SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A company uses AWS Organizations with a management account and multiple member accounts. The management account has a trail in AWS CloudTrail that logs all management events for all accounts. The security team wants to also log data events for S3 buckets across all accounts. They create a new trail in the management account with data events enabled for all S3 buckets in all accounts. However, data events from member accounts are not appearing in the CloudTrail logs. What is the most likely cause?
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
✓
Data events for S3 buckets are not logged centrally by a trail created in the management account; each account must have its own trail for data events.
A trail created in the management account of AWS Organizations can log management events for all member accounts, but data events (such as S3 object-level operations) are logged only for the account that owns the trail. To capture data events from member accounts, each member account must create its own trail and enable data event logging for its S3 buckets. Option A is incorrect because CloudTrail can write to an S3 bucket even without a bucket policy, as long as the bucket is in the same account. Option B is incorrect because the trail was configured to log data events for all S3 buckets, but that setting only applies to the management account, not member accounts. Option D is incorrect because KMS encryption does not affect the ability to log data events; CloudTrail can use the appropriate KMS permissions if configured.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The S3 bucket in the management account does not have a bucket policy that allows CloudTrail to write logs from member accounts.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail uses a separate mechanism for cross-account log delivery.
- ✗
The trail is not configured to log data events for all S3 buckets; it only logs for specific buckets.
Why it's wrong here
The trail was configured for all buckets.
- ✓
Data events for S3 buckets are not logged centrally by a trail created in the management account; each account must have its own trail for data events.
Why this is correct
Data events are per-account unless using advanced event selectors with cross-account support (which is not default).
- ✗
The S3 bucket is encrypted with a KMS key that CloudTrail does not have permission to use.
Why it's wrong here
Encryption does not prevent logging.
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.