Question

Difficulty: EasyShared Responsibility Model

A company is using Amazon DynamoDB to store user profile data for a mobile application. Under the AWS Shared Responsibility Model, which two of the following tasks are the responsibility of the customer? (Select TWO.)

  1. Configuring Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies to restrict table accessAnswer
  2. Enabling client-side encryption for the data before it is written to the tableAnswer
  3. C
    Applying security updates and OS patches to the underlying database servers
  4. D
    Replacing failing physical solid-state drives (SSDs) in the AWS data centers
  5. E
    Upgrading the DynamoDB database engine software version

Answer

Configuring Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies to restrict table access and Enabling client-side encryption for the data before it is written to the table
Configuring access control policies and managing data encryption (like client-side encryption) are customer responsibilities because they fall under 'security in the cloud'. The customer has sole control over who is authorized to access their database resources and how their data is encrypted before or during transit.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the service type
Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed (PaaS/serverless) database service.
Managed services shift the responsibility of operating system patching, hardware provisioning, and database engine maintenance to AWS.
2
Identify customer responsibilities for managed services
The customer is still responsible for data protection (like client-side encryption) and access management (IAM policies).
Under the Shared Responsibility Model, the customer is always responsible for the security of their data and who has access to it ('security in the cloud').

Key Concept

Under the AWS Shared Responsibility Model, AWS is responsible for 'security of the cloud' (managed database engine, OS patching, hardware, and physical security), while the customer is responsible for 'security in the cloud' (data classification, client-side encryption, and access management/IAM policies).
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