The AWS Certified Security Specialty Exam is designed to test your knowledge and skills in securing applications and infrastructure on the AWS platform. It is an advanced-level certification that requires a deep understanding of AWS security services and best practices, as well as hands-on experience in deploying and managing security solutions on AWS. The exam covers a wide range of topics, including identity and access management, network security, data protection, monitoring and logging, and incident response. It is a challenging exam that requires a significant amount of preparation, study, and practice to pass.
Many candidates find the exam to be challenging due to the breadth and depth of the topics covered and the complexity of the scenarios presented in the exam questions. The exam requires you to not only have a strong understanding of AWS security services and best practices but also the ability to apply that knowledge to real-world scenarios. To prepare for the exam, candidates should have a solid foundation in AWS services and experience in designing and implementing security solutions on the AWS platform. They should also be familiar with security compliance frameworks such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR.
There are several resources available to help candidates prepare for the exam, including AWS training courses, practice exams, and hands-on labs. AWS also provides a detailed exam guide that outlines the exam objectives and provides sample questions to help candidates prepare. In conclusion, the AWS Certified Security Specialty Exam is a challenging exam that requires a significant amount of preparation, study, and practice to pass. However, with the right resources and dedication, candidates can successfully earn this valuable certification and enhance their careers in cloud security.
Glossary of AWS Certified Security Specialty Terminology
Here is a glossary of AWS Certified Security Specialty terminology:
- AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM): A service that enables you to manage access to AWS services and resources securely.
- Security Group: A virtual firewall that controls inbound and outbound traffic for one or more EC2 instances.
- Network Access Control List (NACL): A rule-based network-level security control that filters traffic entering and leaving a subnet.
- Amazon Inspector: A security assessment service that helps identify security vulnerabilities in your EC2 instances and applications.
- AWS KMS: A managed service that enables you to create and control the encryption keys used to protect your data.
- AWS WAF: A web application firewall that protects your web applications from common web exploits and attacks.
- AWS CloudTrail: A service that provides a record of AWS API calls made on your account.
- AWS CloudWatch: A monitoring service that provides real-time visibility into your AWS resources and applications.
- AWS Config: A service that provides an inventory of your AWS resources and tracks changes to their configurations.
- Amazon GuardDuty: A threat detection service that continuously monitors your AWS accounts and workloads for malicious activity.
- AWS Security Hub: A security service that aggregates and prioritizes security findings from AWS services and third-party tools.
- AWS Certificate Manager: A service that makes it easy to provision, manage, and deploy SSL/TLS certificates for use with AWS services.
- AWS Key Management Service (KMS): A managed service that enables you to create and control the encryption keys used to protect your data.
- Amazon Macie: A data security and privacy service that uses machine learning to automatically discover, classify, and protect sensitive data.
- AWS Shield: A managed DDoS protection service that safeguards applications running on AWS.
- AWS Organizations: A service that enables you to consolidate multiple AWS accounts into an organization that you create and centrally manage.
- AWS Directory Service: A managed service that connects AWS resources with an existing on-premises Microsoft Active Directory.
- AWS Secrets Manager: A service that enables you to store and manage secrets, such as database credentials and API keys.
- AWS Artifact: A service that provides on-demand access to AWS compliance reports and other documents.
- AWS Systems Manager: A service that enables you to automate the management of your AWS resources at scale.
Exam preparation resources for AWS Certified Security Specialty Exam
If you’re preparing for the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam, here are some resources that can help you:
- Official Exam Guide: The AWS Certified Security Specialty exam guide is a great resource that provides detailed information about the exam’s topics, structure, and expectations. You can download it from the AWS certification website: https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-security-specialty/
- AWS Security Documentation: AWS provides extensive documentation on its security services and features, which can help you better understand the topics covered in the exam. Here’s the link to their security documentation: https://aws.amazon.com/security/
- AWS Security Blog: The AWS Security Blog is a great resource for staying up-to-date on the latest security news and trends on the AWS platform. It’s also a good place to find tips and best practices for securing your AWS environment. Here’s the link: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/
- AWS Certified Security Specialty Practice Exam: AWS offers a practice exam for the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam. This practice exam can help you identify areas where you need to focus your studies and get familiar with the exam format. Here’s the link to the practice exam: https://www.aws.training/certification?src=cert-prep&type=exam&id=28759
- AWS Certified Security Specialty Exam Readiness Training: AWS also offers an Exam Readiness Training course for the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam. This course includes lectures, demonstrations, and quizzes to help you prepare for the exam. Here’s the link to the Exam Readiness Training: https://www.aws.training/Details/eLearning?id=42199
What makes AWS Certified Security Specialty Exam difficult?
