GregLab | Exam Prep

Security, Identity, and Compliance

Core

Network ACLs

Explicit VPC configuration/troubleshooting and stateless filtering.

Key points

  • NACLs are ordered stateless subnet filters whose rules must permit both directions of an allowed flow.

Best-known use cases

  • D4.1, D4.2, and D5.1: allow or deny the named subnet flow, including service and ephemeral return ports.

What candidates often confuse it with

  • NACLs are stateless and support allows and denies; security groups are stateful allow controls on resource interfaces.

Key takeaway

When a reply is dropped at a subnet boundary, inspect both NACL directions before changing a stateful security group.

Related services

  • AWS Certificate Manager (ACM)
  • Amazon EC2 security groups
  • Egress-only internet gateways

Relevant exam tasks

  • D4.1 — Task 4.1: Implement and manage security and compliance tools and policies.
  • 4.1.1 — Implement IAM features (for example, password policies, multi-factor authentication [MFA], roles, federated identity, resource policies, policy conditions).
  • D4.2 — Task 4.2: Implement strategies to protect data and infrastructure.
  • 4.2.1 — Implement and enforce a data classification scheme.
  • D5.1 — Task 5.1: Implement and optimize networking features and connectivity.
  • 5.1.1 — Configure a VPC (for example, subnets, route tables, network ACLs, security groups, NAT gateways, internet gateway, egress-only internet gateway).

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Exam Weights

Exam snapshot

SOA-C03 at a glance

Category
Associate
Duration
130 minutes
Questions
65 total; 50 scored and 15 unidentified unscored
Formats
Multiple choice and multiple response
Scoring
100–1,000 scaled score; 720 minimum passing score

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Exam fidelity: AWS documents 65 questions in 130 minutes: 50 scored and 15 unidentified unscored, using multiple-choice and multiple-response formats. This site's practice accuracy and readiness do not reproduce AWS's 100–1,000 scaled scoring or identify unscored items. Difficulty labels describe this site's Associate-level scenario complexity, not an AWS-published question rating.

Reference

SOA-C03 topics and reference map

Study links

SOA-C03 resources