SCS-C02 Management and Security Governance Practice Question
A company uses AWS Organizations to manage multiple accounts. The security team wants to ensure that all accounts have AWS CloudTrail enabled and that logs are delivered to a central S3 bucket in the management account. What is the most efficient way to enforce this across all accounts?
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
✓
Create a service control policy (SCP) that denies modifications to CloudTrail settings.
The most efficient way to enforce CloudTrail across all accounts in an AWS Organization is to use a Service Control Policy (SCP) that denies the ability to stop or modify CloudTrail settings. SCPs are applied at the organization level and affect all member accounts, preventing any user or role from disabling CloudTrail or changing trail configuration, regardless of their IAM permissions. This ensures compliance without needing per-account setup. Option B (Trusted Advisor) only provides alerts, not enforcement. Option C requires manual configuration per account, which is inefficient and error-prone. Option D (AWS Config rules) can detect non-compliance but cannot prevent changes from being made.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Create a service control policy (SCP) that denies modifications to CloudTrail settings.
Why this is correct
SCPs can prevent disabling CloudTrail or altering trail configurations across all accounts.
- ✗
Use AWS Trusted Advisor to check CloudTrail status and send alerts.
Why it's wrong here
Trusted Advisor only checks and alerts, does not enforce.
- ✗
Configure each account individually with a CloudTrail trail pointing to the central bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Manual per-account setup is not efficient and may be inconsistent.
- ✗
Use AWS Config rules in each account to detect non-compliant trails.
Why it's wrong here
Config rules detect but do not prevent disabling; they only alert after the fact.
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 SCS-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 SCS-C02 exam.