For every AWS Specialty level exam, experience and knowledge are the priority things. In simple terms, the AWS Certified Security Specialty exam validates your knowledge and skills in various areas. Those who have experience in these areas will not find the exam difficult. And, those who have just entered into this will have to gain knowledge in order to become advanced and pass the exam. However, this exam assesses your knowledge in:
- AWS shared responsibility model and its application
- Security controls for workloads on AWS
- Then, Logging and monitoring strategies
- Cloud security threat models
- Patch management and security automation
- After that, approaches for enhancing AWS security services with third-party tools and services
- Disaster recovery controls, including BCP and backups, Encryption, Access control, Data retention
But, how to obtain these skills? For help in this, we will cover the useful study methods, exam guide, and reference training resources in the next section for passing the AWS Certified Security Specialty Exam.
Study guide for AWS Certified Security Specialty Exam
1. Go through the exam topics
The AWS Exam Guide covers a broad range of topics that are both current and relevant. To have a better knowledge of the subject, each section must be read. Start with the most difficult topics and, after you’ve mastered them, you’ll be able to set your learning pace for the rest of the topics. The AWS Certified Security Specialty Exam topics are:
Domain 1: Threat Detection and Incident Response (14%)
Task Statement 1.1: Design and implement an incident response plan.
Knowledge of:
- AWS best practices for incident response (AWS Documentation: AWS Security Incident Response Guide)
- Cloud incidents
- Roles and responsibilities in the incident response plan (AWS Documentation: Define roles and responsibilities)
- AWS Security Finding Format (ASFF) (AWS Documentation: AWS Security Finding Format (ASFF))
Skills in:
- Implementing credential invalidation and rotation strategies in response to compromises (for example, by using AWS Identity and Access Management [IAM] and AWS Secrets Manager) (AWS Documentation: Automatically rotate IAM user access keys at scale with AWS Organizations and AWS Secrets Manager)
- Isolating AWS resources (AWS Documentation: Design isolated resource environments)
- Designing and implementing playbooks and runbooks for responses to security incidents (AWS Documentation: Develop and test security incident response playbooks)
- Deploying security services (for example, AWS Security Hub, Amazon Macie, Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, AWS Config, Amazon Detective, AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer) (AWS Documentation: Security, identity, and compliance)
- Configuring integrations with native AWS services and third-party services (for example, by using Amazon EventBridge and the ASFF)
Task Statement 1.2: Detect security threats and anomalies by using AWS services.
Knowledge of:
- AWS managed security services that detect threats (AWS Documentation: Monitoring data security with managed AWS security services)
- Anomaly and correlation techniques to join data across services (AWS Documentation: Concepts for anomaly or outlier detection)
- Visualizations to identify anomalies
- Strategies to centralize security findings (AWS Documentation: Centralized Security Management)
Skills in:
- Evaluating findings from security services (for example, GuardDuty, Security Hub, Macie, AWS Config, IAM Access Analyzer) (AWS Documentation: AWS service integrations with AWS Security Hub)
- Searching and correlating security threats across AWS services (for example, by using Detective)
- Performing queries to validate security events (for example, by using Amazon Athena) (AWS Documentation: Querying AWS CloudTrail logs)
- Creating metric filters and dashboards to detect anomalous activity (for example, by using Amazon CloudWatch) (AWS Documentation: Using CloudWatch anomaly detection)
Task Statement 1.3: Respond to compromised resources and workloads.
Knowledge of:
- AWS Security Incident Response Guide (AWS Documentation: AWS Security Incident Response Guide)
- Resource isolation mechanisms (AWS Documentation: Design isolated resource environments)
- Techniques for root cause analysis (AWS Documentation: What is Root Cause Analysis (RCA)?)
- Data capture mechanisms (AWS Documentation: Capture data)
- Log analysis for event validation (AWS Documentation: Analyzing log data with CloudWatch Logs Insights)
Skills in:
- Automating remediation by using AWS services (for example, AWS Lambda, AWS Step Functions, EventBridge, AWS Systems Manager runbooks, Security Hub, AWS Config) (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Automation)
- Responding to compromised resources (for example, by isolating Amazon EC2 instances) (AWS Documentation: Remediating a potentially compromised Amazon EC2 instance)
- Investigating and analyzing to conduct root cause analysis (for example, by using Detective) (AWS Documentation: What is Amazon Detective?)
