SCS-C02 Security Logging and Monitoring Practice Question
A company wants to monitor for unauthorized changes to its Amazon S3 bucket policies. Which AWS service should be used to detect such changes?
⚠ Common exam trap
SCS-C02 often tests the difference between detecting configuration drift (AWS Config) and detecting API activity (CloudTrail) — candidates pick CloudTrail because it 'logs changes' but miss the compliance-evaluation requirement.
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 Config
AWS Config continuously records resource configurations and evaluates them against rules, so it can detect and alert on changes to S3 bucket policies via the s3-bucket-policy-not-more-permissive or custom Config rules. It provides a configuration timeline and compliance state, which is exactly what's needed to detect unauthorized policy 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.
- ✓
AWS Config
Why this is correct
AWS Config records configuration changes for supported resources and continuously evaluates those configurations against managed or custom rules. For S3 bucket policies, rules such as s3-bucket-policy-grant-check can detect unauthorized or noncompliant policy changes, flag the resource as noncompliant, and trigger remediation. It maintains a configuration history and timeline, making it the appropriate service for monitoring unauthorized changes to resource configuration.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
AWS CloudTrail records API activity, such as PutBucketPolicy calls, and provides an audit trail of who made the change, when, and from where. However, it does not compare the resulting bucket policy against an allowed baseline or evaluate whether the change is compliant or unauthorized. It is an event-logging service, not a configuration-compliance or change-monitoring service, so it cannot proactively alert on unauthorized configuration changes.
- ✗
Amazon GuardDuty
Why it's wrong here
Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that analyzes data sources like CloudTrail management events, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS logs using anomaly detection and threat intelligence. It focuses on identifying suspicious activity such as compromised credentials or unusual API patterns, not on inspecting the contents of S3 bucket policies or tracking resource configuration state. GuardDuty cannot determine whether a policy change was unauthorized because it does not evaluate policies against compliance rules or a known-good baseline.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch Logs Insights
Why it's wrong here
Amazon CloudWatch Logs Insights is a query engine for interactively exploring log data stored in CloudWatch Logs, using a SQL-like query syntax. It can search historical logs (e.g., CloudTrail events) for keywords or patterns, but it has no concept of resource configuration or desired policy state, and it cannot proactively evaluate S3 bucket policies against rules. Queries must be manually run or scheduled, and there is no automatic compliance assessment or alerting on unauthorized configuration changes.
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 and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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.