DOP-C02 Monitoring and Logging Practice Question
A company wants to receive a notification when an AWS IAM user creates a new access key. Which AWS service should be used to capture this event and trigger a notification?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse CloudWatch (which handles metrics and logs) with CloudWatch Events (which handles event-driven triggers), leading them to pick Option C, even though CloudWatch alone cannot capture API calls without CloudTrail integration.
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 with CloudWatch Events
AWS CloudTrail captures API activity, including the CreateAccessKey event when an IAM user creates a new access key. By sending these events to Amazon CloudWatch Events (now part of Amazon EventBridge), you can define a rule that triggers a notification via SNS, Lambda, or other targets. This combination provides the real-time event-driven notification the company requires.
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 GuardDuty
Why it's wrong here
Amazon GuardDuty is a managed threat detection service that uses machine learning and anomaly detection to identify potential malicious activity, such as credential theft, but it does not provide a per-API-call event stream. It focuses on security findings and threat intelligence rather than delivering real-time notifications for every IAM user action. Therefore, it would not meet the requirement to be alerted when an IAM user performs a specific API call.
- ✓
AWS CloudTrail with CloudWatch Events
Why this is correct
AWS CloudTrail records all API calls made by IAM users as events, and CloudWatch Events (now Amazon EventBridge) can be configured with event patterns to match specific actions. This integration enables real-time notifications by routing matched events to an SNS topic or Lambda function. Thus, CloudTrail provides the audit log while CloudWatch Events performs the filtering and alerting.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch
Why it's wrong here
Amazon CloudWatch alone is designed to monitor operational metrics, logs, and set alarms based on thresholds, but it does not directly capture AWS API calls. Without CloudTrail delivering events to it, CloudWatch has no visibility into IAM user actions. It could consume events if integrated, but by itself it cannot fulfill the requirement.
- ✗
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config is a service that assesses resource configurations and evaluates them against desired compliance policies, primarily for configuration drift and change management. It does not stream or monitor individual API calls for real-time alerting; rather, it records configuration changes and provides compliance results. This makes it unsuitable for triggering immediate notifications on specific IAM API actions.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every DOP-C02 question from scratch — 1,298 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DOP-C02 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 DOP-C02 exam.