Professional-Cloud-Security-Engineer Google Cloud Certified - Professional Cloud Security Engineer Question and Answers

Understanding Unmanaged Users:

Unmanaged users are those who have created Google Cloud accounts using their company email addresses outside of the organization's management (e.g., through GCDS).

Challenge:

The goal is to bring these unmanaged accounts under your company's control without disrupting their existing accounts and access.

Using the Transfer Tool:

Google provides a transfer tool specifically designed to migrate unmanaged users to a managed state.

This tool allows administrators to invite unmanaged users to join the organization's Google Cloud Identity or Google Workspace account.

Steps to Use the Transfer Tool:

Step 1: Access the transfer tool from the Google Admin console.

Step 2: Identify the unmanaged users using their email addresses.

Step 3: Send invitations to these users to transfer their accounts.

Step 4: Users accept the invitations, allowing their accounts to be managed under the organization's domain.

Benefits:

This method ensures a smooth transition for users without losing access to their existing data and services.

It aligns with best practices for managing user accounts in a corporate environment.

To provide users with SSO-based access to selected cloud apps, Cloud Identity as your IdP supports the OpenID Connect (OIDC) and Security Assertion Markup Language 2.0 (SAML) protocols. https://cloud.google.com/identity/solutions/enable-sso

To connect Compute Engine instances within a Google Cloud Platform project to workloads running in a dedicated server room that can only be accessed from within the private company network, you can use the following approaches:

Cloud VPN: Cloud VPN securely connects your on-premises network to your Google Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network through an IPsec VPN connection. This enables secure communication between your GCP instances and your on-premises workloads over the internet.

Cloud Interconnect: Cloud Interconnect provides direct physical connections between your on-premises network and Google's network. It offers higher bandwidth and lower latency compared to Cloud VPN, making it suitable for workloads that require fast and reliable connectivity.

Both Cloud VPN and Cloud Interconnect allow you to securely connect your on-premises environments to Google Cloud, ensuring that the workloads remain within the private company network.

References

Cloud VPN Overview

Cloud Interconnect Overview

To access a user's Google Drive on their behalf without relying on the user's credentials and following Google-recommended practices, you should use a service account with domain-wide delegation.

Create a Service Account:

Go to the Cloud Console, navigate to IAM & Admin > Service Accounts.

Click "Create Service Account" and provide necessary details.

Grant Domain-Wide Delegation:

Edit the service account to enable "G Suite Domain-wide Delegation".

Download the JSON key file.

Configure API Access in G Suite:

Go to the Google Admin Console.

Navigate to Security > API Controls > Domain-wide Delegation.

Add a new API client and use the client ID from the service account.

Authorize the necessary API scopes (e.g., https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive).

Implement in Application:

Use the Google API Client Library for the desired language.

Load the service account credentials and perform user impersonation to access Google Drive.

There is mention about simulating in Web Security Scanner. "Web Security Scanner cross-site scripting (XSS) injection testing *simulates* an injection attack by inserting a benign test string into user-editable fields and then performing various user actions." https://cloud.google.com/security-command-center/docs/how-to-remediate-web-security-scanner-findings#xss

To ensure that only trusted container images are deployed on Cloud Run, you can implement Binary Authorization, which is a deploy-time security control that ensures only trusted images are used.

Set Up Binary Authorization:

Navigate to the Google Cloud Console.

Go to Security > Binary Authorization.

Configure the policy to include attestors that verify your trusted images.

Enable Binary Authorization on Cloud Run:

Go to the Cloud Run service.

Enable Binary Authorization on your existing Cloud Run services by selecting the appropriate Binary Authorization policy.

Set Organization Policy:

Go to the Organization Policies page in the Google Cloud Console.

Add a constraint for constraints/run.allowedBinaryAuthorizationPolicies.

Specify the list of allowed Binary Authorization policy names to enforce across your organization.

These steps ensure that any container image deployed on Cloud Run is validated against the specified Binary Authorization policies, preventing untrusted images from being deployed.

https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/packet-mirroring

Packet Mirroring clones the traffic of specified instances in your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network and forwards it for examination. Packet Mirroring captures all traffic and packet data, including payloads and headers.

To meet data residency requirements on Google Cloud, the recommended option is to use Organization Policy Service constraints. This service allows you to define and enforce specific constraints across your organization, including constraints related to the geographical location where data is stored.

Organization Policy Service constraints allow administrators to enforce policies that restrict resources to specific locations. For instance, you can set policies to ensure that all storage buckets, databases, and other data resources reside within specific geographic boundaries. This helps in complying with data residency requirements.

References

Organization Policy Service documentation

Google Cloud Data Residency

"Your team needs to obtain a unified log view of all development cloud projects in your SIEM" - This means we are ONLY interested in development projects. "The development projects are under the NONPROD organization folder with the test and pre-production projects" - We will need to filter out development from others i.e test and pre-prod. "The development projects share the ABC-BILLING billing account with the rest of the organization." - This is unnecessary information.

Encrypt non-sensitive data with Google default encryption:

Google Cloud automatically encrypts data at rest using AES-256 by default. This minimizes key management complexity for non-sensitive data as it is handled entirely by Google.

No additional setup is required for default encryption, ensuring low latency access to the encrypted data.

Encrypt sensitive data with Cloud Key Management Service (Cloud KMS):

Cloud KMS allows you to create and manage cryptographic keys in a centralized cloud service.

To meet the requirement of scheduling key rotation, configure Cloud KMS to automatically rotate keys on a regular schedule (e.g., every 90 days).

Control the region where the keys are stored by selecting the appropriate key ring location during key creation. This ensures compliance with data residency requirements.

Cloud KMS provides low-latency access to keys, ensuring minimal impact on data access performance.

Compute Engine doesn't automatically update the OS or the software on your deployed instances. You will need to patch or update your deployed Compute Engine instances when necessary. However, in the cloud it is not recommended that you patch or update individual running instances. Instead it is best to patch the image that was used to launch the instance and then replace each affected instance with a new copy.

To meet the requirements of rotating the master key every 45 days, achieving FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validation, and ensuring the master key is stored redundantly in multiple US regions, you should use Customer-managed encryption keys with Cloud HSM. Here’s how:

Set Up Cloud HSM:

Deploy Cloud HSM in your Google Cloud environment. Cloud HSM provides a hardware-based key management solution that meets FIPS 140-2 Level 3 compliance.

Create and Manage Keys:

Create your encryption keys in Cloud HSM. These keys can be managed and rotated per your policy requirements.

Key Rotation:

Set up a key rotation schedule to rotate the master key every 45 days. Cloud HSM allows you to automate this process.

Geographic Redundancy:

Ensure that your Cloud HSM configuration spans multiple regions within the US to achieve redundancy. This will ensure that your keys are available even if a particular region experiences an outage.

Compliance:

Cloud HSM’s FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validation ensures that your encryption keys are managed in a secure and compliant manner.

Benefits:

Security and Compliance: Meets stringent compliance requirements.

Automated Management: Simplifies key management and rotation.

Redundancy: Ensures high availability of keys across multiple regions.

References

Cloud HSM Documentation

Key Management with Cloud KMS and Cloud HSM

To handle significant traffic spikes and potentially malicious IPs, you can use Google Cloud Armor to configure rate-based bans. This approach allows you to automatically ban clients that exceed a predefined request rate, protecting your application from potential denial-of-service attacks.

Access Google Cloud Console: Log in to your Google Cloud Console.

