The answer is to enable AWS Security Hub as the central aggregator with GuardDuty and Detective integrated, using Security Hub cross-account aggregation. This is correct because Security Hub natively supports a delegated administrator model, allowing findings from all three services across hundreds of accounts to flow into a single, consolidated view without any custom code or polling infrastructure. On the AWS Certified Security Specialty SCS-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of native AWS integrations versus custom workarounds—a common trap is choosing a solution that involves Lambda functions or S3-based aggregation, which adds unnecessary cost and complexity. The key concept here is that Security Hub acts as the single pane of glass, automatically correlating findings from GuardDuty and Detective across accounts. Memory tip: think “Hub and spoke”—Security Hub is the central hub, and all other security services are spokes feeding into it, eliminating the need for custom glue.
SCS-C02 Threat Detection and Incident Response Practice Question
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 company has a multi-account AWS environment with hundreds of accounts. The security team needs to ensure that all security findings from GuardDuty, Security Hub, and Detective are centrally collected and correlated. Which architecture is the MOST scalable and cost-effective?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable AWS Security Hub as the central aggregator, with GuardDuty and Detective integrated. Use Security Hub cross-account aggregation.
Option B is correct because AWS Security Hub natively supports cross-account aggregation via a delegated administrator, allowing findings from GuardDuty, Security Hub, and Detective to be centrally collected without custom code. This architecture is both scalable (handles hundreds of accounts without polling or custom infrastructure) and cost-effective (no additional Lambda, DynamoDB, or S3 query costs), leveraging built-in integrations and consolidated findings views.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Deploy a central Lambda function that polls each account's GuardDuty, Security Hub, and Detective APIs and stores findings in DynamoDB.
Why it's wrong here
Less scalable and complex.
✓
Enable AWS Security Hub as the central aggregator, with GuardDuty and Detective integrated. Use Security Hub cross-account aggregation.
Why this is correct
Security Hub is designed for this.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Configure each account to send findings to a central CloudWatch Logs log group and use CloudWatch Logs Insights to correlate.
Why it's wrong here
Not designed for finding correlation.
✗
Stream all findings from all services to a central Amazon S3 bucket and use Amazon Athena to query them.
Why it's wrong here
Athena can query but does not correlate in real time.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may over-engineer a solution with Lambda, DynamoDB, or S3/Athena, overlooking that Security Hub's built-in cross-account aggregation is the simplest, most scalable, and most cost-effective approach for centralizing security findings.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Security Hub's cross-account aggregation uses a delegated administrator account that receives findings from member accounts via AWS Organizations integration. GuardDuty and Detective findings are automatically ingested into Security Hub when enabled, and Security Hub deduplicates and normalizes findings using the AWS Security Finding Format (ASFF). This architecture scales to thousands of accounts without custom infrastructure, and the delegated administrator can enable cross-Region aggregation to centralize findings from multiple Regions into a single Region.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Threat Detection and Incident Response — This question tests Threat Detection and Incident Response — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Enable AWS Security Hub as the central aggregator, with GuardDuty and Detective integrated. Use Security Hub cross-account aggregation. — Option B is correct because AWS Security Hub natively supports cross-account aggregation via a delegated administrator, allowing findings from GuardDuty, Security Hub, and Detective to be centrally collected without custom code. This architecture is both scalable (handles hundreds of accounts without polling or custom infrastructure) and cost-effective (no additional Lambda, DynamoDB, or S3 query costs), leveraging built-in integrations and consolidated findings views.
What should I do if I get this SCS-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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