Pass the Amazon Web Services AWS Certified Specialty SCS-C02 Questions and answers with CertsForce

Enable Amazon Macie:

Amazon Macie automatically scans S3 buckets for sensitive data, such as PII, and uses managed data identifiers for efficient classification.

Configure Data Identifiers:

Use managed data identifiers for pre-configured sensitive data patterns like credit card numbers, personal information, etc.

Set Up Notifications:

Create an Amazon EventBridge rule to trigger on Macie findings.

Configure the rule to send notifications to the existing SNS topic.

Advantages:

Automated: Minimal manual intervention needed.

Efficient: Leverages Macie’s built-in capabilities to reduce implementation effort.

Amazon Macie Documentation

EventBridge Rules for Macie

The correct answer is B. Modify the network ACL that is associated with the CIDR range to allow outbound traffic to ephemeral ports.

This answer is correct because network ACLs are stateless, which means that they do not automatically allow return traffic for inbound connections. Therefore, the network ACL that is associated with the CIDR range of the new application must have outbound rules that allow traffic to ephemeral ports, which are the temporary ports used by the vendors’ machines to communicate with the application servers.Ephemeral ports are typically in the range of 1024-655351. If the network ACL does not have such rules, the vendors will not be able to connect to the application.

The other options are incorrect because:

A. Modifying the security group that is associated with the EC2 instances to have the same outbound rules as inbound rules is not a solution, because security groups are stateful, which means that they automatically allow return traffic for inbound connections.Therefore, there is no need to add outbound rules to the security group for the vendors to access the application2.

C. Modifying the inbound rules on the internet gateway to allow the required ports is not a solution, because internet gateways do not have inbound or outbound rules. Internet gateways are VPC components that enable communication between instances in a VPC and the internet.They do not filter traffic based on ports or protocols3.

D. Modifying the network ACL that is associated with the CIDR range to have the same outbound rules as inbound rules is not a solution, because it does not address the issue of ephemeral ports.The outbound rules of the network ACL must matchthe ephemeral port range of the vendors’ machines, not necessarily the inbound rules of the network ACL4.

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.

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/

To implement host-based security for Amazon EC2 instances and containers in Amazon ECR with minimal operational overhead and ensure automatic deployment and scanning for new workloads, the recommended solution is to configure a delegated administrator for Amazon Inspector within the AWS Organizations structure. By enabling Amazon Inspector for the organization and configuring it to automatically scan new member accounts, the company can ensure that all EC2 instances and ECR containers are analyzed for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure. Amazon Inspector will automatically assess the workloads and push findings to AWS Security Hub, providing centralized security monitoring and compliance checking. This approach ensures that as new accounts orworkloads are added, they are automatically included in the security assessments, maintaining a consistent security posture across the organization with minimal manual intervention.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The GuardDuty finding “IAMUser/InstanceCredentialExfiltration” indicates that temporary credentials from the instance metadata service have been stolen and used from an unusual location. The immediate priority is to revoke all existing IAM sessions for that instance profile to block the compromised credentials.

This is considered a critical containment action. IAM allows active session revocation, which invalidates credentials associated with a compromised instance profile.

This is explicitly covered under the Incident Response domain in the AWS Security Specialty study material, which emphasizes session revocation and credential rotation in response to exfiltration events.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation with all AWS References

To provide a single management portal for access and integrate with an external IdP for SSO,AWS IAM Identity Center(formerly AWS Single Sign-On) is the best solution:

AWS IAM Identity Center:

IAM Identity Center enables centralized management of access to AWS accounts within an organization.

Supports external IdPs (e.g., Okta, Azure AD) using SAML 2.0 for workforce SSO.

because these are the steps that can ensure that the service-linked role can launch instances with encrypted volumes. A service-linked role is a type of IAM role that is linked to an AWS service and allows the service to perform actions on your behalf. A KMS grant is a mechanism that allows you to delegate permissions to use a customer master key (CMK) to a principal such as a service-linked role.A KMS grant specifies the actions that the principal can perform, such as encrypting and decrypting data. By creating a KMS grant for the service-linked role with the specified actions, you can allow the service-linked role to use the CMK in Account-2 to launch instances with encrypted volumes. By attaching an IAM policy to the role attached to the EC2 instances with KMS actions and then allowing Account-1 in the KMS key policy, you can also enable cross-account access to the CMK and allow the EC2 instances to use the encrypted volumes. The other options are either incorrect or unnecessary for meeting the requirement.

The correct answer is A, C, and E because they provide the most secure and efficient way to implement private connectivity to AWS services. Using interface VPC endpoints for Amazon SQS and gateway VPC endpoints for Amazon S3 allows the application to access these services without using public IP addresses or internet gateways. Modifying the endpoint policies on all VPC endpoints enables the security engineer to specify the SQS and S3 resources that the application uses and restrict access to other resources.

The other options are incorrect because they do not provide private connectivity to AWS services or they introduce unnecessary complexity or cost. Option B is incorrect because AWS Transit Gateway is used to connect multiple VPCs and on-premises networks, not to connect to AWS services. Option D is incorrect because modifying the IAM role applied to the EC2 instances is not sufficient to allow outbound traffic to the interface endpoints. The security group and route table associated with the interface endpoints also need to be configured. Option F is incorrect because AWS Firewall Manager is used to centrally manage firewall rules across multiple accounts and resources, not to connect to AWS services.