Navigate to Google Cloud Armor: Go to the "Security" section and select "Google Cloud Armor".

Create Security Policy: Create a new security policy or edit an existing one. Add a new rule to the policy.

Configure Rate-Based Ban: Set the action to rate_based_ban. Define the rate limit (e.g., requests per second) and set the ban_duration_sec parameter to the desired time interval.

Apply the Policy: Apply the security policy to your backend service or load balancer.

Monitor and Adjust: Monitor the traffic patterns and adjust the rate limits and ban durations as necessary to balance security and availability.

The problem requires ensuring that only images that have passed vulnerability scanning and meet corporate policies are allowed to be deployed to GKE, with the process being automated and integrated into the existing CI/CD pipeline.

Binary Authorization: This Google Cloud service is purpose-built to enforce deployment policies on images before they are run on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Cloud Run, and other deployable platforms. It acts as a policy gate that prevents the deployment of non-compliant images.

Extract Reference: "Binary Authorization is a deploy-time security control that ensures only trusted container images are deployed on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Cloud Run, and Anthos clusters." and "With Binary Authorization, you can require images to be signed by trusted authorities and enforce validation policies during deployment." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Binary Authorization overview" - https://cloud.google.com/binary-authorization/docs/overview)

Artifact Analysis (part of Container Analysis): Artifact Analysis (which includes Container Analysis) provides vulnerability scanning capabilities for container images stored in Artifact Registry. It generates findings and metadata about vulnerabilities.

Extract Reference: "Container Analysis is a service that scans your images for known vulnerabilities and provides metadata about them." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Overview | Container Analysis" - https://cloud.google.com/container-analysis/docs/overview)

Binary Authorization can be configured to integrate with Artifact Analysis (or other attestors) to check for vulnerability scan results as part of its deployment policy.

Integration and Automation: Binary Authorization policies can require attestations before deployment. An attestation confirms that an image meets specific criteria (e.g., it has passed a vulnerability scan, it was signed by an approved CI/CD process, it adheres to corporate policies). Cloud Build can be configured to generate these attestations after a successful vulnerability scan (using Artifact Analysis). This fully automates the process and integrates directly into the CI/CD pipeline.

Extract Reference: "With Binary Authorization, you create a policy that enforces your requirements. The policy defines rules that govern deployment. For example, a policy can require all images to be signed by a trusted authority before deployment." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Binary Authorization overview" - https://cloud.google.com/binary-authorization/docs/overview)

Let's evaluate the other options:

A. Custom script in Cloud Build... Fail the build: While scanning during the build is good practice (shift-left security), failing the build only prevents the image from being pushed. It doesn't prevent a developer or an automated process from manually deploying an old or non-compliant image that might already exist in Artifact Registry, or from bypassing the build system. The enforcement needs to happen at deployment time.

B. Configure GKE to use only images from a specific... trusted Artifact Registry repository. Manually inspect all images: Manually inspecting images is not automated and does not scale for a "large number of containerized applications." It also doesn't programmatically enforce vulnerability scan results or corporate policies.

D. Enable Artifact Analysis vulnerability scanning and regularly scan images... Remove any images that do not meet... before deployment: This describes scanning and remediation, which are important. However, it's a reactive approach ("remove any images") rather than a proactive enforcement ("only images that... are allowed to be deployed"). There's still a window where a non-compliant image could be deployed before it's removed. Binary Authorization is the enforcement gate.

Therefore, configuring Binary Authorization with a policy that integrates with Artifact Analysis (or requires attestations based on its findings) is the most robust, automated, and Google-recommended solution for enforcing deployment policies based on vulnerability scanning and corporate compliance.

Generate Supply Chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA) level 3 assurance by using Cloud Build: SLSA is a framework for ensuring the integrity of software artifacts. By using Cloud Build, you can automate the build process and generate SLSA level 3 compliance, which includes verifiable build steps and provenance.

View the build provenance in the Security insights side panel within the Google Cloud console: The build provenance provides a detailed history of how the software was built, including the source code, build process, and any dependencies. This information is accessible through the Security insights side panel in the Google Cloud console, allowing you to verify the integrity and authenticity of your software artifacts.

References

Supply Chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA) documentation

Cloud Build documentation

Security insights in Google Cloud console

Cloud NAT Service: Use Cloud NAT (Network Address Translation) to allow VM instances without external IP addresses to access the internet securely.

Configuration: Configure Cloud NAT for the subnets containing your VM instances. This setup allows the VMs to initiate outbound connections to the internet for updates and other necessary communications.

Security Compliance: By using Cloud NAT, you adhere to the security policy of not assigning external IP addresses to VMs while still enabling necessary internet connectivity. Cloud NAT provides a secure method for outbound internet traffic without exposing VMs directly to the public internet. References:

Google Cloud - Cloud NAT Overview

Google Cloud - Configuring Cloud NAT

Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS): Install and configure GCDS to synchronize your on-premises Active Directory with Google Cloud Identity. This tool helps in maintaining consistency between your local directory and Google Cloud.

IAM Groups: Create IAM groups in Google Cloud with permissions that correspond to your Active Directory groups. This mapping ensures that users inherit the appropriate permissions based on their AD group membership.

Synchronization: Set up regular synchronization schedules to keep the user and group information up-to-date between your on-premises AD and Google Cloud.

Access Management: Use these IAM groups to manage access to Google Cloud resources, ensuring that permissions are applied consistently and securely. This approach leverages existing AD infrastructure for identity management, providing a seamless integration with Google Cloud. References:

Google Cloud - Google Cloud Directory Sync

Google Cloud - IAM Groups

Enable Security Command Center (SCC):

SCC provides centralized visibility and control over your cloud resources' security status.

Ensure that SCC is enabled in your Google Cloud environment.

Configure Virtual Machine Threat Detection (VMTD):

VMTD is part of SCC and specializes in detecting threats within VM instances, such as cryptocurrency mining malware.

Navigate to the SCC settings in the Google Cloud Console.

Activate VMTD:

Enable VMTD for the projects or resources where you want to monitor and detect potential threats.

VMTD uses behavioral analysis to identify anomalies indicative of unauthorized mining activities.

Monitor and Respond to Alerts:

VMTD generates alerts when it detects suspicious activities, such as unauthorized cryptocurrency mining.

Set up appropriate response actions, such as notifications, automatic remediation, or manual investigation, to handle these alerts.

"Date shifting techniques randomly shift a set of dates but preserve the sequence and duration of a period of time. Shifting dates is usually done in context to an individual or an entity. That is, each individual's dates are shifted by an amount of time that is unique to that individual."

Objective: Optimize the usage of Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) API to reduce costs.

Solution:

rowsLimit and bytesLimitPerFile: These parameters help in sampling data instead of scanning the entire dataset, thereby reducing the amount of data processed.

CloudStorageRegexFileSet: This feature allows you to specify a subset of files to be scanned using regular expressions, limiting the scope and volume of data scanned.

Steps:

Step 1: Set appropriate rowsLimit values for BigQuery data scans to sample rows instead of scanning entire tables.

Step 2: Set bytesLimitPerFile values for Cloud Storage buckets to limit the number of bytes scanned per file.

Step 3: Use CloudStorageRegexFileSet to specify the subset of files to be scanned based on patterns that match the filenames.

By combining these strategies, you effectively reduce the scope and volume of data processed by the DLP API, leading to cost savings.

