AWS Certified Security - Specialty v1.0
Question 1
During a recent security audit, it was discovered that multiple teams in a large organization have placed restricted data in multiple Amazon S3 buckets, and the data may have been exposed. The auditor has requested that the organization identify all possible objects that contain personally identifiable information (PII) and then determine whether this information has been accessed.
What solution will allow the Security team to complete this request?
- A. Using Amazon Athena, query the impacted S3 buckets by using the PII query identifier function. Then, create a new Amazon CloudWatch metric for Amazon S3 object access to alert when the objects are accessed.
- B. Enable Amazon Macie on the S3 buckets that were impacted, then perform data classification. For identified objects that contain PII, use the research function for auditing AWS CloudTrail logs and S3 bucket logs for GET operations.
- C. Enable Amazon GuardDuty and enable the PII rule set on the S3 buckets that were impacted, then perform data classification. Using the PII findings report from GuardDuty, query the S3 bucket logs by using Athena for GET operations.
- D. Enable Amazon Inspector on the S3 buckets that were impacted, then perform data classification. For identified objects that contain PII, query the S3 bucket logs by using Athena for GET operations.
Answer : B
Question 2
During a recent internal investigation, it was discovered that all API logging was disabled in a production account, and the root user had created new API keys that appear to have been used several times.
What could have been done to detect and automatically remediate the incident?
- A. Using Amazon Inspector, review all of the API calls and configure the inspector agent to leverage SNS topics to notify security of the change to AWS CloudTrail, and revoke the new API keys for the root user.
- B. Using AWS Config, create a config rule that detects when AWS CloudTrail is disabled, as well as any calls to the root user create-api-key. Then use a Lambda function to re-enable CloudTrail logs and deactivate the root API keys.
- C. Using Amazon CloudWatch, create a CloudWatch event that detects AWS CloudTrail deactivation and a separate Amazon Trusted Advisor check to automatically detect the creation of root API keys. Then use a Lambda function to enable AWS CloudTrail and deactivate the root API keys.
- D. Using Amazon CloudTrail, create a new CloudTrail event that detects the deactivation of CloudTrail logs, and a separate CloudTrail event that detects the creation of root API keys. Then use a Lambda function to enable CloudTrail and deactivate the root API keys.
Answer : C
Question 3
An application has a requirement to be resilient across not only Availability Zones within the application's primary region but also be available within another region altogether.
Which of the following supports this requirement for AWS resources that are encrypted by AWS KMS?
- A. Copy the applicationג€™s AWS KMS CMK from the source region to the target region so that it can be used to decrypt the resource after it is copied to the target region.
- B. Configure AWS KMS to automatically synchronize the CMK between regions so that it can be used to decrypt the resource in the target region.
- C. Use AWS services that replicate data across regions, and re-wrap the data encryption key created in the source region by using the CMK in the target region so that the target regionג€™s CMK can decrypt the database encryption key.
- D. Configure the target regionג€™s AWS service to communicate with the source regionג€™s AWS KMS so that it can decrypt the resource in the target region.
Answer : C
Question 4
An organization policy states that all encryption keys must be automatically rotated every 12 months.
Which AWS Key Management Service (KMS) key type should be used to meet this requirement?
- A. AWS managed Customer Master Key (CMK)
- B. Customer managed CMK with AWS generated key material
- C. Customer managed CMK with imported key material
- D. AWS managed data key
Answer : A
Reference:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kms/latest/developerguide/rotate-keys.html
Question 5
A Security Engineer received an AWS Abuse Notice listing EC2 instance IDs that are reportedly abusing other hosts.
Which action should the Engineer take based on this situation? (Choose three.)
- A. Use AWS Artifact to capture an exact image of the state of each instance.
- B. Create EBS Snapshots of each of the volumes attached to the compromised instances.
- C. Capture a memory dump.
- D. Log in to each instance with administrative credentials to restart the instance.
- E. Revoke all network ingress and egress except for to/from a forensics workstation.
- F. Run Auto Recovery for Amazon EC2.
Answer : BCE
Question 6
A Security Administrator is configuring an Amazon S3 bucket and must meet the following security requirements:
✑ Encryption in transit
✑ Encryption at rest
✑ Logging of all object retrievals in AWS CloudTrail
Which of the following meet these security requirements? (Choose three.)
- A. Specify ג€aws:SecureTransportג€: ג€trueג€ within a condition in the S3 bucket policy.
- B. Enable a security group for the S3 bucket that allows port 443, but not port 80.
- C. Set up default encryption for the S3 bucket.
- D. Enable Amazon CloudWatch Logs for the AWS account.
- E. Enable API logging of data events for all S3 objects.
- F. Enable S3 object versioning for the S3 bucket.
Answer : ACE
Reference:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/events/log-s3-data-events.html
Question 7
What is the function of the following AWS Key Management Service (KMS) key policy attached to a customer master key (CMK)?
- A. The Amazon WorkMail and Amazon SES services have delegated KMS encrypt and decrypt permissions to the ExampleUser principal in the 111122223333 account.
- B. The ExampleUser principal can transparently encrypt and decrypt email exchanges specifically between ExampleUser and AWS.
- C. The CMK is to be used for encrypting and decrypting only when the principal is ExampleUser and the request comes from WorkMail or SES in the specified region.
- D. The key policy allows WorkMail or SES to encrypt or decrypt on behalf of the user for any CMK in the account.
