AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate — Question 265

A manufacturing company uses an Amazon RDS DB instance to store inventory of all stock items. The company maintains several AWS Lambda functions that interact with the database to add, update, and delete items. The Lambda functions use hardcoded credentials to connect to the database.

A SysOps administrator must ensure that the database credentials are never stored in plaintext and that the password is rotated every 30 days.

Which solution will meet these requirements in the MOST operationally efficient manner?

Answer options

• A. Store the database password as an environment variable for each Lambda function. Create a new Lambda function that is named PasswordRotate. Use Amazon EventBridge to schedule the PasswordRotate function every 30 days to change the database password and update the environment variable for each Lambda function.
• B. Use AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) to encrypt the database password and to store the encrypted password as an environment variable for each Lambda function. Grant each Lambda function access to the KMS key so that the database password can be decrypted when required. Create a new Lambda function that is named PasswordRotate to change the password every 30 days.
• C. Use AWS Secrets Manager to store credentials for the database. Create a Secrets Manager secret, and select the database so that Secrets Manager will use a Lambda function to update the database password automatically. Specify an automatic rotation schedule of 30 days. Update each Lambda function to access the database password from Secrets Manager.
• D. Use AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store to create a secure string to store credentials for the database. Create a new Lambda function called PasswordRotate. Use Amazon EventBridge to schedule the PasswordRotate function every 30 days to change the database password and to update the secret within Parameter Store. Update each Lambda function to access the database password from Parameter Store.

Correct answer: C

Explanation

AWS Secrets Manager natively supports automated rotation for Amazon RDS databases with built-in templates, making it the most operationally efficient solution. Options A, B, and D require writing, maintaining, and scheduling custom rotation code, which introduces unnecessary operational overhead. Additionally, storing credentials in plaintext environment variables is insecure and fails to meet the security requirements.