This SOA-C02 practice question tests your understanding of monitoring, logging, and remediation. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 SysOps administrator needs to receive alerts when an S3 bucket is publicly accessible. Which TWO AWS services can be used to monitor and detect this configuration?
AWS CloudTrail
Why wrong: CloudTrail logs API calls, not current bucket policy.
AWS Security Hub
Security Hub aggregates findings from Config and other services.
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why wrong: Trusted Advisor provides checks but is not typically used for real-time alerts.
AWS Config
AWS Config can evaluate bucket policies against rules.
Amazon CloudWatch
Why wrong: CloudWatch monitors metrics, not bucket policies directly.
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 Security Hub
AWS Security Hub (B) is correct because it aggregates security findings from multiple AWS services, including Amazon GuardDuty and AWS Config, and can detect publicly accessible S3 buckets via its built-in security standards (e.g., CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark). AWS Config (D) is correct because it can evaluate S3 bucket configurations against rules, such as the managed rule 's3-bucket-public-read-prohibited' or 's3-bucket-public-write-prohibited', and trigger alerts when a bucket becomes publicly accessible.
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.
AWS CloudTrail
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail logs API calls, not current bucket policy.
AWS Security Hub
Why this is correct
Security Hub aggregates findings from Config and other services.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why it's wrong here
Trusted Advisor provides checks but is not typically used for real-time alerts.
AWS Config
Why this is correct
AWS Config can evaluate bucket policies against rules.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Amazon CloudWatch
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch monitors metrics, not bucket policies directly.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often choose AWS Trusted Advisor (C) because it has a 'S3 Bucket Permissions' check, but they overlook that it does not provide real-time alerts or continuous monitoring, unlike AWS Config which can trigger immediate notifications via Amazon SNS.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, AWS Config uses a configuration recorder to capture S3 bucket resource configurations as JSON snapshots and evaluates them against AWS Config rules (Lambda functions or managed rules) in near real-time. Security Hub aggregates findings from Config and other services, applying the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark standard which includes a control (e.g., 2.1.1) that checks for S3 buckets with public read or write access. A real-world scenario: a misconfigured bucket policy granting 'Principal: *' with 'Effect: Allow' on 's3:GetObject' would be flagged by both services, but Config provides the direct evaluation while Security Hub provides a centralized dashboard.
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
Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation — This question tests Monitoring, Logging, and Remediation — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: AWS Security Hub — AWS Security Hub (B) is correct because it aggregates security findings from multiple AWS services, including Amazon GuardDuty and AWS Config, and can detect publicly accessible S3 buckets via its built-in security standards (e.g., CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark). AWS Config (D) is correct because it can evaluate S3 bucket configurations against rules, such as the managed rule 's3-bucket-public-read-prohibited' or 's3-bucket-public-write-prohibited', and trigger alerts when a bucket becomes publicly accessible.
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 SOA-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 SOA-C02 exam.
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