SCS-C02 Security Logging and Monitoring Practice Question
A company wants to detect and alert on changes to IAM roles and policies in their AWS account. Which combination of AWS services should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse AWS Config (which evaluates resource compliance) with real-time event-driven alerting, or they mistakenly think GuardDuty’s threat detection includes IAM policy change alerts, when in fact CloudTrail + EventBridge is the correct pattern for custom event-based monitoring.
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 EventBridge (CloudWatch Events)
AWS CloudTrail records all API calls, including changes to IAM roles and policies, and delivers log files to an S3 bucket or CloudWatch Logs. Amazon EventBridge (formerly CloudWatch Events) can then be used to create rules that match specific CloudTrail events (e.g., PutRolePolicy, CreateRole) and trigger alerts via SNS, Lambda, or other targets. This combination provides real-time detection and notification of IAM modifications.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon GuardDuty and AWS Shield
Why it's wrong here
Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that analyzes findings like malicious activity or compromised credentials, but it does not monitor or record IAM role configuration changes; it can alert on suspicious API calls, not on changes themselves. AWS Shield provides DDoS protection for network and application layers, which is entirely unrelated to identity and access management. Together, these services would not capture the granular IAM role modifications (e.g., policy updates, trust relationship changes) that the company needs to detect.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch Logs and AWS Lambda
Why it's wrong here
Amazon CloudWatch Logs can store and retain log data, and AWS Lambda can run custom code to process those logs, but without a source that captures IAM API calls, no relevant logs would be produced. IAM role changes are not automatically written to CloudWatch Logs; they must be delivered there by AWS CloudTrail via a trail or by a custom application. While Lambda could parse and alert on logs, it would be acting on empty or incomplete data, so this combination fails to provide the required detection mechanism.
- ✓
AWS CloudTrail and Amazon EventBridge (CloudWatch Events)
Why this is correct
AWS CloudTrail is the correct service to record all IAM API activity—such as CreateRole, UpdateAssumeRolePolicy, AttachRolePolicy, and DeleteRole—by generating event logs with details like the requesting principal, source IP, and timestamp. Amazon EventBridge (formerly CloudWatch Events) can be configured with rule patterns that match specific IAM events, then trigger actions like sending notifications to Amazon SNS or invoking a Lambda function. This combination enables near-real-time, event-driven alerting on exactly the IAM role changes that the company cares about, with no need for polling or custom log parsing.
- ✗
AWS Config and Amazon Inspector
Why it's wrong here
AWS Config does track changes to IAM roles as configuration items and can evaluate rules for compliance, but it delivers configuration history and notifications on a periodic basis, not real-time API-event-driven alerts for every API call. Amazon Inspector is a vulnerability management service that assesses workloads for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure; it has no role in monitoring IAM role configuration changes. Therefore, while AWS Config could be part of a compliance posture, pairing it with Inspector does not provide the immediate, action-specific alerting that CloudTrail and EventBridge offer.
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.