- Capturing relevant forensics data from a compromised resource (for example, Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS] volume snapshots, memory dump) (AWS Documentation: Amazon EBS snapshots)
- Querying logs in Amazon S3 for contextual information related to security events (for example, by using Athena) (AWS Documentation: Querying AWS CloudTrail logs)
- Protecting and preserving forensic artifacts (for example, by using S3 Object Lock, isolated forensic accounts, S3 Lifecycle, and S3 replication) (AWS Documentation: Using S3 Object Lock)
- Preparing services for incidents and recovering services after incidents (AWS Documentation: Recovery)
Domain 2: Security Logging and Monitoring (18%)
Task Statement 2.1: Design and implement monitoring and alerting to address security events.
Knowledge of:
- AWS services that monitor events and provide alarms (for example, CloudWatch, EventBridge) (AWS Documentation: Alarm events and EventBridge)
- AWS services that automate alerting (for example, Lambda, Amazon Simple Notification Service [Amazon SNS], Security Hub) (AWS Documentation: Automated response and remediation)
- Tools that monitor metrics and baselines (for example, GuardDuty, Systems Manager)
Skills in:
- Analyzing architectures to identify monitoring requirements and sources of data for security monitoring (AWS Documentation: Designing and implementing logging and monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch)
- Analyzing environments and workloads to determine monitoring requirements (AWS Documentation: Perform an analysis on the workload demand)
- Designing environment monitoring and workload monitoring based on business and security requirements
- Setting up automated tools and scripts to perform regular audits (for example, by creating custom insights in Security Hub) (AWS Documentation: Custom insights)
- Defining the metrics and thresholds that generate alerts (AWS Documentation: Using Amazon CloudWatch alarms)
Task Statement 2.2: Troubleshoot security monitoring and alerting.
Knowledge of:
- Configuration of monitoring services (for example, Security Hub) (AWS Documentation: What is AWS Security Hub?)
- Relevant data that indicates security events (AWS Documentation: Logging and events)
Skills in:
- Analyzing the service functionality, permissions, and configuration of resources after an event that did not provide visibility or alerting (AWS Documentation: Refining permissions in AWS using last accessed information)
- Analyzing and remediating the configuration of a custom application that is not reporting its statistics (AWS Documentation: What Is AWS Config?)
- Evaluating logging and monitoring services for alignment with security requirements (AWS Documentation: Monitoring and Logging)
Task Statement 2.3: Design and implement a logging solution.
Knowledge of:
- AWS services and features that provide logging capabilities (for example, VPC Flow Logs, DNS logs, AWS CloudTrail, Amazon CloudWatch Logs) (AWS Documentation: Logging IP traffic using VPC Flow Logs)
- Attributes of logging capabilities (for example, log levels, type, verbosity) (AWS Documentation: AWS Lambda function logging in Python)
- Log destinations and lifecycle management (for example, retention period) (AWS Documentation: Managing your storage lifecycle)
Skills in:
- Configuring logging for services and applications (AWS Documentation: Configure service and application logging)
- Identifying logging requirements and sources for log ingestion
- Implementing log storage and lifecycle management according to AWS best practices and organizational requirements (AWS Documentation: Managing your storage lifecycle)
Task Statement 2.4: Troubleshoot logging solutions.
Knowledge of:
- Capabilities and use cases of AWS services that provide data sources (for example, log level, type, verbosity, cadence, timeliness, immutability) (AWS Documentation: AWS services for logging and monitoring)
- AWS services and features that provide logging capabilities (for example, VPC Flow Logs, DNS logs, CloudTrail, CloudWatch Logs) (AWS Documentation: Logging IP traffic using VPC Flow Logs)
- Access permissions that are necessary for logging (AWS Documentation: CloudWatch Logs permissions reference)
Skills in:
- Identifying misconfiguration and determining remediation steps for absent access permissions that are necessary for logging (for example, by managing read/write permissions, S3 bucket permissions, public access, and integrity) (AWS Documentation: Enabling Amazon S3 server access logging)
- Determining the cause of missing logs and performing remediation steps (AWS Documentation: Remediating security issues discovered by GuardDuty)
Task Statement 2.5: Design a log analysis solution.