”This encryption method is reversible, which helps to maintain referential integrity across your database and has no character-set limitations.” https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/take-charge-of-your-data-how-tokenization-makes-data-usable-without-sacrificing-privacy

https://cloud.google.com/dlp/docs/pseudonymization

FPE provides fewer security guarantees compared to other deterministic encryption methods such as AES-SIV. For these reasons, Google strongly recommends using deterministic encryption with AES-SIV instead of FPE for all security sensitive use cases. Other methods like deterministic encryption using AES-SIV provide these stronger security guarantees and are recommended for tokenization use cases unless length and character set preservation are strict requirements—for example, for backward compatibility with a legacy data system.

To maintain a historical record of what was running in Google Cloud Platform at any point in time, you should use Forseti Security to automate inventory snapshots. Forseti Security is an open-source toolkit that helps to automate security and compliance in GCP by taking inventory snapshots of GCP resources.

Step-by-Step:

Install Forseti Security:

Follow the installation guide to deploy Forseti Security on your GCP environment.

Configure Inventory:

Set up the inventory module in Forseti to capture and store snapshots of GCP resources.

Schedule Snapshots:

Use Forseti’s configuration to schedule regular inventory snapshots.

Access Historical Data:

Review and access historical records through Forseti’s dashboard or by querying the Forseti database.

Compliance and Monitoring: Use Forseti to ensure compliance and monitor changes over time.

Cloud Asset Inventory: Using Cloud Asset Inventory allows you to quickly identify all the external assets and resources in your Google Cloud environment. This includes information about your projects, instances, storage buckets, and more. This step is crucial for understanding the scope of your audit. Network Security Scanner: Once you have identified the external assets, you can run a network security scanner to assess the security of these assets. Network security scanners can help identify vulnerabilities and potential security risks quickly.

To protect your web application from threats like malware by implementing TLS interception for incoming traffic, configuring a Secure Web Proxy with TLS offloading at the load balancer is an effective approach.​

Option A: By configuring a Secure Web Proxy, you can offload TLS traffic at the load balancer, inspect the decrypted traffic for threats such as malware, and then forward the inspected traffic to your web application. This approach ensures that encrypted traffic is securely analyzed without compromising the security of the data in transit.​

Option B: An internal proxy load balancer is designed for distributing traffic within a private network and may not support TLS interception capabilities required for inspecting incoming traffic from external sources.​

Option C: Hierarchical firewall policies in Google Cloud are used to enforce security rules across your organization but do not provide TLS interception capabilities.​

Option D: VPC firewall rules control traffic to and from VM instances based on specified rules but do not have the capability to perform TLS interception or traffic inspection.​

Therefore, Option A is the most suitable solution, as it allows for TLS interception through a Secure Web Proxy, enabling the inspection of incoming encrypted traffic to detect and mitigate threats like malware before the traffic reaches your web application.​

App Engine ingress firewall rules are available, but egress rules are not currently available. Per requirements 1.2.1 and 1.3.4, you must ensure that all outbound traffic is authorized. SAQ A-EP and SAQ D–type merchants must provide compensating controls or use a different Google Cloud product. Compute Engine and GKE are the preferred alternatives. https://cloud.google.com/solutions/pci-dss-compliance-in-gcp

To restrict access to the MySQL instance to only the frontend application while other VMs are present in the subnets, creating an ingress firewall rule is the most appropriate approach. This rule will specifically allow traffic from subnet A (where the frontend application resides) to the MySQL instance in subnet B on port 3306, using network tags to target the specific MySQL VM.

Steps:

Create Network Tags: Apply a network tag (e.g., "data-tag") to the MySQL VM in subnet B.

Create Ingress Firewall Rule: Configure an ingress firewall rule with the following settings:

Source IP Range: Subnet A's IP range.

Target Tag: "data-tag".

Allowed Protocol/Ports: TCP:3306 (for MySQL).

This setup ensures that only instances in subnet A can communicate with the MySQL instance on port 3306.

Implied IPv4 allow egress rule. An egress rule whose action is allow, destination is 0.0.0.0/0, and priority is the lowest possible (65535) lets any instance send traffic to any destination

Implied IPv4 deny ingress rule. An ingress rule whose action is deny, source is 0.0.0.0/0, and priority is the lowest possible (65535) protects all instances by blocking incoming connections to them.

https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/firewalls?hl=en#default_firewall_rules

The problem has two key requirements:

All applications must send data to a centralized security service.

Developers need high autonomy over firewall rules within their projects.

Prevent accidental blockage of access to the central security service.

This scenario requires a mechanism to enforce critical network policies at a higher level of the resource hierarchy while still allowing project-level flexibility.

Hierarchical Firewall Policies: Google Cloud's Hierarchical Firewall Policies (HFP) are designed precisely for this purpose. They allow administrators to define firewall rules at the organization or folder level, and these rules are inherited by all projects and VPC networks within that hierarchy. Crucially, HFP rules can be prioritized. Rules with higher priority (lower numerical value) are evaluated first. This means you can create high-priority "allow" rules for critical services that cannot be overridden or blocked by project-level firewall rules.Extract Reference: "Hierarchical firewall policies allow you to define and enforce consistent network security policies across your organization. Policies can be applied at the organization or folder level, and they are inherited by all projects and VPC networks within that hierarchy." and "Rules in a hierarchical firewall policy can take precedence over VPC network firewall rules based on priority. A rule with a lower priority value takes precedence over a rule with a higher priority value." (Google Cloud documentation: https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/firewall-policies-overview)

Preventing Accidental Blockage while Allowing Autonomy: By setting a high-priority "allow" rule for the central security service in a hierarchical firewall policy, you guarantee that this traffic will always be permitted, regardless of what project-level firewall rules developers might configure. This ensures the critical connectivity while still allowing developers to manage other, less critical firewall rules within their projects with high autonomy.

Let's evaluate the other options:

A. Deploy a central Secure Web Proxy and connect it to all VPC networks. Create a Secure Web Proxy policy to allow traffic to the central security service. A Secure Web Proxy is for HTTP/S outbound traffic to external web services. The central security service might not be an external web service, and this solution is focused on application-layer proxies, not general network connectivity like sending data to an internal service. Also, it doesn't directly address the challenge of developers blocking access with project-level firewall rules.

C. Create a central project to manage Shared VPC networks which will be accessible to all other projects. Administer all firewall rules centrally within this project. While Shared VPC centralizes network management, it means all firewall rules are administered centrally. This directly contradicts the requirement for developers to have "high autonomy to configure firewall rules within their projects." Shared VPC would centralize too much control for this specific scenario.

D. Use Terraform to automate the creation of the required firewall rule in all projects. Restrict rule change permissions solely to the Terraform service account. This approach automates the creation but doesn't prevent developers from creating conflicting or overriding rules in their projects (unless Terraform is used to manage all rules, again removing autonomy). It also relies on restricting IAM permissions for all firewall rules, which is against the "high autonomy" requirement for developers. Hierarchical firewall policies offer a more robust and native solution for overriding and enforcing specific rules.

Therefore, implementing a hierarchical firewall policy is the most effective solution, as it allows for the enforcement of critical security service connectivity at a higher level, while still granting developers the desired autonomy over their project-specific firewall rules.

https://cloud.google.com/logging/docs/export/aggregated_sinks#supported-destinations

You can use aggregated sinks to route logs within or between the same organizations and folders to the following destinations: - Another Cloud Logging bucket: Log entries held in Cloud Logging log buckets.

