AIF-C01 Fundamentals of AI and ML Practice Question
A company wants to automatically detect anomalies in their AWS CloudTrail logs to identify potential security threats. Which AWS service is specifically designed for this purpose?
⚠ Common exam trap
The AIF-C01 exam often tests the distinction between services that detect threats (GuardDuty) versus services that protect data (Macie), assess vulnerabilities (Inspector), or track configuration compliance (Config), leading candidates to confuse their primary use cases.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Amazon GuardDuty
Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors AWS accounts and workloads using machine learning, anomaly detection, and integrated threat intelligence. It specifically analyzes CloudTrail management and data events, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS logs to identify unauthorized behavior or potential security threats, making it the correct choice for automatically detecting anomalies in CloudTrail logs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon Macie
Why it's wrong here
Macie discovers and classifies sensitive data in Amazon S3 using machine learning, so it never inspects CloudTrail API activity for threat patterns. It is tempting because Macie also uses ML-based detection, but its data-perimeter scope targets PII in buckets, not anomalous management events; GuardDuty is the service built for that.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config records resource configuration changes and evaluates them against rules, so it detects drift and compliance violations rather than anomalous API behaviour in CloudTrail. It is tempting because Config ingests CloudTrail-delivered events, but its evaluation axis is configuration state, not threat detection; GuardDuty analyses those logs for malicious activity.
- ✓
Amazon GuardDuty
Why this is correct
GuardDuty is a managed threat-detection service that continuously analyses CloudTrail management events, VPC Flow Logs and DNS logs using machine learning and threat intelligence, surfacing anomalous or malicious activity without agents — precisely the automated anomaly detection the company needs.
- ✗
Amazon Inspector
Why it's wrong here
Inspector scans EC2 instances, container images and Lambda functions for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure, so it never analyses CloudTrail management events for anomalous behaviour. It is tempting because Inspector is a security service producing findings, but its assessment axis is vulnerability, not threat detection; GuardDuty covers that.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AIF-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AIF-C01 exam.