AWS DevOps Engineer Professional Practice Test

Which AWS service is primarily responsible for handling secure credential storage and management?

1. AWS Secrets Manager

2. AWS Key Management Service (KMS)

3. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

4. AWS Lambda

The correct answer is: AWS Secrets Manager

AWS Secrets Manager is designed specifically for securely storing and managing sensitive information such as API keys, passwords, and database credentials. It provides an organized way to store and retrieve these secrets programmatically while also integrating with other AWS services. One of its key features is automatic rotation of secrets, which enhances security by regularly updating credentials without requiring the intervention of users or developers. Additionally, Secrets Manager supports fine-grained access controls and auditing capabilities, which are critical for maintaining security compliance in applications. While AWS Key Management Service (KMS) deals with managing encryption keys for data security, it is not focused on credential storage. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) serves to control user and application access to AWS resources, rather than managing sensitive information. AWS Lambda is a compute service that allows you to run code in response to events and is not related to secret management. Therefore, AWS Secrets Manager stands out as the most appropriate service for this specific purpose.