Amazon Web Services Updated SAA-C03 Exam Questions and Answers by cece

The most suitable solution for the company’s compliance policy is to enable the restricted-ssh AWS Config managed rule and generate an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) notification when a noncompliant rule is created. This solution has the least operational overhead because it uses a predefined rule that is already available in AWS Config, which is a service that enables users to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of their AWS resources. The restricted-ssh rule checks whether security groups that are in use have inbound rules that allow SSH from 0.0.0.0/0 addresses, and reports them as noncompliant1. Users can configure the rule to send notifications to an Amazon SNS topic when a noncompliant change occurs, and subscribe to the topic to receive alerts via email, SMS, or other methods2.

The other options are not correct because they either have more operational overhead or do not meet the requirements. Writing an AWS Lambda script that monitors security groups for SSH being open to 0.0.0.0/0 addresses and creates a notification every time it finds one is not correct because it requires custom code development and maintenance, which adds complexity and cost to the solution. Creating an IAM role with permissions to globally open security groups and network ACLs, and creating an Amazon SNS topic to generate a notification every time the role is assumed by a user is not correct because it does not prevent or detect the creation of noncompliant rules by other users or roles, and it does not address the existing rules that may violate the policy. Configuring a service control policy (SCP) that prevents non-administrative users from creating or editing security groups, and creating a notification in the ticketing system when a user requests a rule that needs administrator permissions is not correct because it does not provide an automated solution for the policy enforcement and notification, and it may limit the flexibility and productivity of the users.

References:

restricted-ssh - AWS Config

Getting Notifications When Your Resources Change - AWS Config

The correct solution is to provision a separate AWS KMS key for each customer and encrypt the data server-side. This way, the company can use the S3 encryption feature to protect the data at rest and delegate the control of the encryption keys to the customers. The customers can then use their own IAM roles to access and decrypt their data. The company employees will not be able to access the data because they are not authorized by the KMS key policies. The other options are incorrect because:

Option A and D are using ACM certificates to encrypt the data client-side. This is not a recommended practice for S3 encryption because it adds complexity and overhead to the encryption process. Moreover, the company will have to manage the certificates and their policies for each customer, which is not scalable and secure.

Option B is using a separate KMS key for each customer, but it is using the S3 bucket policy to control the decryption access. This is not a secure solution because the bucket policy applies to the entire bucket, not to individual objects. Therefore, the customers will be able to access and decrypt each other’s data if they have the permission to list the bucket contents. The bucket policy also overrides the KMS key policy, which means the company employees can access the data if they have the permission to use the KMS key.

References:

S3 encryption

KMS key policies

ACM certificates

This solution will meet the requirements because Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is a fully managed service that provides highly reliable, scalable, and feature-rich file storage built on NetApp’s popular ONTAP file system. FSx for ONTAP supports both NFS and SMB protocols, which means it can be accessed by both Linux and Windows applications without code changes. FSx for ONTAP also eliminates data duplication and inefficient resource usage by automatically tiering infrequently accessed data to a lower-cost storage tier and providing storage efficiency features such as deduplication and compression. FSx for ONTAP also integrates with other AWS services such as Amazon S3, AWS Backup, and AWS CloudFormation. By migrating the applications to Amazon EC2 instances, the company can leverage the scalability, security, and performance of AWS compute resources. 

CloudWatch cross-account observability is a feature that allows you to monitor and troubleshoot applications that span multiple accounts within a Region. You can seamlessly search, visualize, and analyze your metrics, logs, traces, and Application Insights applications in any of the linked accounts without account boundaries1. To enable CloudWatch cross-account observability, you need to set up one or more AWS accounts as monitoring accounts and link them with multiple source accounts. A monitoring account is a central AWS account that can view and interact with observability data shared by other accounts. A source account is an individual AWS account that shares observability data and resources with one or more monitoring accounts1. To create links between monitoring accounts and source accounts, you can use the CloudWatch console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS API. You can also use AWS Organizations to link accounts in an organization or organizational unit to the monitoring account1. CloudWatch provides a CloudFormation template that you can deploy in each source account to share observability data with the monitoring account. The template creates a sink resource in the monitoring account and an observability link resource in the source account. The template also creates the necessary IAM roles and policies to allow cross-account access to the observability data2. Therefore, the solution that meets the requirements of the question is to enable CloudWatch cross-account observability for the monitoring account and deploy the CloudFormation template provided by the monitoring account in each AWS account to share the data with the monitoring account.

The other options are not valid because:

Service control policies (SCPs) are a type of organization policy that you can use to manage permissions in your organization. SCPs offer central control over the maximum available permissions for all accounts in your organization, allowing you to ensure your accounts stay within your organization’s access control guidelines3. SCPs do not provide access to CloudWatch in the monitoring account, but rather restrict the actions that users and roles can perform in the source accounts. SCPs are not required to enable CloudWatch cross-account observability, as the CloudFormation template creates the necessary IAM roles and policies for cross-account access2.

IAM users are entities that you create in AWS to represent the people or applications that use them to interact with AWS. IAM users can have permissions to access the resources in your AWS account4. Configuring a new IAM user in the monitoring account and an IAM policy in each AWS account to have access to query and visualize the CloudWatch data in the account is not a valid solution, as it does not enable CloudWatch cross-account observability. This solution would require the IAM user to switch between different accounts to view the observability data, which is not seamless and efficient. Moreover, this solution would not allow the IAM user to search, visualize, and analyze metrics, logs, traces, and Application Insights applications across multiple accounts in a single place1.

Cross-account IAM policies are policies that allow you to delegate access to resources that are in different AWS accounts that you own. You attach a cross-account policy to a user or group in one account, and then specify which accounts the user or group can access5. Creating a new IAM user in the monitoring account and cross-account IAM policies in each AWS account is not a valid solution, as it does not enable CloudWatch cross-account observability. This solution would also require the IAM user to switch between different accounts to view the observability data, which is not seamless and efficient. Moreover, this solution would not allow the IAM user to search, visualize, and analyze metrics, logs, traces, and Application Insights applications across multiple accounts in a single place1.

References: CloudWatch cross-account observability, CloudFormation template for CloudWatch cross-account observability, Service control policies, IAM users, Cross-account IAM policies