Amazon SCS-C02 Practice Test - Questions Answers, Page 24

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

To detect suspicious activity in an AWS account for VPC hosted resources, the security engineer needs to use a service that can monitor network traffic and API calls across all AWS Regions. Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that can do this by analyzing VPC Flow Logs, AWS CloudTrail event logs, and DNS logs. By activating GuardDuty across all AWS Regions, the security engineer can provide visibility for as many regions as possible. GuardDuty generates findings that contain details about the potential threats detected in the account. To respond to these findings, the security engineer needs to create a mechanism that can notify the relevant stakeholders or take remedial actions. One way to do this is to use Amazon EventBridge, which is a serverless event bus service that can connect AWS services and third-party applications. By creating an EventBridge rule that responds to GuardDuty findings and publishes them to an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic, the security engineer can enable subscribers of the topic to receive notifications via email, SMS, or other methods. This is a cost-effective solution that does not require any additional infrastructure or code.

'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.'

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

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

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

The correct answer is A, C, and F.

To automate a response for any newly created policies that are overly permissive, the security engineer needs to use a combination of services that can monitor, analyze, remediate, and notify the security incidents.

Option A is correct because creating an AWS Step Functions state machine that checks the resource type in the finding and adds an explicit Deny statement in the trust policy for the IAM role is a valid way to remediate external access. AWS Step Functions is a service that allows you to coordinate multiple AWS services into serverless workflows. You can use Step Functions to invoke AWS Lambda functions, which can modify the IAM policies programmatically. You can also use Step Functions to publish a notification to an Amazon SNS topic, which can send messages to subscribers such as email addresses.

Option B is incorrect because creating an AWS Batch job that forwards any resource type findings to an AWS Lambda function is not a suitable way to automate a response. AWS Batch is a service that enables you to run batch computing workloads on AWS. Batch is designed for large-scale and long-running jobs that can benefit from parallelization and dynamic provisioning of compute resources. Batch is not intended for event-driven and real-time workflows that require immediate response.

Option C is correct because creating an Amazon EventBridge event rule that matches active IAM Access Analyzer findings and invokes AWS Step Functions for resolution is a valid way to monitor and analyze the security incidents. Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus service that allows you to connect your applications with data from various sources. EventBridge can use rules to match events and route them to targets for processing. You can use EventBridge to invoke AWS Step Functions state machines from the IAM Access Analyzer findings.

Option D is incorrect because creating an Amazon CloudWatch metric filter that matches active IAM Access Analyzer findings and invokes AWS Batch for resolution is not a suitable way to monitor and analyze the security incidents. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that provides monitoring and observability for your AWS resources and applications. CloudWatch can collect metrics, logs, and events from various sources and perform actions based on alarms or filters. However, CloudWatch cannot directly invoke AWS Batch jobs from the IAM Access Analyzer findings. You would need to use another service such as EventBridge or SNS to trigger the Batch job.

Option E is incorrect because creating an Amazon SQS queue that forwards a notification to the security team that an external principal has been granted access to the specific IAM role and has been blocked is not a valid way to notify the security incidents. Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queue service that enables you to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. SQS can deliver messages to consumers that poll the queue for messages. However, SQS cannot directly forward a notification to the security team's email addresses. You would need to use another service such as SNS or SES to send email notifications.

Option F is correct because creating an Amazon SNS topic for external or cross-account access notices and subscribing the security team's email addresses to the topic is a valid way to notify the security incidents. Amazon SNS is a fully managed messaging service that enables you to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. SNS can deliver messages to a variety of endpoints, such as email, SMS, or HTTP. You can use SNS to send email notifications to the security team when a critical security finding is detected.