Knowledge of:
- Services and tools to analyze captured logs (for example, Athena, CloudWatch Logs filter) (AWS Documentation: Logging and monitoring in Athena)
- Log analysis features of AWS services (for example, CloudWatch Logs Insights, CloudTrail Insights, Security Hub insights) (AWS Documentation: Analyzing log data with CloudWatch Logs Insights)
- Log format and components (for example, CloudTrail logs) (AWS Documentation: CloudTrail log file examples)
Skills in:
- Identifying patterns in logs to indicate anomalies and known threats (AWS Documentation: Log anomaly detection)
- Normalizing, parsing, and correlating logs (AWS Documentation: Parsing logs and structured logging)
Domain 3: Infrastructure Security (20%)
Task Statement 3.1: Design and implement security controls for edge services.
Knowledge of:
- Security features on edge services (for example, AWS WAF, load balancers, Amazon Route 53, Amazon CloudFront, AWS Shield) (AWS Documentation: How AWS WAF works with Amazon CloudFront features)
- Common attacks, threats, and exploits (for example, Open Web Application Security Project [OWASP] Top 10, DDoS)
- Layered web application architecture (AWS Documentation: Three-tier architecture overview)
Skills in:
- Defining edge security strategies for common use cases (for example, public website, serverless app, mobile app backend) (AWS Documentation: Identity and access management)
- Selecting appropriate edge services based on anticipated threats and attacks (for example, OWASP Top 10, DDoS)
- Selecting appropriate protections based on anticipated vulnerabilities and risks (for example, vulnerable software, applications, libraries) (AWS Documentation: Vulnerability Reporting)
- Defining layers of defense by combining edge security services (for example, CloudFront with AWS WAF and load balancers)
- Applying restrictions at the edge based on various criteria (for example, geography, geolocation, rate limit) (AWS Documentation: Restricting the geographic distribution of your content)
- Activating logs, metrics, and monitoring around edge services to indicate attacks (AWS Documentation: Metrics and alarms)
Task Statement 3.2: Design and implement network security controls.
Knowledge of:
- VPC security mechanisms (for example, security groups, network ACLs, AWS Network Firewall) (AWS Documentation: Security best practices for your VPC)
- Inter-VPC connectivity (for example, AWS Transit Gateway, VPC endpoints) (AWS Documentation: Amazon VPC-to-Amazon VPC connectivity options)
- Security telemetry sources (for example, Traffic Mirroring, VPC Flow Logs) (AWS Documentation: Logging IP traffic using VPC Flow Logs)
- VPN technology, terminology, and usage (AWS Documentation: What is AWS Site-to-Site VPN?)
- On-premises connectivity options (for example, AWS VPN, AWS Direct Connect) (AWS Documentation: AWS Direct Connect)
Skills in:
- Implementing network segmentation based on security requirements (for example, public subnets, private subnets, sensitive VPCs, on-premises connectivity)
- Designing network controls to permit or prevent network traffic as required (for example, by using security groups, network ACLs, and Network Firewall) (AWS Documentation: Control traffic to subnets using network ACLs)
- Designing network flows to keep data off the public internet (for example, by using Transit Gateway, VPC endpoints, and Lambda in VPCs) (AWS Documentation: What is a transit gateway?)
- Determining which telemetry sources to monitor based on network design, threats, and attacks (for example, load balancer logs, VPC Flow Logs, Traffic Mirroring) (AWS Documentation: Monitor your Network Load Balancers)
- Determining redundancy and security workload requirements for communication between on-premises environments and the AWS Cloud (for example, by using AWS VPN, AWS VPN over Direct Connect, and MACsec) (AWS Documentation: AWS Direct Connect)
- Identifying and removing unnecessary network access (AWS Documentation: Security best practices in IAM)
- Managing network configurations as requirements change (for example, by using AWS Firewall Manager) (AWS Documentation: Working with AWS Firewall Manager policies)
Task Statement 3.3: Design and implement security controls for compute workloads.
Knowledge of:
- Provisioning and maintenance of EC2 instances (for example, patching, inspecting, creation of snapshots and AMIs, use of EC2 Image Builder) (AWS Documentation: What is EC2 Image Builder?)