To mitigate the risk posed by long-running Google Cloud CLI sessions, it is essential to enforce a reauthentication frequency. This ensures that users must periodically reauthenticate, reducing the window of opportunity for an attacker to exploit an open session. Setting the reauthentication frequency to one hour forces users to reauthenticate after this period, thereby limiting the duration an attacker can use a compromised session.

Access Google Cloud Console: Log in to your Google Cloud Console using your admin credentials.

Navigate to Security Settings: Go to the "Security" section of the Cloud Console.

Set Session Control: Under the session management settings, locate the "Reauthentication frequency" setting. This controls how often users must reauthenticate.

Configure Reauthentication Frequency: Set the reauthentication frequency to "1 hour". This configuration will force users to reauthenticate every hour, thus limiting the duration of each session.

Save Changes: Confirm and save your changes. This setting will now apply to all users, ensuring that open sessions are minimized to a duration of one hour.

To meet the requirements for exporting and auditing security logs in near real-time for login activity events and API calls:

Organization-Level Log Sink with Pub/Sub: Create a log sink at the organization level to ensure logs from all projects are captured. Use the includeChildren parameter to include logs from all child resources (projects). Set the destination to a Pub/Sub topic to facilitate near real-time log export to an external SIEM.

Enable Data Access Audit Logs: Enable Data Access audit logs at the organization level to capture and export detailed information about API calls that modify configurations of Google Cloud resources across all projects.

These steps ensure comprehensive logging and real-time export capabilities, which are crucial for security auditing and monitoring.

References

Audit Logs Overview

Exporting with Sinks

"However, even though it is possible to uses tags for target filtering in this manner, we recommend that you use service accounts where possible. Target tags are not access-controlled and can be changed by someone with the instanceAdmin role while VMs are in service. Service accounts are access-controlled, meaning that a specific user must be explicitly authorized to use a service account. There can only be one service account per instance, whereas there can be multiple tags. Also, service accounts assigned to a VM can only be changed when the VM is stopped"

Pseudonymization is a de-identification technique that replaces sensitive data values with cryptographically generated tokens. Pseudonymization is widely used in industries like finance and healthcare to help reduce the risk of data in use, narrow compliance scope, and minimize the exposure of sensitive data to systems while preserving data utility and accuracy.

https://cloud.google.com/dlp/docs/pseudonymization

Cloud NAT (Network Address Translation) enables instances in a private network to connect to external services while not exposing their internal IP addresses to the public internet. This solution helps in situations where VMs need to initiate outbound connections without having a public IP address:

Cloud NAT Setup: Configure Cloud NAT for the subnet where your VMs are located. This allows these VMs to use the NAT gateway to communicate with external services securely.

Network Security: By using Cloud NAT, the internal IP addresses of VMs remain private, reducing the attack surface and enhancing security.

Operational Continuity: VMs can continue to communicate with external sites as needed for operations without requiring public IP addresses, meeting both security and functional requirements.

References

Cloud NAT Documentation

Multiple network interfaces. The simplest way to connect multiple VPC networks through a virtual appliance is by using multiple network interfaces, with each interface connecting to one of the VPC networks. Internet and on-premises connectivity is provided over one or two separate network interfaces. With many NGFW products, internet connectivity is connected through an interface marked as untrusted in the NGFW software.

https://cloud.google.com/architecture/best-practices-vpc-design#l7

This architecture has multiple VPC networks that are bridged by an L7 next-generation firewall (NGFW) appliance, which functions as a multi-NIC bridge between VPC networks. An untrusted, outside VPC network is introduced to terminate hybrid interconnects and internet-based connections that terminate on the outside leg of the L7 NGFW for inspection. There are many variations on this design, but the key principle is to filter traffic through the firewall before the traffic reaches trusted VPC networks.

This PD and bucket data is encrypted using a Google-generated data encryption key (DEK) and key encryption key (KEK). The CMEK feature allows you to create, use, and revoke the key encryption key (KEK). Google still controls the data encryption key (DEK). For more information on Google data encryption keys, see Encryption at Rest. https://cloud.google.com/dataproc/docs/concepts/configuring-clusters/customer-managed-encryption

https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/encrypt-and-decrypt-data-with-cloud-kms#0

Admin activity logs are always created to log entries for API calls or other actions that modify the configuration or metadata of resources. For example, these logs record when users create VM instances or change Identity and Access Management permissions.

In Google Cloud's Logging service, log entries are automatically routed to the _Default log bucket unless configured otherwise. When you create a new log bucket and intend to redirect all log entries from the _Default bucket to this new bucket, the most efficient approach is to modify the existing _Default sink to point to the new log bucket.​

Option A: Creating a new user-defined sink with filters replicated from the _Default sink is redundant and may lead to configuration complexities.​

Option B: Implementing exclusion filters on the _Default sink and then creating a new sink introduces unnecessary steps and potential for misconfiguration.​

Option C: Disabling the _Default sink would stop all log routing to it, but creating a new sink to replicate its functionality is inefficient.​

Option D: Editing the _Default sink to change its destination to the new log bucket ensures a seamless transition of log routing without additional configurations.​

Therefore, Option D is the most efficient and straightforward method to achieve the desired log routing.​

Uniform Bucket-Level Access: Enable uniform bucket-level access for all your Cloud Storage buckets. This feature ensures that access control is applied consistently at the bucket level, simplifying management and improving security.

Domain Restricted Sharing: Enforce domain-restricted sharing through an organization policy. This policy ensures that only users within your organization’s domain can access the data in the buckets, preventing public exposure.

Policy Enforcement: Apply the necessary IAM policies and ensure that no buckets are configured to allow public access. This combination of settings ensures that data in Cloud Storage buckets remains private and accessible only to authorized users within your organization. References:

Google Cloud - Uniform Bucket-Level Access

Google Cloud - Organization Policy Service

To validate that all data written to BigQuery was done using the App Engine Default Service Account, you can use StackDriver Logging (now known as Cloud Logging) to filter and inspect the logs for BigQuery insert jobs. By hiding the entries matching the App Engine Default Service Account, you can ensure that no other service account has written to BigQuery if the resulting list is empty.

Steps:

Open Cloud Logging: Navigate to Cloud Logging in the Google Cloud Console.

Filter Logs: Apply a filter to display logs for BigQuery insert jobs.

Inspect Entries: Click on the email address that corresponds to the App Engine Default Service Account in the authentication field.

Hide Matching Entries: Select the option to hide matching entries.

Validate: Check if the resulting list is empty, confirming that no other service account has performed write operations to BigQuery.

When integrating applications that require access to sensitive data stored in Cloud Storage, managing service account keys securely is crucial to prevent unauthorized access or data loss.​

Option A: Defining a VPC Service Controls perimeter enhances security by restricting access to Google Cloud services. However, configuring ingress rules to allow external access for the service account may introduce complexities and potential security gaps, especially if the partner's infrastructure is outside the defined perimeter.​

Option B: Scanning and masking customer data addresses data sensitivity but does not mitigate risks associated with compromised service account keys. This approach focuses on data content rather than access control mechanisms.​

Option C: Encrypting data at rest using customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) ensures data confidentiality but does not directly address the security of service account keys or access controls.​

Option D: Implementing a secret management service to handle service account keys is a best practice. By configuring the service to frequently rotate keys, you reduce the window of opportunity for malicious actors to exploit compromised keys. Additionally, enforcing strict access controls ensures that only authorized personnel can create or manage service account keys, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access. This approach directly addresses the security concerns related to service account key management.​

Therefore, Option D is the most appropriate recommendation, as it focuses on securely managing service account keys through rotation and access controls, thereby minimizing the risk of data loss due to compromised keys.​

Provide granular access to secrets: 2.Enforce access control to secrets using project-level identity and Access Management (IAM) bindings. Give you control over the rotation schedules for the encryption keys that wrap your secrets: 3. Use customer-managed encryption keys to encrypt secrets. Maintain environment separation: 1. Use separate Google Cloud projects to store Production and Non-Production secrets.

