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
Task Statement 1.1: Design and implement an incident response plan.
Knowledge of:
- AWS best practices for incident response
- Cloud incidents
- Roles and responsibilities in the incident response plan
- 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)
- Isolating AWS resources
- Designing and implementing playbooks and runbooks for responses to security incidents
- 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)
- 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
- Anomaly and correlation techniques to join data across services
- Visualizations to identify anomalies
- Strategies to centralize security findings
Skills in:
- Evaluating findings from security services (for example, GuardDuty, Security Hub, Macie, AWS Config, IAM Access Analyzer)
- 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)
- Creating metric filters and dashboards to detect anomalous activity (for example, by using Amazon CloudWatch)
Task Statement 1.3: Respond to compromised resources and workloads.
Knowledge of:
- AWS Security Incident Response Guide
- Resource isolation mechanisms
- Techniques for root cause analysis
- Data capture mechanisms
- Log analysis for event validation
Skills in:
- Automating remediation by using AWS services (for example, AWS Lambda, AWS Step Functions, EventBridge, AWS Systems Manager runbooks, Security Hub, AWS Config)
- Responding to compromised resources (for example, by isolating Amazon EC2 instances)
- Investigating and analyzing to conduct root cause analysis (for example, by using Detective)
- Capturing relevant forensics data from a compromised resource (for example, Amazon Elastic Block Store [Amazon EBS] volume snapshots, memory dump)
- Querying logs in Amazon S3 for contextual information related to security events (for example, by using Athena)
- Protecting and preserving forensic artifacts (for example, by using S3 Object Lock, isolated forensic accounts, S3 Lifecycle, and S3 replication)
- Preparing services for incidents and recovering services after incidents
Domain 2: Security Logging and Monitoring
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 services that automate alerting (for example, Lambda, Amazon Simple Notification Service [Amazon SNS], Security Hub)
- 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
- Analyzing environments and workloads to determine monitoring requirements
- 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)
- Defining the metrics and thresholds that generate alerts
Task Statement 2.2: Troubleshoot security monitoring and alerting.
Knowledge of:
- Configuration of monitoring services (for example, Security Hub)
- Relevant data that indicates security events
Skills in:
- Analyzing the service functionality, permissions, and configuration of resources after an event that did not provide visibility or alerting
- Analyzing and remediating the configuration of a custom application that is not reporting its statistics
- Evaluating logging and monitoring services for alignment with security requirements
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)
- Attributes of logging capabilities (for example, log levels, type, verbosity)
- Log destinations and lifecycle management (for example, retention period)
Skills in:
- Configuring logging for services and applications
- Identifying logging requirements and sources for log ingestion
- Implementing log storage and lifecycle management according to AWS best practices and organizational requirements
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 services and features that provide logging capabilities (for example, VPC Flow Logs, DNS logs, CloudTrail, CloudWatch Logs)
- Access permissions that are necessary for logging
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)
- Determining the cause of missing logs and performing remediation steps
Task Statement 2.5: Design a log analysis solution.
Knowledge of:
- Services and tools to analyze captured logs (for example, Athena, CloudWatch Logs filter)
- Log analysis features of AWS services (for example, CloudWatch Logs Insights, CloudTrail Insights, Security Hub insights)
- Log format and components (for example, CloudTrail logs)
Skills in:
- Identifying patterns in logs to indicate anomalies and known threats
- Normalizing, parsing, and correlating logs
Domain 3: Infrastructure Security
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) - Common attacks, threats, and exploits (for example, Open Web Application
Security Project [OWASP] Top 10, DDoS) - Layered web application architecture
Skills in:
- Defining edge security strategies for common use cases (for example, public website, serverless app, mobile app backend)
- 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)
- 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)
- Activating logs, metrics, and monitoring around edge services to indicate attacks
Task Statement 3.2: Design and implement network security controls.
Knowledge of:
- VPC security mechanisms (for example, security groups, network ACLs, AWS Network Firewall)
- Inter-VPC connectivity (for example, AWS Transit Gateway, VPC endpoints)
- Security telemetry sources (for example, Traffic Mirroring, VPC Flow Logs)
- VPN technology, terminology, and usage
- On-premises connectivity options (for example, AWS VPN, 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)
- Designing network flows to keep data off the public internet (for example, by using Transit Gateway, VPC endpoints, and Lambda in VPCs)
- Determining which telemetry sources to monitor based on network design, threats, and attacks (for example, load balancer logs, VPC Flow Logs, Traffic Mirroring)
- 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)
- Identifying and removing unnecessary network access
- Managing network configurations as requirements change (for example, by using AWS Firewall Manager)
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)
- IAM instance roles and IAM service roles
- Services that scan for vulnerabilities in compute workloads (for example, Amazon Inspector, Amazon Elastic Container Registry [Amazon ECR])
- Host-based security (for example, firewalls, hardening)
Skills in:
- Creating hardened EC2 AMIs
- Applying instance roles and service roles as appropriate to authorize compute workloads
- Scanning EC2 instances and container images for known vulnerabilities
- Applying patches across a fleet of EC2 instances or container images
- Activating host-based security mechanisms (for example, host-based firewalls)
- Analyzing Amazon Inspector findings and determining appropriate mitigation techniques
- Passing secrets and credentials securely to compute workloads
Task Statement 3.4: Troubleshoot network security.