- IAM instance roles and IAM service roles (AWS Documentation: IAM roles)
- Services that scan for vulnerabilities in compute workloads (for example, Amazon Inspector, Amazon Elastic Container Registry [Amazon ECR]) (AWS Documentation: Scanning Amazon ECR container images with Amazon Inspector)
- Host-based security (for example, firewalls, hardening)
Skills in:
- Creating hardened EC2 AMIs (AWS Documentation: Create a custom Windows AMI)
- Applying instance roles and service roles as appropriate to authorize compute workloads (AWS Documentation: IAM roles for Amazon EC2)
- Scanning EC2 instances and container images for known vulnerabilities (AWS Documentation: Scanning Amazon EC2 instances with Amazon Inspector)
- Applying patches across a fleet of EC2 instances or container images (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager)
- Activating host-based security mechanisms (for example, host-based firewalls)
- Analyzing Amazon Inspector findings and determining appropriate mitigation techniques (AWS Documentation: Understanding findings in Amazon Inspector)
- Passing secrets and credentials securely to compute workloads (AWS Documentation: AWS security credentials)
Task Statement 3.4: Troubleshoot network security.
Knowledge of:
- How to analyze reachability (for example, by using VPC Reachability Analyzer and Amazon Inspector) (AWS Documentation: Getting started with Reachability Analyzer)
- Fundamental TCP/IP networking concepts (for example, UDP compared with TCP, ports, Open Systems Interconnection [OSI] model, network operating system utilities)
- How to read relevant log sources (for example, Route 53 logs, AWS WAF logs, VPC Flow Logs) (AWS Documentation: Logging IP traffic using VPC Flow Logs)
Skills in:
- Identifying, interpreting, and prioritizing problems in network connectivity (for example, by using Amazon Inspector Network Reachability) (AWS Documentation: Network Reachability)
- Determining solutions to produce desired network behavior (AWS Documentation: AWS Config Managed Rules)
- Analyzing log sources to identify problems (AWS Documentation: Analyzing log data with CloudWatch Logs Insights)
- Capturing traffic samples for problem analysis (for example, by using Traffic Mirroring) (AWS Documentation: What is Traffic Mirroring?)
Domain 4: Identity and Access Management (16%)
Task Statement 4.1: Design, implement, and troubleshoot authentication for AWS resources.
Knowledge of:
- Methods and services for creating and managing identities (for example, federation, identity providers, AWS IAM Identity Center [AWS Single Sign-On], Amazon Cognito) (AWS Documentation: Identity providers and federation)
- Long-term and temporary credentialing mechanisms (AWS Documentation: Use temporary credentials)
- How to troubleshoot authentication issues (for example, by using CloudTrail, IAM Access Advisor, and IAM policy simulator) (AWS Documentation: Troubleshooting AWS CloudTrail identity and access)
Skills in:
- Establishing identity through an authentication system, based on requirements (AWS Documentation: How IAM works)
- Setting up multi-factor authentication (MFA) (AWS Documentation: General steps for enabling MFA devices)
- Determining when to use AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) to issue temporary credentials (AWS Documentation: Requesting temporary security credentials)
Task Statement 4.2: Design, implement, and troubleshoot authorization for AWS resources.
Knowledge of:
- Different IAM policies (for example, managed policies, inline policies, identity-based policies, resource-based policies, session control policies) (AWS Documentation: Policies and permissions in IAM)
- Components and impact of a policy (for example, Principal, Action, Resource, Condition) (AWS Documentation: IAM JSON policy elements reference)
- How to troubleshoot authorization issues (for example, by using CloudTrail, IAM Access Advisor, and IAM policy simulator) (AWS Documentation: Troubleshooting AWS CloudTrail identity and access)
Skills in:
- Constructing attribute-based access control (ABAC) and role-based access control (RBAC) strategies (AWS Documentation: What is ABAC for AWS?)
- Evaluating IAM policy types for given requirements and workloads (AWS Documentation: Policy evaluation logic)
- Interpreting an IAM policy’s effect on environments and workloads (AWS Documentation: IAM policy elements: Variables and tags)
- Applying the principle of least privilege across an environment
- Enforcing proper separation of duties
- Analyzing access or authorization errors to determine cause or effect (AWS Documentation: Using AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer)
- Investigating unintended permissions, authorization, or privileges granted to a resource, service, or entity (AWS Documentation: Managing access permissions for your AWS organization)
Domain 5: Data Protection (18%)
Task Statement 5.1: Design and implement controls that provide confidentiality and integrity for data in transit.
Knowledge of:
- TLS concepts (AWS Documentation: Transport Layer Security (TLS))
- VPN concepts (for example, IPsec) (AWS Documentation: What is a VPN (Virtual Private Network)?)