To manage user accounts and ensure they comply with corporate policies, using Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS) allows synchronization between your local identity system and Cloud Identity. The Transfer Tool for Unmanaged Users (TTUU) helps identify and manage conflicting accounts by allowing users to transfer their personal accounts to managed accounts.

Steps:

Synchronize Identities: Use GCDS to sync users from your local identity management system to Cloud Identity, ensuring that all corporate user accounts are managed.

Identify Conflicting Accounts: Use TTUU to find users who have personal Google accounts using corporate email addresses.

Manage Conflicting Accounts: Request users to transfer their personal accounts to managed accounts using TTUU, ensuring all accounts are under corporate control.

The problem describes an application with two Cloud Run services (Service A - frontend, Service B - backend) and requires setting up IAM with the principle of least privilege. Service A calls Service B.

Principle of Least Privilege: This principle dictates that each entity (in this case, a Cloud Run service) should only have the minimum permissions necessary to perform its function.

Separate Service Accounts for Separate Services: To adhere to the principle of least privilege, it's best practice to assign a unique service account to each distinct service or component. This ensures that a compromise of one service account does not grant excessive permissions across other services. Service A needs permissions to run itself and to invoke Service B. Service B only needs permissions to run itself.Extract Reference: "Assign a service account to a Cloud Run service. The service account acts as the identity for your service and determines what permissions your revisions have when executing requests. It is a best practice to grant each service account only the permissions that are required to run the specific service (principle of least privilege)." (Google Cloud documentation: https://cloud.google.com/run/docs/configuring/service-accounts)

Authentication for Cloud Run Services: When one Cloud Run service (caller) needs to invoke another Cloud Run service (callee), the caller must be authorized to do so. This is typically achieved by assigning the roles/run.invoker role on the callee service to the caller's service account.Extract Reference: "To allow a service to invoke another service, grant the roles/run.invoker role on the called service to the caller's service account." (Google Cloud documentation: https://cloud.google.com/run/docs/securing/service-to-service)

Let's evaluate the options:

A. Create a new service account with the permissions to run service A and service B. Require authentication for service B. Permit only the new service account to call the backend. This violates the principle of least privilege by giving a single service account permissions for both services. If that service account were compromised, both services would be affected.

B. Create two separate service accounts. Grant one service account the permissions to execute service A, and grant the other service account the permissions to execute service B. Require authentication for service B. Permit only the service account for service A to call the back-end. This aligns perfectly with least privilege. Service A gets its own identity, Service B gets its own identity. Service A's service account is then granted run.invoker permissions on Service B, allowing it to call the backend while Service B requires authentication. This is the recommended approach.

C. Use the Compute Engine default service account to run service A and service B. Require authentication for service B. Permit only the default service account to call the backend. The Compute Engine default service account often has broad permissions (e.g., editor role in its project). Using it violates the principle of least privilege and is generally discouraged for production applications due to the potential for excessive permissions.

D. Create three separate service accounts. Grant one service account the permissions to execute service A. Grant the second service account the permissions to run service B. Grant the third service account the permissions to communicate between both services A and B. Require authentication for service B. Call the back-end by authenticating with a service account key for the third service account. This introduces unnecessary complexity with a third service account just for communication. More critically, using a service account key for authentication is generally discouraged in Cloud Run environments where ADC (Application Default Credentials) can be used, as managing keys securely becomes an operational overhead and security risk. Cloud Run services automatically use their attached service accounts for authentication when making calls to other Google Cloud services, including other Cloud Run services.

Therefore, option B is the best solution, adhering to the principle of least privilege and Google Cloud best practices for Cloud Run service-to-service authentication.

The problem requires exposing a sensitive AI model endpoint internally (strictly isolated from the internet) to a defined list of projects within the organization.

Internal Exposure and Isolation: An "internal Application Load Balancer" is suitable for exposing services within your VPC network, ensuring they are not accessible from the internet.

Private Service Connect (PSC): This is the key technology for securely and privately exposing services from one VPC network (the service producer, where the model is) to other VPC networks (the service consumers, the defined list of projects) within the same or different organizations. PSC allows consumers to access services using internal IP addresses, with traffic remaining on Google's private network. You can configure a service attachment that points to the internal load balancer, and then permit specific consumer projects to connect to this service attachment.Extract Reference: "Private Service Connect is a capability of Google Cloud networking that allows consumers to access managed services privately from inside their VPC network. Similarly, it allows managed service producers to host these services in their own separate VPC networks and offer a private connection to their consumers." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Private Service Connect | VPC" - https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/private-service-connect)

Extract Reference: "Private Service Connect endpoints are internal IP addresses in a consumer VPC network that can be directly accessed by clients in that network. Endpoints are created by deploying a forwarding rule that references a service attachment or a bundle of Google APIs." (Google Cloud Documentation: "About Private Service Connect | VPC" - https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/private-service-connect)

Extract Reference: "Private Service Connect can be used to access managed services that are owned by Google, third-party software as a service (SaaS) companies, or other teams within the consumer's own company. Both published services and Google APIs can be targets of Private Service Connect." (Google Cloud Documentation: "About Private Service Connect | VPC" - https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/private-service-connect)

Let's evaluate the other options:

A. Shared VPC and central firewall rules: While Shared VPC centralizes network management, it does not provide a direct managed service exposure mechanism like PSC for a model endpoint to specific projects. It's more about sharing subnets and network resources. Administering all firewall rules centrally would also not meet the need for exposing only this specific model to a defined list of projects in a managed, private service pattern.

B. Activate Private Google Access (PGA): Private Google Access allows VMs without external IP addresses to access Google APIs and services (like Cloud Storage, BigQuery, etc.) privately from within their VPC network. It's for consuming Google services, not for exposing custom services hosted in a Google Cloud project to other projects.

D. External Application Load Balancer + Cloud Armor: An "external Application Load Balancer" exposes the service to the internet. While Cloud Armor can restrict access based on IP addresses, it still involves internet exposure, which contradicts the "strictly isolated from the internet" requirement. Restricting to "Google Cloud IP addresses" doesn't guarantee access only to a defined list of projects and still exposes the service externally.

Therefore, creating an internal Application Load Balancer and exposing it via Private Service Connect is the most suitable and secure solution for this scenario.

VPC Peering is between organizations not between Projects in an organization. That is Shared VPC. In this case, both projects are in same organization so having VPC Service Controls around both projects with necessary rules should be fine.

https://cloud.google.com/vpc-service-controls/docs/overview

https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/firewalls#service-accounts-vs-tags

https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/firewalls#service-accounts-vs-tags

A service account represents an identity associated with an instance. Only one service account can be associated with an instance. You control access to the service account by controlling the grant of the Service Account User role for other IAM principals. For an IAM principal to start an instance by using a service account, that principal must have the Service Account User role to at least use that service account and appropriate permissions to create instances (for example, having the Compute Engine Instance Admin role to the project).