AWS Step Functions

AWS Batch

Amazon EventBridge

Amazon CloudWatch

Amazon SQS

Amazon SNS

The correct answer is Create an AWS Service Catalog portfolio in the organization's management account. Upload the CloudFormation template. Add the template to the portfolio's product list. Share the portfolio with the OU. According to the AWS documentation, AWS Service Catalog is a service that allows you to create and manage catalogs of IT services that are approved for use on AWS. You can use Service Catalog to centrally manage commonly deployed IT services and help achieve consistent governance and compliance requirements, while enabling users to quickly deploy only the approved IT services they need. To use Service Catalog with multiple AWS accounts, you need to enable AWS Organizations with all features enabled. This allows you to centrally manage your accounts and apply policies across your organization. You can also use Service Catalog as a service principal for AWS Organizations, which lets you share your portfolios with organizational units (OUs) or accounts in your organization. To create a Service Catalog portfolio, you need to use an administrator account, such as the organization's management account. You can upload your CloudFormation template as a product in your portfolio, and define constraints and tags for it. You can then share your portfolio with the OU that contains the accounts for the web applications. This will allow the developers in those accounts to launch products from the shared portfolio using the Service Catalog end user console. Option B is incorrect because CloudFormation modules are reusable components that encapsulate one or more resources and their configurations. They are not meant to be used as templates for deploying entire stacks of resources. Moreover, sharing a module with an OU does not grant access to launch stacks from it. Option C is incorrect because creating an IAM role that has a trust policy that allows cross-account access to the portfolio is not secure. It would allow any user in the OU accounts to assume the role and access the portfolio, regardless of their job function or access requirements. Option D is incorrect because sharing a module with an OU does not grant access to launch stacks from it. It also does not limit access to the deployment plan to only the developers who need access.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The correct answer is B, D, and F. Designate an AWS account in an organization in AWS Organizations as a delegated administrator for Security Hub. Publish events to Amazon EventBridge from the delegated administrator account, all member accounts, and required Regions that are enabled for Security Hub findings. In each Region, create an Amazon EventBridge rule to deliver findings to an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream. Configure the Kinesis Data Firehose delivery streams to deliver the logs to a single Amazon S3 bucket. Partition the Amazon S3 data. Use AWS Glue to crawl the S3 bucket and build the schema. Use Amazon Athena to query the data and create views to flatten nested attributes. Build Amazon QuickSight dashboards that use the Athena views.

According to the AWS documentation, AWS Security Hub is a service that provides you with a comprehensive view of your security state across your AWS accounts, and helps you check your environment against security standards and best practices. You can use Security Hub to aggregate security findings from various sources, such as AWS services, partner products, or your own applications.

To use Security Hub 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 Security Hub as a service principal for AWS Organizations, which lets you designate a delegated administrator account for Security Hub. The delegated administrator account can enable Security Hub automatically in all existing and future accounts in your organization, and can view and manage findings from all accounts.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus that makes it easy to connect applications using data from your own applications, integrated software as a service (SaaS) applications, and AWS services. You can use EventBridge to create rules that match events from various sources and route them to targets for processing.

To use EventBridge with Security Hub findings, you need to enable Security Hub as an event source in EventBridge. This will allow you to publish events from Security Hub to EventBridge in the same Region. You can then create EventBridge rules that match Security Hub findings based on criteria such as severity, type, or resource. You can also specify targets for your rules, such as Lambda functions, SNS topics, or Kinesis Data Firehose delivery streams.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is a fully managed service that delivers real-time streaming data to destinations such as Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Elasticsearch Service (Amazon ES), and Splunk. You can use Kinesis Data Firehose to transform and enrich your data before delivering it to your destination.

To use Kinesis Data Firehose with Security Hub findings, you need to create a Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream in each Region where you have enabled Security Hub. You can then configure the delivery stream to receive events from EventBridge as a source, and deliver the logs to a single S3 bucket as a destination. You can also enable data transformation or compression on the delivery stream if needed.

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 Security Hub findings, you need to create an S3 bucket that will store the logs from Kinesis Data Firehose delivery streams. You can then partition the data in the bucket by using prefixes such as account ID or Region. This will improve the performance and cost-effectiveness of querying the data.

According to the AWS documentation, AWS Glue is a fully managed extract, transform, and load (ETL) service that makes it easy to prepare and load your data for analytics. You can use Glue to crawl your data sources, identify data formats, and suggest schemas and transformations. You can also use Glue Data Catalog as a central metadata repository for your data assets.

To use Glue with Security Hub findings, you need to create a Glue crawler that will crawl the S3 bucket and build the schema for the data. The crawler will create tables in the Glue Data Catalog that you can query using standard SQL.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to manage, and you pay only for the queries that you run. You can use Athena with Glue Data Catalog as a metadata store for your tables.

To use Athena with Security Hub findings, you need to create views in Athena that will flatten nested attributes in the data. For example, you can create views that extract fields such as account ID, Region, resource type, resource ID, finding type, finding title, and finding description from the JSON data. You can then query the views using SQL and join them with other tables if needed.

According to the AWS documentation, Amazon QuickSight is a fast, cloud-powered business intelligence service that makes it easy to deliver insights to everyone in your organization. You can use QuickSight to create and publish interactive dashboards that include machine learning insights. You can also use QuickSight to connect to various data sources, such as Athena, S3, or RDS.

To use QuickSight with Security Hub findings, you need to create QuickSight dashboards that use the Athena views as data sources. You can then visualize and analyze the findings using charts, graphs, maps, or tables. You can also apply filters, calculations, or aggregations to the data. You can then share the dashboards with your users or embed them in your applications.