- Secure remote access methods (for example, SSH, RDP over Systems Manager Session Manager) (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Session Manager)
- Systems Manager Session Manager concepts
- How TLS certificates work with various network services and resources (for example, CloudFront, load balancers) (AWS Documentation: TLS listeners for your Network Load Balancer)
Skills in:
- Designing secure connectivity between AWS and on-premises networks (for example, by using Direct Connect and VPN gateways) (AWS Documentation: AWS Direct Connect )
- Designing mechanisms to require encryption when connecting to resources (for example, Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, CloudFront, Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, load balancers, Amazon Elastic File System [Amazon EFS], Amazon API Gateway) (AWS Documentation: Encrypting Amazon RDS resources)
- Requiring TLS for AWS API calls (for example, with Amazon S3) (AWS Documentation: Infrastructure security in Amazon S3)
- Designing mechanisms to forward traffic over secure connections (for example, by using Systems Manager and EC2 Instance Connect) (AWS Documentation: Connect using EC2 Instance Connect)
- Designing cross-Region networking by using private VIFs and public VIFs
Task Statement 5.2: Design and implement controls that provide confidentiality and integrity for data at rest.
Knowledge of:
- Encryption technique selection (for example, client-side, server-side, symmetric, asymmetric) (AWS Documentation: AWS KMS concepts)
- Integrity-checking techniques (for example, hashing algorithms, digital signatures) (AWS Documentation: Checking object integrity)
- Resource policies (for example, for DynamoDB, Amazon S3, and AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS]) (AWS Documentation: Key policies in AWS KMS)
- IAM roles and policies (AWS Documentation: Policies and permissions in IAM)
Skills in:
- Designing resource policies to restrict access to authorized users (for example, S3 bucket policies, DynamoDB policies) (AWS Documentation: Examples of Amazon S3 bucket policies)
- Designing mechanisms to prevent unauthorized public access (for example, S3 Block Public Access, prevention of public snapshots and public AMIs) (AWS Documentation: Blocking public access to your Amazon S3 storage)
- Configuring services to activate encryption of data at rest (for example, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, DynamoDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service [Amazon SQS], Amazon EBS, Amazon EFS) (AWS Documentation: Encryption at rest in Amazon SQS)
- Designing mechanisms to protect data integrity by preventing modifications (for example, by using S3 Object Lock, KMS key policies, S3 Glacier Vault Lock, and AWS Backup Vault Lock) (AWS Documentation: Using S3 Object Lock)
- Designing encryption at rest by using AWS CloudHSM for relationaldatabases (for example, Amazon RDS, RDS Custom, databases on EC2 instances)
- Choosing encryption techniques based on business requirements (AWS Documentation: Creating an enterprise encryption strategy for data at rest)
Task Statement 5.3: Design and implement controls to manage the lifecycle of data at rest.
Knowledge of:
- Lifecycle policies
- Data retention standards
Skills in:
- Designing S3 Lifecycle mechanisms to retain data for required retention periods (for example, S3 Object Lock, S3 Glacier Vault Lock, S3 Lifecycle policy) (AWS Documentation: Managing your storage lifecycle)
- Designing automatic lifecycle management for AWS services and resources (for example, Amazon S3, EBS volume snapshots, RDS volume snapshots, AMIs, container images, CloudWatch log groups, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager) (AWS Documentation: Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager)
- Establishing schedules and retention for AWS Backup across AWS services (AWS Documentation: Creating a backup plan)
Task Statement 5.4: Design and implement controls to protect credentials, secrets, and cryptographic key materials.
Knowledge of:
- Secrets Manager (AWS Documentation: What is AWS Secrets Manager?)
- Systems Manager Parameter Store (AWS Documentation: AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store)
- Usage and management of symmetric keys and asymmetric keys (for example, AWS KMS)
Skills in:
- Designing management and rotation of secrets for workloads (for example, database access credentials, API keys, IAM access keys, AWS KMS customer managed keys)
- Designing KMS key policies to limit key usage to authorized users (AWS Documentation: Key policies in AWS KMS)
- Establishing mechanisms to import and remove customer-provided key material (AWS Documentation: Importing key material for AWS KMS keys)
Domain 6: Management and Security Governance (14%)
Task Statement 6.1: Develop a strategy to centrally deploy and manage AWS accounts.