When using Google Cloud's Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings like App Engine, Google manages the infrastructure, including the underlying OS, runtime, and scaling. However, securing the application code itself, such as defending against cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection (SQLi) attacks, remains the responsibility of the user. This involves implementing secure coding practices, validating inputs, and employing appropriate security measures within the application.

To ensure that your organization’s record data is retained for at least seven years in Cloud Storage, you need to apply a retention policy and enable bucket lock. This prevents the policy from being altered or the data from being deleted before the retention period ends.

Identify Buckets: Determine which Cloud Storage buckets contain the record data that needs to be retained.

Apply Retention Policy:

Go to the Google Cloud Console and navigate to "Cloud Storage".

Select the bucket you identified.

Go to the "Retention" tab and set a retention policy to retain objects for seven years.

Enable Bucket Lock:

Once the retention policy is set, you need to lock the bucket to make the retention policy permanent.

This is done by enabling the bucket lock. Go to the "Retention" tab and click "Lock".

Confirm and Monitor:

Confirm that the bucket lock is applied.

Monitor the bucket using log-based alerts to ensure compliance.

Firewall Rule Analysis: Analyze the existing VPC firewall rules to identify any rules that might allow traffic between VM instances based on the same service account.

Priority Check: Check the priority of these rules. A rule with a priority lower than 1000 (such as 999) will take precedence over your tag-based rules.

Service Account Configuration: Since your VM instances are deployed without any service account customization, they are likely using the default service account. A firewall rule allowing traffic between instances using this default service account will override the tag-based rules if it has a higher priority.

Testing and Validation: Disable or adjust the priority of the rule with priority 999 to test if the tag-based segmentation works correctly. Validate that the traffic is segmented according to your intended configuration. References:

Google Cloud - VPC Firewall Rules

Google Cloud - Service Accounts

The problem states that Google Cloud applications need to access external web services and requires the ability to monitor, control, and log this access.

Monitoring, Controlling, and Logging external web access: This specifically points to a proxy solution, which can intercept, inspect, and log HTTP/S traffic.

Secure Web Proxy (SWP): Google Cloud's Secure Web Proxy is designed for exactly this use case. It acts as an explicit forward proxy for HTTP(S) traffic, allowing organizations to implement granular access controls, inspect traffic for security threats, and log all outbound web requests from their Google Cloud environment.Extract Reference: "Secure Web Proxy is a managed service that lets you deploy and manage an explicit forward proxy to protect your organization's internal resources from web-based threats and to control access to external web applications." and "With Secure Web Proxy, you can: Enforce granular access policies based on different attributes, Log all HTTP(S) requests that are handled by the proxy, and Monitor web traffic for threats." (Google Cloud documentation: https://cloud.google.com/secure-web-proxy)

Let's evaluate the other options:

A. Configure VPC firewall rules to allow the services to access the IP addresses of required external web services: VPC firewall rules operate at Layer 4 (TCP/UDP) and Layer 3 (IP). While they can allow or deny traffic to specific IP addresses and ports, they cannot monitor, control, or log HTTP/S requests at the application layer. They don't provide granular control over which web services are accessed or inspect the content of the requests.

C. Configure Google Cloud Armor to monitor and protect your applications by checking incoming traffic patterns for attack patterns: Google Cloud Armor is primarily a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection and Web Application Firewall (WAF) service. It focuses on protecting applications from incoming threats (ingress traffic), not controlling and logging outgoing access to external web services.

D. Set up a Cloud NAT instance to allow egress traffic from your VPC: Cloud NAT allows instances without external IP addresses to connect to the internet. While it enables egress, it does not provide monitoring, control, or logging capabilities for specific web services at the application layer. It's a network address translation service, not an application-layer proxy.

Therefore, setting up a Secure Web Proxy is the most appropriate solution to meet the requirements of monitoring, controlling, and logging access to external web services from Google Cloud applications.

https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-1.html

Shared responsibility “Security of the Cloud” - GCP is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the GCP Cloud. This infrastructure is composed of the hardware, software, networking, and facilities that run GCP Cloud services.

Use Cloud External Key Management (EKM) that integrates with an external Hardware Security Module (HSM) system from supported vendors: Cloud EKM allows you to use encryption keys that are managed externally to Google Cloud. This means you can generate and store your keys in an on-premises HSM or another supported external HSM service, and integrate these keys with various Google Cloud services.

Integration with Google Services: Cloud EKM integrates seamlessly with many Google Cloud services, including BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, and more. This provides you with full control over your encryption keys while still taking advantage of Google Cloud's powerful services.

References

Cloud External Key Management (EKM) documentation

External Key Management overview

Understanding Organization Policies:

Organization policies are rules that can be set at different levels of the resource hierarchy in GCP to enforce governance and compliance.

These policies can be set at the organization node, folders, and projects, and they are inherited down the hierarchy unless explicitly overridden.

Hierarchy and Policy Inheritance:

The provided resource hierarchy has an organization node (Example.com), folders (Folder 1 and Folder 2), and a project (Project 2) under Folder 2 with a specific VPC (VPC A).

Each node in the hierarchy can have its own policies, and these policies are inherited by child nodes unless overridden.

Analyzing the Policies in the Hierarchy:

Organization Node Policy:

json

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{ "constraint": "constraints/compute.restrictLoadBalancerCreationForTypes", "listPolicy": { "allValues": "DENY" } }

This policy at the organization node denies all load balancer types.

Folder 2 Policy:

json

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{ "constraint": "constraints/compute.restrictLoadBalancerCreationForTypes", "listPolicy": { "deniedValues": ["INTERNAL_TCP_UDP", "INTERNAL_HTTP_HTTPS"] } }

This policy at Folder 2 denies the creation of INTERNAL_TCP_UDP and INTERNAL_HTTP_HTTPS load balancers.

Project 2 Policy:

json

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{ "constraint": "constraints/compute.restrictLoadBalancerCreationForTypes", "listPolicy": { "deniedValues": ["EXTERNAL_TCP_PROXY", "EXTERNAL_SSL_PROXY"] } }

This policy at Project 2 denies the creation of EXTERNAL_TCP_PROXY and EXTERNAL_SSL_PROXY load balancers.

Policy Application to VPC A:

Since policies are inherited, VPC A (which is within Project 2 under Folder 2) will be affected by the policies of both Folder 2 and Project 2.

Combining the denied values from both Folder 2 and Project 2:

From Folder 2: INTERNAL_TCP_UDP, INTERNAL_HTTP_HTTPS

From Project 2: EXTERNAL_TCP_PROXY, EXTERNAL_SSL_PROXY

Conclusion:

VPC A will have the following load balancer types denied: INTERNAL_TCP_UDP, INTERNAL_HTTP_HTTPS, EXTERNAL_TCP_PROXY, EXTERNAL_SSL_PROXY.

