A security engineer is working with a company to design an ecommerce application. The application will run on Amazon EC2 instances that run in an Auto Scaling group behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application will use an Amazon RDS DB instance for its database.
The only required connectivity from the internet is for HTTP and HTTPS traffic to the application. The application must communicate with an external payment provider that allows traffic only from a preconfigured allow list of IP addresses. The company must ensure that communications with the external payment provider are not interrupted as the environment scales.
Which combination of actions should the security engineer recommend to meet these requirements? (Select THREE.)
Correct Answer:
ACE
A company needs to improve its ability to identify and prevent IAM policies that grant public access or cross-account access to resources. The company has implemented AWS Organizations and has started using AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer to refine overly broad access to accounts in the organization.
A security engineer must automate a response in the company's organization for any newly created policies that are overly permissive. The automation must remediate external access and must notify the company's security team.
Which combination of steps should the security engineer take to meet these requirements? (Select THREE.)
Correct Answer:
ACF
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.
References:
AWS Step Functions AWS Batch Amazon EventBridge Amazon CloudWatch Amazon SQS Amazon SNS
A company needs to retain tog data archives for several years to be compliant with regulations. The tog data is no longer used but It must be retained
What Is the MOST secure and cost-effective solution to meet these requirements?
Correct Answer:
B
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.
Your CTO thinks your IAM account was hacked. What is the only way to know for certain if there was unauthorized access and what they did, assuming your hackers are very sophisticated IAM engineers and doing everything they can to cover their tracks?
Please select:
Correct Answer:
A
The IAM Documentation mentions the following
To determine whether a log file was modified, deleted, or unchanged after CloudTrail delivered it you can use CloudTrail log file integrity validation. This feature is built using industry standard algorithms: SHA-256 for hashing and SHA-256 with RSA for digital signing. This makes it computationally infeasible to modify, delete or forge CloudTrail log files without detection. You can use the IAM CLI to validate the files in the location where CloudTrail delivered them
Validated log files are invaluable in security and forensic investigations. For example, a validated log file enables you to assert positively that the log file itself has not changed, or that particular user credentials performed specific API activity. The CloudTrail log file integrity validation process also lets you know if a log file has been deleted or changed, or assert positively that no log files were delivered to your account during a given period of time.
Options B.C and D is invalid because you need to check for log File Integrity Validation for cloudtrail logs For more information on Cloudtrail log file validation, please visit the below URL: http://docs.IAM.amazon.com/IAMcloudtrail/latest/userguide/cloudtrail-log-file-validation-intro.html
The correct answer is: Use CloudTrail Log File Integrity Validation. omit your Feedback/Queries to our Expert
A security engineer wants to evaluate configuration changes to a specific AWS resource to ensure that the resource meets compliance standards. However, the security engineer is concerned about a situation in which several configuration changes are made to the resource in quick succession. The security engineer wants to record only the latest configuration of that resource to indicate the cumulative impact of the set of changes.
Which solution will meet this requirement in the MOST operationally efficient way?
Correct Answer:
B
AWS Config is a service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources. AWS Config continuously monitors and records your AWS resource configurations and allows you to automate the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations.
To evaluate configuration changes to a specific AWS resource and ensure that it meets compliance standards, the security engineer should use AWS Config to detect the configuration changes and to record the latest configuration in case of multiple configuration changes. This will allow the security engineer to view the current state of the resource and its compliance status, as well as its configuration history and timeline.
AWS Config records configuration changes as ConfigurationItems, which are point-in-time snapshots of the resource’s attributes, relationships, and metadata. If multiple configuration changes occur within a short period of time, AWS Config records only the latest ConfigurationItem for that resource. This indicates the cumulative impact of the set of changes on the resource’s configuration.
This solution will meet the requirement in the most operationally efficient way, as it leverages AWS Config’s features to monitor, record, and evaluate resource configurations without requiring additional tools or services.
The other options are incorrect because they either do not record the latest configuration in case of multiple configuration changes (A, C), or do not use a valid service for evaluating resource configurations (D).
Verified References:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/config/latest/developerguide/WhatIsConfig.html
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/config/latest/developerguide/config-item-table.html