Knowledge of:
- How to analyze reachability (for example, by using VPC Reachability Analyzer and Amazon Inspector)
- 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)
Skills in:
- Identifying, interpreting, and prioritizing problems in network connectivity (for example, by using Amazon Inspector Network Reachability)
- Determining solutions to produce desired network behavior
- Analyzing log sources to identify problems
- Capturing traffic samples for problem analysis (for example, by using Traffic Mirroring)
Domain 4: Identity and Access Management
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)
- Long-term and temporary credentialing mechanisms
- How to troubleshoot authentication issues (for example, by using CloudTrail, IAM Access Advisor, and IAM policy simulator)
Skills in:
- Establishing identity through an authentication system, based on requirements
- Setting up multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Determining when to use AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) to issue temporary 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)
- Components and impact of a policy (for example, Principal, Action, Resource, Condition)
- How to troubleshoot authorization issues (for example, by using CloudTrail, IAM Access Advisor, and IAM policy simulator)
Skills in:
- Constructing attribute-based access control (ABAC) and role-based access control (RBAC) strategies
- Evaluating IAM policy types for given requirements and workloads
- Interpreting an IAM policy’s effect on environments and workloads
- Applying the principle of least privilege across an environment
- Enforcing proper separation of duties
- Analyzing access or authorization errors to determine cause or effect
- Investigating unintended permissions, authorization, or privileges granted to a resource, service, or entity
Domain 5: Data Protection
Task Statement 5.1: Design and implement controls that provide confidentiality and integrity for data in transit.
Knowledge of:
- TLS concepts
- VPN concepts (for example, IPsec)
- Secure remote access methods (for example, SSH, RDP over Systems Manager Session Manager)
- Systems Manager Session Manager concepts
- How TLS certificates work with various network services and resources (for example, CloudFront, load balancers)
Skills in:
- Designing secure connectivity between AWS and on-premises networks (for example, by using Direct Connect and VPN gateways)
- 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)
- Requiring TLS for AWS API calls (for example, with Amazon S3)
- Designing mechanisms to forward traffic over secure connections (for example, by using Systems Manager and 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)
- Integrity-checking techniques (for example, hashing algorithms, digital signatures)
- Resource policies (for example, for DynamoDB, Amazon S3, and AWS Key Management Service [AWS KMS])
- IAM roles and policies
Skills in:
- Designing resource policies to restrict access to authorized users (for example, S3 bucket policies, DynamoDB policies)
- Designing mechanisms to prevent unauthorized public access (for example, S3 Block Public Access, prevention of public snapshots and public AMIs)
- 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)
- 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)
- 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
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)
- 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)
- Establishing schedules and retention for AWS Backup across AWS services
Task Statement 5.4: Design and implement controls to protect credentials, secrets, and cryptographic key materials.
Knowledge of:
- Secrets Manager
- 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
- Establishing mechanisms to import and remove customer-provided key material
Domain 6: Management and Security Governance
Task Statement 6.1: Develop a strategy to centrally deploy and manage AWS accounts.
Knowledge of:
- Multi-account strategies
- Managed services that allow delegated administration
- Policy-defined guardrails
- Root account best practices
- Cross-account roles
Skills in:
- Deploying and configuring AWS Organizations
- Determining when and how to deploy AWS Control Tower (for example,
which services must be deactivated for successful deployment) - 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) - Securing AWS account root user 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) - Best practices for tagging
- 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
- Implementing and enforcing multi-account tagging strategies
- Configuring and deploying portfolios of approved AWS services (for example, by using AWS Service Catalog)
- Organizing AWS resources into different groups for management
- Deploying Firewall Manager to enforce policies
- Securely sharing resources across AWS accounts (for example, by using AWS Resource Access Manager [AWS RAM])
Task Statement 6.3: Evaluate the compliance of AWS resources.
Knowledge of:
- Data classification by using AWS services
- How to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of AWS resources (for example, by using AWS Config)
Skills in:
- Identifying sensitive data by using Macie
- Creating AWS Config rules for detection of noncompliant AWS resources
- Collecting and organizing evidence by using Security Hub and AWS Audit Manager
Task Statement 6.4: Identify security gaps through architectural reviews and cost analysis.
Knowledge of:
- AWS cost and usage for anomaly identification
- Strategies to reduce attack surfaces
- AWS Well-Architected Framework
Skills in:
- Identifying anomalies based on resource utilization and trends
- Identifying unused resources by using AWS services and tools (for example, AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Cost Explorer)
- Using the AWS Well-Architected Tool to identify security gaps
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.
