SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company has a multi-account AWS environment with a centralized logging account. The security team wants to ensure that all CloudTrail logs from all accounts are delivered to a single S3 bucket in the logging account. The logging account's S3 bucket policy allows CloudTrail to write logs from other accounts. The CloudTrail trail in each account is configured to deliver to the centralized bucket. However, logs from some accounts are not appearing. The security team has verified that the IAM permissions for CloudTrail are correct. What is the most likely reason for the missing logs?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often assume IAM permissions in the source account are sufficient, but they overlook that cross-account S3 access requires explicit permission in the destination bucket's resource-based policy, not just the source's identity-based policy.
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
✓
The S3 bucket policy does not grant CloudTrail write access from the source accounts
The most likely reason for missing logs is that the S3 bucket policy in the logging account does not explicitly grant CloudTrail write access from the source accounts. Even though the bucket policy allows CloudTrail to write logs, it must include a principal that identifies the source account's CloudTrail service (e.g., `AWS:SourceAccount` or `AWS:SourceArn`) to authorize cross-account writes. Without this, CloudTrail from other accounts cannot deliver logs to the centralized bucket, regardless of correct IAM permissions in the source accounts.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
CloudTrail cannot deliver logs to a bucket in a different AWS account
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail supports cross-account log delivery.
- ✗
The S3 bucket policy does not include a condition for aws:SourceOrgID
Why it's wrong here
While best practice, it's not required for basic cross-account delivery.
- ✓
The S3 bucket policy does not grant CloudTrail write access from the source accounts
Why this is correct
The bucket policy must allow the CloudTrail service principal from each source account to write logs.
- ✗
The accounts need to enable VPC endpoints for S3 to communicate with the logging account
Why it's wrong here
VPC endpoints are not necessary for cross-account S3 access over the internet.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAP-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 SAP-C02 exam.