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CLF-C02 Practice Question 85: Secure Instance Access

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) · Test 9 · question 5 of 10

Security & Compliancemedium

Administrators currently reach Linux EC2 instances by connecting over SSH through a bastion host, using shared key pairs, with port 22 open in the security groups. The security team wants to close all inbound ports, remove the bastion host, stop managing SSH keys, control access with IAM policies, and log each session. What should the company use?

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Answer:

  • D. AWS Systems Manager Session Manager

Session Manager is a fully managed Systems Manager tool that gives secure node management without opening inbound ports, maintaining bastion hosts, or managing SSH keys. Administrators connect from the console or the AWS CLI, and who can start a session on which instance is controlled with IAM policies. Session activity can be logged to AWS CloudTrail, Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudWatch Logs to meet audit requirements. It meets every requirement in the stem.

Option A encrypts the path from the administrators' devices into the VPC, but they would still use SSH. That means port 22 stays open on the instances and the key pairs still have to be managed. Option B is a dedicated private network connection to AWS. It changes how traffic reaches the VPC, not how administrators authenticate to instances, so SSH and keys remain. Option C narrows who can reach port 22, but the port stays open, and the bastion host and shared keys stay too.

Reference: AWS Systems Manager Session Manager

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