Quick Answer
The answer is AWS CloudTrail, as it is the only service that records every API call made to your AWS environment, providing a complete audit of all changes to AWS resources. CloudTrail captures events like CreateInstance or ModifySecurityGroup, logging who made the change, when, and from which source IP, which directly fulfills the requirement to audit resource changes. On the AWS Certified Security Specialty SCS-C02 exam, this concept tests your understanding of logging and monitoring fundamentals—expect a scenario where you must distinguish CloudTrail from services like AWS Config (which tracks resource configuration state) or CloudWatch (which monitors performance metrics). A common trap is confusing CloudTrail with Config; remember that CloudTrail answers "who did what and when," while Config answers "what changed in my resource configuration." For a memory tip, think of CloudTrail as the "trail of breadcrumbs" for every API action—if an API call was made, CloudTrail has the receipt.
This SCS-C02 practice question tests your understanding of infrastructure security. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A security engineer needs to audit all changes to AWS resources in an account. Which AWS service should be enabled?
Amazon Inspector
Why wrong: Inspector assesses vulnerabilities in EC2 instances and images.
AWS CloudTrail
CloudTrail logs all API calls for auditing and compliance.
AWS Config
Why wrong: Config tracks configuration changes but does not log API calls.
Amazon GuardDuty
Why wrong: GuardDuty monitors for malicious activity, not configuration changes.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail is the correct service because it records API activity and changes to AWS resources as events, providing an audit log of who made what change, when, and from where. This directly meets the requirement to audit all changes, as every AWS API call (e.g., CreateInstance, ModifySecurityGroup) is captured in a CloudTrail event history or delivered to an S3 bucket for long-term analysis.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Amazon Inspector
Why it's wrong here
Inspector assesses vulnerabilities in EC2 instances and images.
AWS CloudTrail
Why this is correct
CloudTrail logs all API calls for auditing and compliance.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
Config tracks configuration changes but does not log API calls.
Amazon GuardDuty
Why it's wrong here
GuardDuty monitors for malicious activity, not configuration changes.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates confuse AWS Config's configuration tracking (which shows what changed) with CloudTrail's API audit trail (which shows who changed it and how), leading them to pick AWS Config when the question explicitly asks for auditing all changes, which requires the API-level logging only CloudTrail provides.
Detailed technical explanation
CloudTrail captures management events (control plane operations like creating an S3 bucket) and data events (like GetObject on an S3 object) via the AWS API, logging the principal ARN, source IP, user agent, and request parameters. A subtle behavior is that CloudTrail does not log read-only events by default for data events unless explicitly enabled, so a security engineer must configure a trail with data event logging to capture all changes (e.g., S3 object modifications). In a real-world scenario, enabling CloudTrail with a multi-region trail and log file validation ensures tamper-proof audit logs for compliance frameworks like PCI DSS.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
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FAQ
Infrastructure Security — This question tests Infrastructure Security — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: AWS CloudTrail — AWS CloudTrail is the correct service because it records API activity and changes to AWS resources as events, providing an audit log of who made what change, when, and from where. This directly meets the requirement to audit all changes, as every AWS API call (e.g., CreateInstance, ModifySecurityGroup) is captured in a CloudTrail event history or delivered to an S3 bucket for long-term analysis.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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.
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