Knowledge of:
- Multi-account strategies (AWS Documentation: Organizing Your AWS Environment Using Multiple Accounts)
- Managed services that allow delegated administration (AWS Documentation: AWS services that you can use with AWS Organizations)
- Policy-defined guardrails
- Root account best practices (AWS Documentation: Root user best practices for your AWS account)
- Cross-account roles (AWS Documentation: Delegate access across AWS accounts using IAM roles)
Skills in:
- Deploying and configuring AWS Organizations (AWS Documentation: Creating and configuring an organization)
- Determining when and how to deploy AWS Control Tower (for example, which services must be deactivated for successful deployment) (AWS Documentation: Deploying AWS Control Tower in an AWS Landing Zone organization)
- Implementing SCPs as a technical solution to enforce a policy (for example, limitations on the use of a root account, implementation of controls in AWS Control Tower)
- Centrally managing security services and aggregating findings (for example, by using delegated administration and AWS Config aggregators) (AWS Documentation: How central configuration works)
- Securing AWS account root user credentials (AWS Documentation: AWS security credentials)
Task Statement 6.2: Implement a secure and consistent deployment strategy for cloud resources.
Knowledge of:
- Deployment best practices with infrastructure as code (IaC) (for example, AWS CloudFormation template hardening and drift detection) (AWS Documentation: AWS CloudFormation best practices)
- Best practices for tagging (AWS Documentation: Best Practices for Tagging AWS Resources)
- Centralized management, deployment, and versioning of AWS services
- Visibility and control over AWS infrastructure
Skills in:
- Using CloudFormation to deploy cloud resources consistently and securely (AWS Documentation: AWS CloudFormation best practices)
- Implementing and enforcing multi-account tagging strategies (AWS Documentation: Implementing and enforcing tagging)
- Configuring and deploying portfolios of approved AWS services (for example, by using AWS Service Catalog) (AWS Documentation: Automate AWS Service Catalog portfolio and product deployment by using AWS CDK)
- Organizing AWS resources into different groups for management (AWS Documentation: What are resource groups?)
- Deploying Firewall Manager to enforce policies (AWS Documentation: Working with AWS Firewall Manager policies)
- Securely sharing resources across AWS accounts (for example, by using AWS Resource Access Manager [AWS RAM]) (AWS Documentation: Shareable AWS resources)
Task Statement 6.3: Evaluate the compliance of AWS resources.
Knowledge of:
- Data classification by using AWS services (AWS Documentation: Data classification overview)
- How to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of AWS resources (for example, by using AWS Config) (AWS Documentation: Evaluating Resources with AWS Config Rules)
Skills in:
- Identifying sensitive data by using Macie (AWS Documentation: Discovering sensitive data with Amazon Macie)
- Creating AWS Config rules for detection of noncompliant AWS resources (AWS Documentation: Remediating Noncompliant Resources with AWS Config Rules)
- Collecting and organizing evidence by using Security Hub and AWS Audit Manager (AWS Documentation: Reviewing the evidence in an assessment)
Task Statement 6.4: Identify security gaps through architectural reviews and cost analysis.
Knowledge of:
- AWS cost and usage for anomaly identification (AWS Documentation: Getting started with AWS Cost Anomaly Detection)
- Strategies to reduce attack surfaces (AWS Documentation: Attack surface reduction)
- AWS Well-Architected Framework (AWS Documentation: AWS Well-Architected Framework)
Skills in:
- Identifying anomalies based on resource utilization and trends (AWS Documentation: Using CloudWatch anomaly detection)
- Identifying unused resources by using AWS services and tools (for example, AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Cost Explorer) (AWS Documentation: Analyzing your costs with AWS Cost Explorer)
- Using the AWS Well-Architected Tool to identify security gaps (AWS Documentation: Security in AWS Well-Architected Tool)
2. Understanding concepts using AWS Exam Readiness
There are several ways for preparing for the AWS Security Specialty exam. And, everyone has their own way of preparation. In order to create a balanced pathway for all, AWS offers its skill builder exam readiness course. This course is for those who have two or more years of hands-on experience developing and delivering cloud architecture on AWS and want to learn how to prepare for and pass the test. This will help you in studying for the test by analyzing the exam’s topic areas and mapping them to particular study topics.
However, in each topic area, there are exam questions and explain to you how to analyze the ideas being assessed so you can eliminate wrong answers faster.
