Question

Difficulty: MediumSecurity Logging, Monitoring, and Auditing

An online retail company is designing a security and operational monitoring strategy. The company needs to audit administrative API activities (such as who created a resource or modified access policies) and track EC2 instance CPU utilization to trigger alerts if performance degrades. Which AWS services should the company use to meet these two requirements?

  1. A
    Amazon CloudWatch to audit administrative API activities, and AWS CloudTrail to monitor resource performance metrics
  2. B
    Amazon GuardDuty to audit administrative API activities, and Amazon Inspector to monitor resource performance metrics
  3. AWS CloudTrail to audit administrative API activities, and Amazon CloudWatch to monitor resource performance metricsAnswer
  4. D
    AWS Artifact to audit administrative API activities, and relying on AWS to automatically monitor and manage resource performance metrics under the Shared Responsibility Model

Answer

AWS CloudTrail to audit administrative API activities, and Amazon CloudWatch to monitor resource performance metrics
AWS CloudTrail is designed to record API calls and user activity across your AWS infrastructure, enabling auditing and governance. Amazon CloudWatch is designed to collect performance metrics, monitor resources, and trigger alarms based on thresholds like CPU utilization.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the requirement for auditing administrative API activities.
Identify that AWS CloudTrail records AWS API calls, user actions, and change history for auditing purposes.
CloudTrail is the designated service for governance, compliance, operational auditing, and risk auditing of your AWS account.
2
Analyze the requirement for tracking EC2 instance CPU utilization and triggering alerts.
Identify that Amazon CloudWatch monitors operational metrics, collects log files, and sets alarms on performance thresholds.
CloudWatch is the primary monitoring service for AWS cloud resources and applications, providing real-time data and automated actions.
3
Combine the two services to form the complete solution.
The correct combination is AWS CloudTrail for API logging and Amazon CloudWatch for resource metric monitoring.
This combination satisfies both the auditing and operational alerting requirements without introducing unrelated services.

Key Concept

Distinguishing the distinct purposes of AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch for security and operational monitoring.
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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