This is a classic cross-account S3 access requirement: EC2 instances in Account A must read from a private S3 bucket in Account B without making the bucket public.
The correct pattern is to grant access using IAM + S3 bucket policy while keeping the bucket private. In Account B, you create an IAM role that has the necessary S3 read permissions (such as s3:GetObject and potentially s3:ListBucket depending on access needs). That is Option A.
However, permissions on the role alone are not sufficient, because the S3 bucket is in a different account and is private by default. AWS requires that the bucket owner explicitly grants access to the external principal. This is done by adding a bucket policy in Account B that allows the principal (either the role in Account A or a role session via STS) to access the bucket objects. That is Option D.
Option B is not correct in the “select two” sense because adding permissions to Account A’s instance profile role does not, by itself, grant access to a bucket owned by Account B. You still need the bucket policy or another resource-based policy from the bucket owner.
Option C violates the requirement (“without exposing the S3 bucket to anyone else”). Making the bucket public is unnecessary and insecure.
Option E is incorrect because a trust policy controls who can assume a role (sts:AssumeRole), not what S3 permissions the role has. Also, trust policies do not grant s3:Get* access.
Therefore, create an IAM role with S3 read permissions in Account B and grant access via the Account B bucket policy.
