DEA-C01 Data Security and Governance Practice Question
A data engineer needs to audit all AWS KMS key usage in the account. Which AWS service should be used to record KMS API calls?
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
✓
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail records API calls for KMS. Option B (AWS Config) is wrong because it records resource changes, not API calls. Option C (Amazon CloudWatch Logs) is wrong because it stores logs but does not record API calls. Option D (Amazon GuardDuty) is wrong because it is for threat detection.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
AWS CloudTrail
Why this is correct
AWS CloudTrail records every KMS API call as a management event, capturing the caller identity, key ARN, timestamp and source IP. This directly satisfies the audit requirement, since KMS operations such as Encrypt, Decrypt and CreateKey are logged automatically to the account's event history and any configured trail.
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AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config records resource configuration changes and evaluates compliance rules; it does not capture individual KMS API calls such as Encrypt, Decrypt or GenerateDataKey. It is tempting because it tracks KMS key policy and rotation state, which suits configuration-compliance monitoring rather than API-level audit trails.
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Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch Logs stores application and resource log streams you publish to it, but KMS API activity is not delivered there by default; CloudTrail is the service that records those calls. It is tempting because CloudWatch Logs can host CloudTrail-delivered events, which suits custom metric filters and alarming.
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Amazon GuardDuty
Why it's wrong here
GuardDuty is a threat-detection service that analyses CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs and DNS logs for malicious activity; it does not provide the authoritative, queryable record of every KMS API call. It is tempting because it surfaces anomalous KMS key usage, which suits security alerting rather than compliance auditing.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-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 DEA-C01 exam.