DNSSEC — use a DNS registrar that supports DNSSEC, and enable it. DNSSEC digitally signs DNS communication, making it more difficult (but not impossible) for hackers to intercept and spoof. Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) adds security to the Domain Name System (DNS) protocol by enabling DNS responses to be validated. Having a trustworthy Domain Name System (DNS) that translates a domain name like www.example.com into its associated IP address is an increasingly important building block of today’s web-based applications. Attackers can hijack this process of domain/IP lookup and redirect users to a malicious site through DNS hijacking and man-in-the-middle attacks. DNSSEC helps mitigate the risk of such attacks by cryptographically signing DNS records. As a result, it prevents attackers from issuing fake DNS responses that may misdirect browsers to nefarious websites. https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/dnssec-now-available-in-cloud-dns

To enhance the security of your machine learning (ML) model supply chain within a serverless architecture, it's crucial to implement measures that protect both the development and deployment pipelines.​

Option A: While limiting external dependencies and rotating encryption keys are good security practices, they do not directly address the risks associated with the ML model supply chain.​

Option B: Implementing container image vulnerability scanning during development and pre-deployment helps identify and mitigate known vulnerabilities in your container images. Enforcing Binary Authorization ensures that only trusted and verified images are deployed in your environment. This combination directly strengthens the security of the ML model supply chain by validating the integrity of container images before deployment.​

Option C: Sanitizing training data and applying role-based access controls are important security practices but do not specifically safeguard the deployment pipeline against compromised container images.​

Option D: While strict firewall rules and intrusion detection systems enhance network security, they do not specifically address vulnerabilities within the container images or the deployment process.​

Therefore, Option B is the most effective approach, as it directly addresses the security of the development and deployment pipeline by ensuring that only vetted and secure container images are used in your environment.​

To organize GCP projects based on different business units and manage IAM permissions, you should create an organization node and assign folders for each business unit. This approach allows you to logically separate projects under folders and apply IAM policies at the folder level.

Step-by-Step:

Create Organization Node: Ensure that your GCP account is linked to an organization.

Create Folders for Business Units:

Navigate to the GCP Console > IAM & Admin > Resource Manager.

Create a folder for each business unit under the organization node.

Move Projects to Folders:

Move existing projects into the respective folders according to the business unit.

Set IAM Policies:

Assign IAM roles and permissions at the folder level to manage access for each business unit independently.

Monitor and Manage: Use Cloud Audit Logs and other GCP tools to monitor the activities and ensure compliance with the organization’s policies.

https://cloud.google.com/load-balancing/docs/ssl - SSL Proxy Load Balancing is a reverse proxy load balancer that distributes SSL traffic coming from the internet to virtual machine (VM) instances in your Google Cloud VPC network.

To minimize the usage of service account keys and implement Workload Identity Federation (WIF) with your on-premises identity provider, you can use a workload identity pool integrated with your corporate Active Directory Federation Service (ADFS). This setup allows your on-premises Windows-based applications to authenticate to Google Cloud APIs without using long-lived service account keys.

Set Up a Workload Identity Pool:

In the Google Cloud Console, go to IAM & Admin > Workload Identity Federation.

Create a new workload identity pool.

Configure the pool to trust your corporate ADFS by specifying the federation provider details.

Create a Workload Identity Provider:

Within the created pool, set up a new provider for ADFS.

Configure the provider with the necessary details such as the issuer URL and credentials.

Configure Impersonation Rules:

Set up rules to allow principals in the workload identity pool to impersonate specific Google Cloud service accounts.

This is done by specifying the identity provider and the conditions under which the service accounts can be impersonated.

Update Applications:

Modify your on-premises applications to use the configured ADFS authentication to obtain tokens.

These tokens can then be exchanged for Google Cloud access tokens to interact with Google Cloud APIs securely.

By setting up the workload identity pool and configuring impersonation rules, you achieve secure authentication without needing to distribute and manage service account keys.

Google Cloud Armor helps to protect applications from DDoS attacks and web application firewall (WAF) threats like XSS and SQLi. To use Google Cloud Armor security policies, certain requirements must be met:

External Load Balancers: Google Cloud Armor is specifically designed to work with external HTTP(S) load balancers, which handle traffic at the edge of the Google Cloud network. This type of load balancer provides a global frontend that can distribute traffic to various backends.

Load Balancing Scheme: The backend service associated with the Google Cloud Armor policy must have an EXTERNAL load balancing scheme. This scheme allows the service to accept traffic from outside the Google Cloud network, which is necessary for applying security policies effectively at the network edge.

These requirements ensure that Google Cloud Armor can inspect and filter incoming traffic before it reaches your web application's backend services, providing an additional layer of security against common web vulnerabilities.

References

Google Cloud Armor Documentation

External HTTP(S) Load Balancing Overview

To configure the behavior where each department member automatically has read-only access to all new project resources created by any department member, you should use Google Cloud's folder structure and IAM roles effectively. Here are the steps:

Create Folders for Departments: Create a folder under your Organization for each department. Folders help organize resources and provide a hierarchy for applying policies and permissions.

Assign IAM Roles to Google Groups: Assign the Project Viewer role to the Google Group associated with each department at the folder level. This ensures that all members of the group have the necessary permissions.

Inherited Permissions: When a department member creates a new project under their department's folder, the permissions assigned to the folder are inherited by the new project. Thus, all department members will automatically have read-only access to the project's resources.

Navigate to IAM & Admin in the GCP Console.

Select "Folders" from the left-hand menu.

For each department, create a new folder under the organization.

Select the newly created folder, and then go to the "Permissions" tab.

Click on "Add" to assign a new role.

Enter the email address of the Google Group for the department.

Assign the "Project Viewer" role to the group.

Access Restrictions: Since the permissions are applied at the folder level, only the members of the specific department's Google Group will have read-only access to the projects created in that folder. Other departments will not have access unless explicitly granted.

By following these steps, you ensure that department members have the required access to their respective projects without manual configuration for each new project.

Setting up separate service perimeters for dev, staging, and prod environments allows for more granular control and monitoring. Automating the addition of new projects to the respective perimeters ensures that all projects are consistently secured without manual intervention.

Steps:

Set Up Service Perimeters: Use Access Context Manager to define and configure three separate service perimeters for dev, staging, and prod.

Deploy Monitoring Function: Create a Cloud Function that monitors the "implementation" folder for new projects using Stackdriver (Cloud Monitoring) and Cloud Pub/Sub.

Automate Perimeter Updates: Configure the Cloud Function to execute Terraform scripts that automatically add new projects to the appropriate service perimeter.

Objective: Encrypt data using envelope encryption.

Solution: Follow the envelope encryption process.

Steps:

Step 1: Generate a Data Encryption Key (DEK) locally. The DEK is used to encrypt the actual data.

Step 2: Encrypt the data using the DEK.

Step 3: Use a Key Encryption Key (KEK) to wrap the DEK. The KEK is used to encrypt the DEK.

Step 4: Store the encrypted data and the wrapped DEK. This ensures that the data can be securely decrypted in the future using the KEK to unwrap the DEK.

Envelope encryption enhances security by adding an additional layer of encryption to the data encryption key, which is particularly useful for managing large volumes of encrypted data.

Organization Policy: Use the constraints/compute.skipDefaultNetworkCreation organization policy constraint to disable the creation of default networks in new projects.

Policy Application: Apply this constraint at the organization level to ensure it affects all projects within your organization, preventing the creation of default networks.

Best Practices Compliance: Following this best practice helps maintain a clean and secure network configuration by avoiding the use of default networks, which may not be properly segmented or secured.

