SCS-C02 Security Logging and Monitoring Practice Question

A company has a requirement to retain CloudTrail logs for 7 years for compliance. The logs are stored in an S3 bucket. The security team needs to ensure that logs are not deleted before the retention period ends, even by users with full S3 permissions. Which action should be taken?

⚠ Common exam trap

A common mix-up: candidates choose MFA Delete (Option A) because it adds security, but they overlook that MFA Delete does not prevent deletion by authorized users who have MFA devices, whereas Object Lock in Compliance mode provides true immutability against all users.

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

✓

Enable S3 Object Lock in Compliance mode on the bucket with a retention period of 7 years.

S3 Object Lock in Compliance mode prevents any user, including the root user, from overwriting or deleting objects until the retention period expires. This meets the requirement to retain CloudTrail logs for 7 years, even against users with full S3 permissions, because Compliance mode cannot be bypassed or removed by any user.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

✗
Enable MFA Delete on the bucket and require MFA for all delete operations.
Why it's wrong here
MFA can be bypassed by root user with hardware MFA.
✓
Enable S3 Object Lock in Compliance mode on the bucket with a retention period of 7 years.
Why this is correct
Compliance mode prevents any deletion, even by root.
✗
Enable S3 Versioning and set a lifecycle policy to expire noncurrent versions after 7 years.
Why it's wrong here
Versioning allows deletion of current versions.
✗
Create a bucket policy that denies s3:DeleteObject for all users.
Why it's wrong here
Bucket policy does not apply to the AWS account root user.

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

SCS-C02 Security Logging and Monitoring Practice Question

Why each option matters

Option-by-option breakdown

AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison

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