (NLB) with a TCP listener. This configuration allows TLS traffic to be passed through directly to the containerized applications running on ECS, preserving full encryption between the client and the container without TLS termination at the load balancer.

NLBs are optimized for handling sudden spikes in traffic (volatile traffic patterns), and passing through TLS traffic ensures the encryption is maintained from source to container.

This is a key practice under Infrastructure Security as highlighted in the AWS Certified Security – Specialty content where preserving encryption and handling scale is crucial.

The correct answer is C. Create rule sets in AWS CloudFormation Guard. Run validation checks for CloudFormation templates as a phase of the CI/CD process.

This answer is correct because AWS CloudFormation Guard is a tool that helps you implement policy-as-code for your CloudFormation templates. You can use Guard to write rules that define your security policies, such as requiring encryption for EBS volumes, and then validate your templates against those rules before deploying them.You can integrate Guard into your CI/CD pipeline as a step that runs the validation checks and prevents the deploymentof any non-compliant templates12.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Turning on AWS Trusted Advisor and configuring security notifications as webhooks in the preferences section of the CI/CD pipeline is not a solution, because AWS Trusted Advisor is not a policy-as-code tool, but a service that provides recommendations to help you follow AWS best practices.Trusted Advisor does not allow you to define your own security policies or validate your CloudFormationtemplates against them3.

B. Turning on AWS Config and using the prebuilt or customized rules is not a solution, because AWS Config is not a policy-as-code tool, but a service that monitors and records the configuration changes of your AWS resources.AWS Config does not allow you to validate your CloudFormation templates before deploying them, but onlyevaluates the compliance of your resources after they are created4.

D. Creating rule sets as SCPs and integrating them as a part of validation control in a phase of the CI/CD process is not a solution, because SCPs are not policy-as-code tools, but policies that you can use to manage permissions in your AWS Organizations.SCPs do not allow you to validate your CloudFormation templates, but only restrict the actions that users and roles can perform in your accounts5.

Storing sensitive information in environment variables is not a secure practice, as anyone who has access to the Lambda console or the Lambda function code can view them asplaintext. To address this security issue, the security engineer needs to use a service that can store and encrypt the environment variables, and access them at runtime using IAM permissions. The most cost-effective way to do this is to use AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, which is a service that provides secure, hierarchical storage for configuration data management and secrets management. Parameter Store allows you to store values as standard parameters (plaintext) or secure string parameters (encrypted). Secure string parameters use a AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) customer master key (CMK) to encrypt the parameter value. To access the parameter value at runtime, the Lambda function needs to have IAM permissions to decrypt the parameter using the KMS CMK.

The other options are incorrect because:

Option A is incorrect because setting up IAM policies from the Lambda console to hide access to the environment variables will not prevent someone who has access to the Lambda function code from viewing them as plaintext. IAM policies can only control who can perform actions on AWS resources, not what they can see in the code or the console.

Option B is incorrect because using AWS Step Functions to store the environment variables is not a secure or cost-effective solution. AWS Step Functions is a service that lets you coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows. Step Functions does not provide any encryption or secrets management capabilities, and it will incur additional charges for each state transition in the workflow. Moreover, storing environment variables in Step Functions will make them visible in the execution history of the workflow, which can be accessed by anyone who has permission to view the Step Functions console or API.

Option C is incorrect because storing the environment variables in AWS Secrets Manager and accessing them at runtime is not a cost-effective solution. AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps you protect secrets needed to access your applications, services, and IT resources. Secrets Manager enables you to rotate, manage, and retrieve secrets throughout their lifecycle. While Secrets Manager can securely store and encrypt environment variables using KMS CMKs, it will incur higher charges than Parameter Store for storing and retrieving secrets. Unless the security engineer needs the advanced features of Secrets Manager, such as automatic rotation of secrets or integration with other AWS services, Parameter Store is a cheaper and simpler option.

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.

what the Security Engineer should do to block the malicious bot. SFTP is a protocol that allows secure file transfer over SSH. EC2 is a service that provides virtual servers in the cloud. A public subnet is a subnet that has a route to an internet gateway, which allows it to communicate with the internet. A brute force attack is a type of attack that tries to guess passwords or keys by trying many possible combinations. A malicious bot is a software program that performs automated tasks for malicious purposes. Route 53 is a service that provides DNS resolution and domain name registration. A DNS sinkhole is a technique that redirects malicious or unwanted traffic to a different destination, such as a black hole server or a honeypot. By modifying the hosted zone in Route 53 and creating a DNS sinkhole for the malicious IP, the Security Engineer can block the malicious bot from reaching the EC2 instance on the public subnet. The other options are either ineffective or inappropriate for blocking the malicious bot.

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.

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/

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

A. New patch baseline with 0-day approval ensures that critical security patches are available immediately for deployment without delay, which is crucial in response to imminent threats.

B. Patch Now operation in Patch Manager allows for immediate patch deployment across all instances, and storing logs in Amazon S3 provides centralized evidence and audit trails for compliance and verification.