Verification: Verify the policy application by creating new projects and ensuring that default networks are not created. References:

Google Cloud - Organization Policy Constraints

Google Cloud - Best Practices for Enterprise Organizations

"Isolate VMs using service accounts when possible" "even though it is possible to uses tags for target filtering in this manner, we recommend that you use service accounts where possible. Target tags are not access-controlled and can be changed by someone with the instanceAdmin role while VMs are in service. Service accounts are access-controlled, meaning that a specific user must be explicitly authorized to use a service account. There can only be one service account per instance, whereas there can be multiple tags. Also, service accounts assigned to a VM can only be changed when the VM is stopped." https://cloud.google.com/solutions/best-practices-vpc-design#isolate-vms-service-accounts

Enable Firewall Rules Logging on the latest rules that were changed. Use Logs Explorer to analyze whether the rules are working correctly:

Enable Firewall Rules Logging for the specific firewall rules in question through the Google Cloud Console.

Once logging is enabled, use Logs Explorer to filter and review the firewall logs.

Analyze the logs to determine if the rules are allowing or blocking traffic as intended, identifying any misconfigurations or issues.

De-identifying sensitive data Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) can de-identify sensitive data in text content, including text stored in container structures such as tables. De-identification is the process of removing identifying information from data. The API detects sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII), and then uses a de-identification transformation to mask, delete, or otherwise obscure the data. For example, de-identification techniques can include any of the following: Masking sensitive data by partially or fully replacing characters with a symbol, such as an asterisk (*) or hash (#). Replacing each instance of sensitive data with a token, or surrogate, string. Encrypting and replacing sensitive data using a randomly generated or pre-determined key. When you de-identify data using the CryptoReplaceFfxFpeConfig or CryptoDeterministicConfig infoType transformations, you can re-identify that data, as long as you have the CryptoKey used to originally de-identify the data. https://cloud.google.com/dlp/docs/deidentify-sensitive-data

To comply with GDPR requirements and manage encryption keys for workloads across multiple Google Cloud services, customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) offer a suitable solution.

Customer-managed encryption keys (B):

CMEK allows you to create and manage encryption keys using Google Cloud Key Management Service (KMS). You maintain full control over the key lifecycle, including key rotation and destruction.

CMEK can be used with various Google Cloud services, such as Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and Pub/Sub, ensuring consistent and compliant encryption across your environment.

Using CMEK, you can implement data protection by design, aligning with GDPR requirements by ensuring that encryption keys are appropriately managed and secured.

References

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys Documentation

Encryption at Rest in Google Cloud

To allow a large number of users to access the GCP Console while keeping the existing Active Directory or LDAP server for identity management, use Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS).

Install GCDS:

Download and install Google Cloud Directory Sync from here.

Configure GCDS:

Set up the synchronization by specifying the LDAP server details and the Google domain.

Map the LDAP attributes to Google attributes to ensure user data is synchronized correctly.

Run Synchronization:

Perform an initial synchronization to populate the Google domain with existing users from the LDAP server.

Schedule regular synchronizations to keep the data up-to-date.

Benefits:

Automated Sync: Ensures that user data is consistently updated without manual intervention.

Secure Access: Users can log in to the GCP Console using their existing credentials, enhancing security and user experience.

To reduce the scope of systems subject to PCI audit standards, segregate the cardholder data environment (CDE) into a separate GCP project. This ensures that only the project containing the CDE will be subject to PCI DSS compliance, reducing the audit scope for other projects.

Create Separate GCP Project:

Go to the Cloud Console, navigate to IAM & Admin > Manage Resources.

Click "Create Project" and set up a new project for the CDE.

Migrate CDE:

Transfer the systems processing, storing, or transmitting cardholder data to the new project.

Apply PCI DSS Controls:

Implement PCI DSS required controls on the new project.

Use appropriate security measures such as firewalls, access controls, and encryption.

Disable service account key creation You can use the iam.disableServiceAccountKeyCreation boolean constraint to disable the creation of new external service account keys. This allows you to control the use of unmanaged long-term credentials for service accounts. When this constraint is set, user-managed credentials cannot be created for service accounts in projects affected by the constraint. https://cloud.google.com/resource-manager/docs/organization-policy/restricting-service-accounts#example_policy_boolean_constraint

The problem requires restricting admin access to Google Cloud APIs based on geographic location (Canada and Germany) and environment (development and production projects).

VPC Service Controls (VPC SC): VPC Service Controls is designed to create security perimeters around Google Cloud resources and services. Its primary purpose is to prevent data exfiltration and control access to Google Cloud APIs based on the context of the request, which includes the source IP address.

Extract Reference: "VPC Service Controls provides an extra layer of security defense for Google Cloud services that is independent of Identity and Access Management (IAM). While IAM enables granular identity-based access control, VPC Service Controls enables broader context-based perimeter security, including controlling data egress across the perimeter." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Overview of VPC Service Controls" - https://cloud.google.com/vpc-service-controls/docs/overview)

Service Perimeters for Environments: Creating dedicated perimeters for development and production projects allows for logical separation of environments, which aligns with the "dedicated projects for development and production" structure.

Ingress Policies with Geographic Restrictions: VPC Service Controls uses "ingress rules" to define who and from where requests can enter a service perimeter. These ingress rules can be configured to allow access based on various attributes, including the source IP address of the request. By allowing access from specific IP ranges corresponding to Canada and Germany, you effectively restrict administrative access to APIs from those countries. You can define "access levels" (which can include IP subnets or geographical origins) and attach them to ingress policies.

Extract Reference: "To allow ingress to resources, VPC Service Controls evaluates sources and identityType attributes as an AND condition... You must specify an accessLevel or a resource (Google Cloud project or VPC network), or set accessLevel attribute to *." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Ingress and egress rules | VPC Service Controls" - https://cloud.google.com/vpc-service-controls/docs/ingress-egress-rules)

Extract Reference (for Context-Aware Access which underpins access levels): "You can create different types of Context-Aware Access policies for accessing apps: IP, device, geographic origin, and custom access-level attributes." (Google Workspace Admin Help: "Protect your business with Context-Aware Access" - https://support.google.com/a/answer/9275380) - While this references Workspace apps, the underlying mechanism of Access Context Manager (used by VPC SC) supports geographic restrictions.

Let's evaluate the other options:

A. Create dedicated firewall policies... restrict access based on geolocations: VPC firewall rules operate at the network level (Layers 3/4) within a VPC. They control traffic between VM instances or to/from the internet for network services. They do not directly control admin access to Google Cloud APIs (e.g., via the console or gcloud CLI calls) originating from outside the VPC.

B. Activate the organization policy on the folders to restrict resource location: The Resource Location Restriction organization policy constraint restricts where new resources can be created or stored (e.g., data residency requirements). It does not restrict where administrators can connect from to manage these resources or access APIs.

D. Create dedicated IAM Groups... Grant access: IAM (Identity and Access Management) controls who can access what resources and what actions they can perform. It does not natively provide control over where the access originates from (e.g., country-specific IP addresses).

Therefore, VPC Service Controls with properly configured ingress policies based on source IP/Access Levels is the recommended and most effective method for restricting admin access to Google Cloud APIs by geographic location and environment.

Physical Token for MFA: Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) using physical tokens (such as security keys) for super admin accounts. This adds an extra layer of security to the highest privilege accounts.

Non-Privileged Identities: Provide super admins with separate non-privileged accounts for daily activities. This practice minimizes the risk associated with using highly privileged accounts for routine tasks.

Account Management: Ensure that super admin accounts are only used for tasks requiring elevated privileges, reducing exposure to potential security threats. These measures enhance the security of super admin accounts, protecting your Google Cloud organization from unauthorized access. References:

Google Cloud - Best Practices for Securing Cloud Identity

Google Cloud - Using Security Keys