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DBS-C01 · Question #166

A company is running a two-tier ecommerce application in one AWS account. The application is backed by an Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. A developer mistakenly deleted the DB instance in t

The correct answer is A. Grant least privilege to groups, IAM users, and roles. C. Enable deletion protection on existing production DB instances. D. Use an ACL policy to restrict users from DB instance deletion.. To minimize the risk of accidental deletion of a production Amazon RDS DB instance, implement least privilege for IAM users and roles, enable deletion protection on the DB instance, and use IAM policies to explicitly restrict deletion permissions.

Submitted by yousef_jo· Mar 6, 2026Database Security

Question

A company is running a two-tier ecommerce application in one AWS account. The application is backed by an Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ DB instance. A developer mistakenly deleted the DB instance in the production environment. The company restores the database, but this event results in hours of downtime and lost revenue. Which combination of changes would minimize the risk of this mistake occurring in the future? (Choose three.)

Options

  • AGrant least privilege to groups, IAM users, and roles.
  • BAllow all users to restore a database from a backup.
  • CEnable deletion protection on existing production DB instances.
  • DUse an ACL policy to restrict users from DB instance deletion.
  • EEnable AWS CloudTrail logging and Enhanced Monitoring.

How the community answered

(44 responses)
  • A
    77% (34)
  • B
    9% (4)
  • E
    14% (6)

Why each option

To minimize the risk of accidental deletion of a production Amazon RDS DB instance, implement least privilege for IAM users and roles, enable deletion protection on the DB instance, and use IAM policies to explicitly restrict deletion permissions.

AGrant least privilege to groups, IAM users, and roles.Correct

Granting least privilege ensures that users and roles only have the necessary permissions to perform their job functions, preventing accidental deletions by those who do not require delete access.

BAllow all users to restore a database from a backup.

Allowing all users to restore a database from a backup does not prevent accidental deletion and could introduce unnecessary security risks by granting broad permissions.

CEnable deletion protection on existing production DB instances.Correct

Enabling deletion protection on the RDS DB instance is a built-in feature that prevents an instance from being deleted until the protection is explicitly disabled, directly addressing accidental deletion.

DUse an ACL policy to restrict users from DB instance deletion.Correct

Using IAM policies to restrict `rds:DeleteDBInstance` actions for most users and roles is a direct access control mechanism to prevent unauthorized or accidental deletion of database instances.

EEnable AWS CloudTrail logging and Enhanced Monitoring.

AWS CloudTrail logging provides an audit trail of API calls, and Enhanced Monitoring provides performance metrics, but neither actively prevents a deletion action from occurring.

Concept tested: RDS deletion protection and IAM least privilege

Source: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/CHAP_Common.html#CHAP_Common.DeletionProtection

Topics

#RDS for MySQL#deletion protection#IAM policies#least privilege

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