Earning AWS Certified Security – Specialty validates knowledge of data and workload security in the AWS Cloud. AWS has consistently provided the best solutions for a wide range of industries, assisting them in achieving the best results. This credential assists organizations in identifying and developing talent with critical skills for cloud initiatives. Because of the introduction of future technologies such as Machine Learning, AWS’ services have become even more advanced. Many top organizations and businesses benefit from these areas because they reduce expenses and resources.
Let us begin with the planning for becoming an AWS Certified Security Specialist!
AWS Certified Security Speciality
The AWS Certified Security – Specialty (SCS-C01) exam is intended for security professionals. The test validates a candidate’s ability to demonstrate knowledge of AWS platform security. The exam also determines whether an applicant possesses the following qualities:
- Understanding of specific data classifications as well as AWS data security protocols
- Knowledge of data encryption techniques and the AWS technologies used to implement them
- Knowledge of secure internet protocols, as well as the AWS technologies used to deploy them
- A solid understanding of AWS security services and service capabilities is required to enable a secure production environment.
- Competence in utilising AWS security services and features based on at least two years of production deployment experience.
- The ability to make tradeoff decisions between cost, security, and deployment complexity in order to meet a set of application requirements.
- Working knowledge of security risks and operations
You must take and pass the AWS Certified Security – Specialty exam to obtain this certification (SCS-C01).
Who should take the exam?
The AWS certified security – speciality (SCS-C01) exam is designed for individuals who work in a security role. The AWS exam validates an examinee’s ability to effectively demonstrate knowledge of the AWS platform’s security. Candidates must have a minimum of five years of IT security experience, designing and implementing security solutions, as one of the AWS certified security specialty prerequisites. In addition, you must have at least two years of hands-on experience securing AWS workloads with security controls for AWS workloads.
Let us now move to the meat of the article –
How to become an AWS Certified Security Specialist?
The primary responsibilities of an AWS Security Specialist include identifying, analyzing, and reporting security risks to management and internal customers. Using appropriate evaluation procedures, they assess security measures as well as operational threats to our personnel, data, and physical assets. The development of skills and a firm understanding of the concepts will be the most important aspects of this journey. But there’s no need to panic. The most important factor is to have the necessary skills and knowledge. let us get started –
Step 1 – Know in-depth about the exam syllabus
Below mentioned is the detailed course outline for the exam along with the documentation and whitepapers offered by AWS –
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
Step 2 – Know about the Exam Format
Another thing that the candidate should be aware of is the exam’s fundamentals. The AWS Certified Security Specialty SCS C01 exam consists of 65 questions that must be answered in 170 minutes. The certification has a three-year validity period and is available in English, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. On the examination, there are two types of questions:
- There is one correct response and three incorrect responses in a multiple choice question (distractors).
- Multiple answers: Has two or more correct answers out of five or more options.
Furthermore, the AWS certified security specialty certification costs $300; however, prices may vary depending on location.
Step 3 – Know about – What’s in the Future?
There are some important points of which you should be aware of when you will be taking this exam – this includes knowing about the scope and future of the exam. It is important to know if the objectives of the exam align with your goals or the specific purpose you wish to achieve.
AWS Security experts in the United States earn approximately US$143,677 per year, according to ZipRecruiter. The average Amazon Security Specialist salary in India, on the other hand, ranges from 3.3 Lakhs for those with less than one year of experience to 12 Lakhs for those with more than one year of experience. A Security Specialist at Amazon can expect to earn between 2.3 and 4.8 lakhs per year.
Step 4 – Refer to the best Resources
Different resources have varying levels of knowledge and comprehension. In academic life, however, revision should be done on a case-by-case basis. As a result, it is critical to match the type of revision you do on your source material. Below mentioned are some of the resources that you can refer to and that can be of utmost benefit for your preparation –
Refer to AWS Academy
AWS Academy provides higher education institutions with free, ready-to-teach cloud computing coursework, preparing students to pursue industry-recognized certifications and in-demand cloud careers. Their curriculum helps instructors stay on the cutting edge of AWS Cloud innovation so that they can provide students with the skills needed to land a job in one of the fastest-growing industries. Refer to the Amazon training listed below –
- Getting Started with AWS Security, Identity, and Compliance
- AWS Security Fundamentals (Second Edition)
- Architecting on AWS
- Security Engineering on AWS
Refer to Amazon Whitepapers
Candidates preparing for the AWS can also benefit from Amazon whitepapers. We can confidently recommend the AWS certified security specialty whitepapers as genuine study resources. These are PDF versions of the topics found on the official Amazon certifications page. Whitepapers not only help you prepare better, but they also help you develop a solid plan to focus on. AWS provides sample papers to applicants to help them gain more knowledge and skills in order to prepare for certification exams. If you want to refer to reading materials, you can also refer to Amazon white papers. Some of them are listed below:
- Security Pillar – AWS Well Architected Framework
- Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes
- AWS Security Best Practices
Online Study Groups
Candidates may benefit from online study groups when studying for exams. In other words, participating in study groups will enable you to stay in touch with experts and professionals who are already on this path. To clear the concepts and develop a strong understanding, you can also refer to instructor-led training and online classes. More emphasis should be placed on the theoretical aspect and hands-on training, which can be strengthened by receiving training from experts or taking classes from a reputable organization.
Referring to Practice Tests
It is critical to take practice exams to improve your readiness. You will learn about your weak and strong points by taking the AWS Security Specialist exam. You will also be able to improve your response abilities, which will allow you to save a significant amount of time during the test. This is the most important aspect of your preparation; complete as many sample papers and practice tests as possible. This will help you improve your weak areas while also clearing your conceptual areas. You will feel more confident if you practice as much as possible. Now is the time to take the free test!
Step 5 – Take the exam in accordance with the Expert’s Advice
Even a single qualification has the potential to transform your life. It has the potential to create new opportunities. It is up to you, however, to seize and capitalize on such opportunities. And, in an increasingly DevOps world, you can’t expect someone else to handle all the details you don’t understand. Specialization and collaboration are essential, but you must also be able to run systems on your own.
Given this, pursuing the AWS Security Specialist certification is a good idea to lay a solid foundation for efficiently utilizing AWS daily. This course will teach you how to design, build, configure, monitor, and maintain AWS-based security systems.