Together, these actions support rapid response, immediate patch deployment, and auditability, aligning with Infrastructure Security and Incident Response best practices.

AWS Organizations and SCPs:

SCPs allow centralized control over permissions across all accounts in an AWS Organization.

Use SCPs to prevent specific actions, such as S3 bucket deletion, across all accounts.

Create an SCP for S3 Bucket Deletion:

Define an SCP that explicitly denies thes3:DeleteBucketaction.

Example SCP:

{

"Version": "2012-10-17",

"Statement": [

{

"Effect": "Deny",

"Action": "s3:DeleteBucket",

"Resource": "*"

}

]

}

Attach SCP to the Root or Specific OUs:

Attach the SCP to the root of the organization or specific organizational units (OUs) as needed.

Advantages:

Scalability: Applies to all accounts in the organization without the need for individual configuration.

Compliance: Ensures sensitive S3 buckets are protected from accidental or malicious deletion.

AWS Organizations SCP Documentation

Restricting S3 Actions with SCPs

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

Using SSE-KMS with customer-managed keys enables separation of duties:

The operations team can configure the bucket policy to enforce encryption.

The security team manages access to the encryption keys via KMS key policies.

This ensures that neither team alone can access plaintext data, aligning with data protection and least privilege principles.

these are the recommended actions to take when you receive an abuse notice fromAWS8. You shouldreview the abuse notice to see what content or activity was reported and detach the internet gateway from the VPC to isolate the affected instances from the internet. You should also remove any rules that allow inbound traffic from 0.0.0.0/0 from the security groups and create a network access control list (NACL) rule to deny all traffic inbound from the internet. You should then delete the compromised instances and any associated resources that you did not create. The other options are either inappropriate or unnecessary for responding to the abuse notice.

The correct answer is C. Change the Resource element to “arn:aws:s3:::DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET/*”.

The reason is that the Resource element in the bucket policy specifies which objects in the bucket are affected by the policy. In this case, the policy only applies to the bucket itself, not the objects inside it. Therefore, the Lambda function cannot access the objects with the s3:GetObject permission. To fix this, the Resource element should include a wildcard (*) to match all objects in the bucket. This way, the policy grants the Lambda function permission to read any object in the bucket.

The other options are incorrect for the following reasons:

A. Removing the Condition element would not help, because it only restricts access based on the source IP address of the request. The Principal element should not be changed to the Lambda function ARN, because it specifies who is allowed or denied access by the policy. The policy should allow access to any principal ("*") and rely on IAM roles or policies to control access to the Lambda function.

B. Changing the Action element to include s3:GetBucket* would not help, because it would grant additional permissions that are not needed by the Lambda function, such as s3:GetBucketAcl or s3:GetBucketPolicy. The s3:GetObject* permission is sufficient for reading objects in the bucket.

D. Changing the Resource element to the Lambda function ARN would not make sense, because it would mean that the policy applies to the Lambda function itself, not the bucket or its objects. The Principal element should not be changed to s3.amazonaws.com, because it would grant access to any AWS service that uses S3, not just Lambda.

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.

This answer is correct because creating a new AWS account with limited privileges would provide an isolated and secure backup destination for the EBS snapshots. Allowing the new account to access the AWS KMS key used to encrypt the EBS snapshots would enable cross-account snapshot sharing without requiring re-encryption. Copying the encrypted snapshots to the new account on a recurring basis would ensure that the backups are up-to-date and consistent.

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

The best solution to meet the company's requirements of offering an alternative login method while securely protecting player credentials and reducing the burden of password resets is to use Amazon Cognito with user pools. Amazon Cognito provides a fully managed service that facilitates the authentication, authorization, and user management for web and mobile applications. By configuring Amazon Cognito user pools to federate access with third-party Identity Providers (IdPs), such as social media platforms or Google, the company can allow users to sign in through these external IdPs, thereby eliminating the need for traditional username and password logins. This not only enhances user convenience but also offloads the responsibility of managing user credentials and the associated challenges like password resets to Amazon Cognito, thereby reducing the burden on the company's customer service team. Additionally, Amazon Cognito integrates seamlessly with other AWS services and follows best practices for security and compliance, ensuring that the player's credentials are protected.

To allow an IAM user in one AWS account to access resources in another AWS account using IAM roles, the following steps are required:

Create a role in the AWS account that contains the resources (the trusting account) and specify the AWS account that contains the IAM user (the trusted account) as a trusted entity in the role’s trust policy. This allows users from the trusted account to assume the role and access resources in the trusting account.

Attach a policy to the IAM user in the trusted account that allows the user to assume the role in the trusting account. The policy must specify the ARN of the role that was created in the trusting account.

The IAM user can then switch roles or use temporary credentials to access the resources in the trusting account.

Verified References:

https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/cross-account-access-iam

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

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/tutorial_cross-account-with-roles.html