SOA-C03 - Security and Compliance - Section 4.2

Audit and troubleshoot access using AWS CloudTrail, IAM Access Analyzer and the IAM policy simulator, and govern multiple accounts with AWS Organizations, service control policies and AWS Control Tower.

Audit and troubleshoot access by replaying policies in the IAM policy simulator, reviewing external access findings in IAM Access Analyzer, and tracing API calls in AWS CloudTrail. Govern multi-account environments by applying service control policies through AWS Organizations and enforcing guardrails via AWS Control Tower.

IAM Access AnalyzerIAM policy simulatorService control policiesAWS Control Tower

Practice question for this objective

Free sampleSecurity and Compliancehard

A security team is hardening a member account before a release. They must do two things ahead of deployment. First, given a draft IAM permissions policy that has not yet been attached to a role, they need to confirm whether it would allow a specific s3:PutObject call on a named bucket and see which statement grants or denies it, without making any live API calls. Second, they need continuous, automatic detection of any IAM role, S3 bucket or KMS key in the account that becomes accessible to a principal outside the account as policies change over time. Which two AWS capabilities together satisfy both needs? (Select TWO.)

  • AQuery AWS CloudTrail management events in the account to review which principals have already called s3:PutObject on the bucket and from which source addresses.
  • BUse the IAM policy simulator to evaluate the draft policy against the s3:PutObject action and the bucket resource, reporting the allow or deny decision and the deciding statement. Correct
  • CEnable an AWS Config managed rule for IAM policies so the account records configuration changes and flags policies that do not match the chosen rule parameters.
  • DGenerate an IAM policy from the role's recent CloudTrail activity so the team can attach a tightly scoped policy derived from observed calls.
  • EEnable IAM Access Analyzer in the account so it continuously analyses resource and trust policies and raises findings whenever a resource becomes accessible to an external principal. Correct
Match offline access validation to the IAM policy simulator and continuous external-access detection to IAM Access Analyzer when troubleshooting and auditing account access. The two needs map to two distinct purpose-built tools. The IAM policy simulator evaluates a policy that is not yet attached against a specific action and resource and returns the allow or deny decision plus the deciding statement, all without a live call, which answers the pre-deployment question. IAM Access Analyzer continuously analyses resource-based and trust policies and emits a finding the moment a role, bucket or key becomes reachable by a principal outside the account, which answers the ongoing exposure need. CloudTrail only records calls after they occur, policy generation only drafts a policy from past activity, and an AWS Config rule checks recorded configuration without simulating a decision or reasoning about cross-account reachability, so none of those three meets either requirement.

Why A is wrong: CloudTrail records calls that already happened and is tempting for access investigation, but it cannot evaluate an unattached draft policy beforehand nor continuously flag external-access exposure.

Why B is correct: The IAM policy simulator evaluates a policy offline against chosen actions and resources, returning the decision and the responsible statement without issuing any live API call.

Why C is wrong: An AWS Config rule evaluates recorded configuration against fixed criteria and seems relevant to governance, but it neither simulates a specific action decision nor reasons about cross-account access paths.

Why D is wrong: Policy generation from CloudTrail produces a least-privilege draft from past activity and is appealing for hardening, but it does not test a hypothetical action nor continuously detect external access.

Why E is correct: IAM Access Analyzer reasons over resource and trust policies on an ongoing basis and automatically generates a finding when a role, bucket or key is exposed outside the account.

See more SOA-C03 practice questions, answers explained.

More in this domain

Back to all Security and Compliance objectives, or the SOA-C03 cert hub.

Examworthy is not affiliated with or endorsed by Amazon Web Services. Original, blueprint-aligned practice material only.