SAP-C02 Practice Question: Design Solutions for Organizational Complexity
A large e-commerce company uses a multi-account AWS Organizations setup with a central logging account. The company has enabled AWS CloudTrail in all accounts and configured it to deliver logs to a centralized Amazon S3 bucket in the logging account. Recently, the security team noticed that some log files are missing for a period of 2 hours. The CloudTrail console shows that trails are still enabled and delivering to the bucket, but no new log files were created during that time. The team verified that there were API calls made during that period. Which action is most likely to resolve the issue and prevent recurrence?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates assume missing logs are always due to trail misconfiguration or KMS issues, but the real cause is often a missing or overly restrictive S3 bucket policy that silently blocks CloudTrail writes without generating an obvious error in the CloudTrail console.
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
✓
Check the S3 bucket policy in the logging account to ensure it grants the required permissions to the CloudTrail service principal from all accounts.
The most likely cause is that the S3 bucket policy in the central logging account does not grant the necessary permissions for CloudTrail from all accounts to write log files. Even though trails are enabled and appear to be delivering, a missing or misconfigured bucket policy can silently drop log deliveries when the CloudTrail service principal (cloudtrail.amazonaws.com) attempts to write objects. The security team verified API calls occurred, so the issue is at the delivery destination, not the trail configuration itself.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Review the SCPs attached to the organization root; there might be a policy that denies CloudTrail actions.
Why it's wrong here
SCPs do not affect CloudTrail's ability to write to S3.
- ✓
Check the S3 bucket policy in the logging account to ensure it grants the required permissions to the CloudTrail service principal from all accounts.
Why this is correct
If the bucket policy inadvertently denies access, CloudTrail cannot write logs.
- ✗
Ensure that the KMS key used for encryption is accessible by the CloudTrail service.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail does not require customer-managed KMS keys for delivery to S3.
- ✗
Enable AWS Config to monitor CloudTrail delivery status and automatically restart the trail if logs are missing.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config can monitor but not restart trails; the issue is likely a bucket policy.
Visual reference
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 |
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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.