This SCS-C02 practice question tests your understanding of threat detection and incident response. 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 team wants to detect and alert on API calls that create or modify IAM roles in their AWS account. Which AWS service can be used to create a metric filter and alarm for these specific CloudTrail events?
Amazon GuardDuty
Why wrong: GuardDuty uses threat intelligence, not custom metric filters.
AWS CloudTrail
Why wrong: CloudTrail logs events but does not have built-in alerting.
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
CloudWatch Logs can filter CloudTrail logs and create alarms.
AWS Config
Why wrong: Config is for resource configuration tracking, not CloudTrail event monitoring.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Amazon CloudWatch Logs can create metric filters on CloudTrail log data to detect specific API calls, such as CreateRole or UpdateAssumeRolePolicy. These metric filters can then trigger CloudWatch alarms for real-time notification. CloudTrail delivers logs to CloudWatch Logs, but the metric filter and alarm capabilities reside in CloudWatch Logs, not in CloudTrail itself.
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 GuardDuty
Why it's wrong here
GuardDuty uses threat intelligence, not custom metric filters.
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail logs events but does not have built-in alerting.
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
Why this is correct
CloudWatch Logs can filter CloudTrail logs and create alarms.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
AWS Config
Why it's wrong here
Config is for resource configuration tracking, not CloudTrail event monitoring.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse CloudTrail's logging capability with CloudWatch Logs' metric and alarm features, assuming CloudTrail itself can create alarms, when in reality CloudTrail only delivers logs and CloudWatch Logs provides the filtering and alerting mechanism.
Detailed technical explanation
CloudWatch Logs metric filters use pattern matching on log event data, and you can specify a filter pattern like '{ ($.eventName = "CreateRole") || ($.eventName = "UpdateAssumeRolePolicy") }' to match IAM role creation or modification events. The metric filter increments a CloudWatch metric each time the pattern matches, and you can set an alarm on that metric with a threshold (e.g., >= 1 in 5 minutes) to trigger an SNS notification. This approach is commonly used for compliance monitoring and security incident response.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
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FAQ
Threat Detection and Incident Response — This question tests Threat Detection and Incident Response — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Amazon CloudWatch Logs — Amazon CloudWatch Logs can create metric filters on CloudTrail log data to detect specific API calls, such as CreateRole or UpdateAssumeRolePolicy. These metric filters can then trigger CloudWatch alarms for real-time notification. CloudTrail delivers logs to CloudWatch Logs, but the metric filter and alarm capabilities reside in CloudWatch Logs, not in CloudTrail itself.
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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