AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner / Question #921 of 719

Question #921

Which AWS service or feature allows administrators to determine which resources were potentially accessible by an IAM user during a specific date range?

A

Amazon S3 access control lists (ACLs)

B

AWS Certificate Manager (ACM)

C

Network Access Analyzer

D

AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer

Explanation

The correct answer is D. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) Access Analyzer helps identify resources that a specified IAM user or role could potentially access during a specific time frame. It evaluates permissions granted by IAM policies and resource-based policies (e.g., S3 bucket policies) as they existed historically, enabling administrators to audit access retrospectively. This is critical for security reviews and compliance.

Why other options are incorrect:
- A (Amazon S3 ACLs): S3 ACLs manage access control for S3 resources but do not provide a way to audit historical access across AWS services.
- B (AWS Certificate Manager): ACM handles SSL/TLS certificates and has no relation to access auditing.
- C (Network Access Analyzer): This service identifies unintended network paths but does not track IAM user access to resources.

Key Points:
- IAM Access Analyzer evaluates permissions retroactively using historical policy data.
- It covers cross-service resource access, not limited to S3 or network configurations.
- The feature supports compliance by enabling audits of past permissions.

Answer

The correct answer is: D