SCS-C02 Infrastructure Security Practice Question
A company wants to audit all API calls made to Amazon S3 within a specific AWS account. Which combination of services should be used to meet this requirement?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse AWS Config (which tracks configuration changes) with CloudTrail (which tracks API calls), leading them to select Option D, but only CloudTrail provides the detailed audit trail of API activity required for this use case.
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
✓
AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch Logs.
AWS CloudTrail is the service that records all API calls made to Amazon S3 (and other AWS services) within an AWS account, capturing details such as the identity of the caller, the time of the call, the source IP address, and the request parameters. By delivering these logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs, you can monitor, search, and set alarms on the API activity in real time, enabling comprehensive auditing of S3 operations.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch Logs.
Why this is correct
Amazon CloudTrail is the authoritative source for S3 API activity, capturing both management events (e.g., CreateBucket, DeleteBucket) and, when enabled, data events for object-level actions such as PutObject, GetObject, and DeleteObject. By delivering those CloudTrail logs to Amazon CloudWatch Logs, you can create metric filters and alarms for real-time monitoring of API calls, making this the correct combination for a complete S3 audit trail.
- ✗
Amazon Inspector and Amazon CloudWatch Logs.
Why it's wrong here
Amazon Inspector is a vulnerability management service that scans compute workloads for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure; it does not generate or record S3 API call history. While CloudWatch Logs can store logs, Inspector has no S3 API event log integration, so this combination cannot provide the auditable record of who called which S3 operation.
- ✗
Amazon GuardDuty and Amazon CloudWatch Logs.
Why it's wrong here
Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that analyzes telemetry from existing sources, including CloudTrail management events, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS logs, to identify suspicious activity; it does not independently log every S3 API call. GuardDuty might detect anomalies in S3 access, but the underlying audit events still originate from CloudTrail, so pairing GuardDuty with CloudWatch Logs omits the authoritative audit log needed to satisfy this requirement.
- ✗
AWS Config and Amazon CloudWatch Logs.
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config tracks configuration changes to AWS resources, such as an S3 bucket policy, lifecycle rule, or encryption setting, and evaluates them against rules; it does not capture API-call-level detail for every S3 operation. CloudWatch Logs can store emitted logs, but AWS Config does not emit a feed of S3 API calls, so this combination falls short of auditing all S3 API activity.
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 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.