Answer : C
Reference:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kms/latest/developerguide/policy-conditions.html#conditions-kms-via-service
Question 8
A Security Engineer who was reviewing AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key policies found this statement in each key policy in the company AWS account.
What does the statement allow?
- A. All principals from all AWS accounts to use the key.
- B. Only the root user from account 111122223333 to use the key.
- C. All principals from account 111122223333 to use the key but only on Amazon S3.
- D. Only principals from account 111122223333 that have an IAM policy applied that grants access to this key to use the key.
Answer : D
Reference:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kms/latest/developerguide/key-policies.html
Question 9
A Software Engineer wrote a customized reporting service that will run on a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances. The company security policy states that application logs for the reporting service must be centrally collected.
What is the MOST efficient way to meet these requirements?
- A. Write an AWS Lambda function that logs into the EC2 instance to pull the application logs from the EC2 instance and persists them into an Amazon S3 bucket.
- B. Enable AWS CloudTrail logging for the AWS account, create a new Amazon S3 bucket, and then configure Amazon CloudWatch Logs to receive the application logs from CloudTrail.
- C. Create a simple cron job on the EC2 instances that synchronizes the application logs to an Amazon S3 bucket by using rsync.
- D. Install the Amazon CloudWatch Logs Agent on the EC2 instances, and configure it to send the application logs to CloudWatch Logs.
Answer : D
Reference:
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/new-how-to-better-monitor-your-custom-application-metrics-using-amazon-cloudwatch-agent/
Question 10
A Security Engineer is trying to determine whether the encryption keys used in an AWS service are in compliance with certain regulatory standards.
Which of the following actions should the Engineer perform to get further guidance?
- A. Read the AWS Customer Agreement.
- B. Use AWS Artifact to access AWS compliance reports.
- C. Post the question on the AWS Discussion Forums.
- D. Run AWS Config and evaluate the configuration outputs.
Answer : B
Question 11
The Development team receives an error message each time the team members attempt to encrypt or decrypt a Secure String parameter from the SSM
Parameter Store by using an AWS KMS customer managed key (CMK).
Which CMK-related issues could be responsible? (Choose two.)
- A. The CMK specified in the application does not exist.
- B. The CMK specified in the application is currently in use.
- C. The CMK specified in the application is using the CMK KeyID instead of CMK Amazon Resource Name.
- D. The CMK specified in the application is not enabled.
- E. The CMK specified in the application is using an alias.
Answer : AD
Question 12
An application has been written that publishes custom metrics to Amazon CloudWatch. Recently, IAM changes have been made on the account and the metrics are no longer being reported.
Which of the following is the LEAST permissive solution that will allow the metrics to be delivered?
- A. Add a statement to the IAM policy used by the application to allow logs:putLogEvents and logs:createLogStream
- B. Modify the IAM role used by the application by adding the CloudWatchFullAccess managed policy.
- C. Add a statement to the IAM policy used by the application to allow cloudwatch:putMetricData.
- D. Add a trust relationship to the IAM role used by the application for cloudwatch.amazonaws.com.
Answer : C
Question 13
A Developer's laptop was stolen. The laptop was not encrypted, and it contained the SSH key used to access multiple Amazon EC2 instances. A Security
Engineer has verified that the key has not been used, and has blocked port 22 to all EC2 instances while developing a response plan.
How can the Security Engineer further protect currently running instances?
- A. Delete the key-pair key from the EC2 console, then create a new key pair.
- B. Use the modify-instance-attribute API to change the key on any EC2 instance that is using the key.
- C. Use the EC2 RunCommand to modify the authorized_keys file on any EC2 instance that is using the key.
- D. Update the key pair in any AMI used to launch the EC2 instances, then restart the EC2 instances.
Answer : C
Reference:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-key-pairs.html#delete-key-pair
Question 14
An organization has tens of applications deployed on thousands of Amazon EC2 instances. During testing, the Application team needs information to let them know whether the network access control lists (network ACLs) and security groups are working as expected.
How can the Application team's requirements be met?
- A. Turn on VPC Flow Logs, send the logs to Amazon S3, and use Amazon Athena to query the logs.
- B. Install an Amazon Inspector agent on each EC2 instance, send the logs to Amazon S3, and use Amazon EMR to query the logs.
- C. Create an AWS Config rule for each network ACL and security group configuration, send the logs to Amazon S3, and use Amazon Athena to query the logs.
- D. Turn on AWS CloudTrail, send the trails to Amazon S3, and use AWS Lambda to query the trails.
Answer : A
Reference:
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/vpc-flow-logs-log-and-view-network-traffic-flows/
Question 15
An application outputs logs to a text file. The logs must be continuously monitored for security incidents.
Which design will meet the requirements with MINIMUM effort?
- A. Create a scheduled process to copy the componentג€™s logs into Amazon S3. Use S3 events to trigger a Lambda function that updates Amazon CloudWatch metrics with the log data. Set up CloudWatch alerts based on the metrics.
- B. Install and configure the Amazon CloudWatch Logs agent on the applicationג€™s EC2 instance. Create a CloudWatch metric filter to monitor the application logs. Set up CloudWatch alerts based on the metrics.
- C. Create a scheduled process to copy the application log files to AWS CloudTrail. Use S3 events to trigger Lambda functions that update CloudWatch metrics with the log data. Set up CloudWatch alerts based on the metrics.
- D. Create a file watcher that copies data to Amazon Kinesis when the application writes to the log file. Have Kinesis trigger a Lambda function to update Amazon CloudWatch metrics with the log data. Set up CloudWatch alerts based on the metrics.
Answer : A