3. Using AWS Security Training
Overview of AWS Security, Identity, and Compliance
This course covers the basics of AWS security technology, as well as use cases, advantages, and services. The course covers the AWS Security, Identity, and Compliance service category and its many services. By the end of this course, you’ll have a better grasp of cloud security and be able to identify AWS services that can help you safeguard your data. Further, you will learn the process of:
- Explaining security and its importance to AWS
- Secondly, explaining the differences between AWS and on-premises when it comes to security
- Then, defining the five areas of the security pillar from the AWS Well-Architected framework
- Identifying and explaining,
- AWS services used in identity and access management
- AWS services used for detective controls
- Next, AWS services used in infrastructure protection
- AWS services used in data protection
- Lastly, explaining how incident response is carried out on AWS
AWS Security Fundamentals (Second Edition)
This self-paced course will teach you the basics of AWS cloud security, such as AWS access control, data encryption methods, and how to secure network access to your AWS infrastructure. You will go through your security responsibilities in the AWS cloud, as well as the many security-related services accessible. Further, you will learn the process of:
- Identifying the benefits and responsibilities of utilizing the AWS Cloud in terms of security
- Explaining the access control and management features of AWS
- Then, understanding the different data encryption methods to secure sensitive data
- Explaining the process of securing network access to your AWS resources
- Deciding which AWS services can be used for security logging and monitoring
Architecting on AWS
In this course, you’ll learn to discover services and features to develop robust, secure, and highly available IT solutions on the AWS Cloud through a series of use case scenarios and hands-on learning. Expert AWS Instructors highlight best practices and walk you through the process of developing optimum IT solutions based on real-life scenarios using the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Moreover, you’ll experience constructing a solution at the end of the course and be able to confidently use what you’ve learned. Further, you will learn the process of:
- Firstly, identifying AWS architecting basic practices
- Secondly, identifying services and features to build resilient, secure, and highly available IT solutions in the AWS Cloud
- Using the AWS Well-Architected Framework to create effective IT solutions based on real-world circumstances
- Lastly, exploring AWS services for account security, networking, compute, storage, databases, monitoring, automation, containers, serverless architecture, edge services, and backup and recovery
Security Engineering on AWS
This course teaches how to make the most of AWS security capabilities in order to be protected in the cloud. However, the course focuses on AWS’s recommended security practices for improving the security of your data and systems in the cloud. The security characteristics of AWS’s main services such as computing, storage, networking, and database services are highlighted in this course. And, you’ll also discover how to use AWS services and tools for automation, continuous monitoring and logging, and security incident response.
Further, you will learn the process of:
- Firstly, architecting and building AWS application infrastructures that are protected against the most common security threats
- Protecting data in transit and at rest using encryption
- Lastly, implementing automated and reproducible security checks and analysis
4. Getting familiar with AWS services using Whitepapers
You will learn about AWS services and best practices by utilizing the AWS whitepapers related to the Security Specialty exam. This includes:
- Security Pillar AWS Well-Architected Framework
- Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes
- AWS Security Best Practices
- Security at Scale: Logging in AWS
- AWS Key Management Best Practices
- AWS Security Incident Response Guide
- Creating a Scalable and Secure Multi-VPC AWS Network Infrastructure
- AWS Best Practices for DDoS Resiliency
- Security & Compliance Quick Reference Guide
5. Making your revision strong using the Practice exam tests
After you’ve gone over the study guide and exam concepts, you may take practice examinations to see whether you’re ready for the AWS Security Specialty exam and to discover your weak and strong areas. Furthermore, practice exams can assist you in focusing on single-domain subjects, which is a smart way to start while preparing for an exam.
Things to know:
- You can cancel or reschedule your exam free of charge up to 24 hours before your planned appointment.
- Secondly, this exam is also available through online proctoring, so you won’t have to travel to a testing center.
- It will take 170 minutes to finish this exam. There’s no need to rush because you have plenty of time. As a result, take your time and verify your answers carefully.
- Lastly, if you’re taking a remote exam, clear the area surrounding your computer and use your camera to demonstrate the area. While taking the exam, you will be observed and recorded on camera and will not be able to leave the computer.
Final Words
Both cyber security and the cloud are great topics in and of themselves, but combining the two creates a unique mixture of opportunities and challenges. As a result, obtaining an AWS Security Specialty certification will enable you to get expertise in all of these advanced areas. As a result, concentrate on enhancing your preparation by focusing on all of the critical areas. Start creating a study plan, learning about exam subjects using the resources listed above, and pass the exam.
