Professional-Cloud-Security-Engineer Practice Exam Questions with Answers Google Cloud Certified - Professional Cloud Security Engineer Certification

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

To handle PII data ingestion and ensure both redaction and re-identification for analytics purposes, you can use Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) with appropriate techniques for masking and encryption.

Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) with Cryptographic Hashing (C):

Use Cloud DLP to apply cryptographic hashing to PII data. Hashing transforms the data into a fixed-length string that is not directly readable, providing a layer of obfuscation. This helps in masking the PII while retaining the ability to verify data integrity.

Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) with Deterministic Encryption using AES-SIV (E):

Apply deterministic encryption using AES-SIV through Cloud DLP. Deterministic encryption ensures that the same input will always produce the same encrypted output, allowing you to re-identify the PII when necessary. This method enables secure encryption while allowing data re-identification for analytics.

By combining these two approaches, you can effectively mask PII for privacy protection and later re-identify it when required for analysis.

References

Cloud Data Loss Prevention Documentation

Data Redaction and Masking Techniques

”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.

Security Command Center (SCC) in Google Cloud provides several features to help organizations detect and respond to security threats and misconfigurations.

Event Threat Detection: This feature continuously monitors and analyzes system logs to detect potential threats such as crypto mining. It uses machine learning and threat intelligence to identify suspicious activities and generate alerts.

Security Health Analytics: This feature helps identify common misconfigurations and compliance violations that could impact security. It provides visibility into security posture and helps remediate issues related to misconfigurations in your Google Cloud environment.

By using both Event Threat Detection and Security Health Analytics, you can effectively monitor for crypto mining activities and detect common misconfigurations that could compromise security.

References

Security Command Center Documentation

Event Threat Detection

Security Health Analytics

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK):

CMEK allows you to manage encryption keys using Cloud Key Management Service (KMS). This gives you control over the lifecycle of the keys, including rotation, destruction, and auditing.

Set up a Cloud KMS key ring and create encryption keys that will be used to protect your data in BigQuery, Cloud SQL, and Cloud Storage.

Configure the services to use CMEK for encrypting data at rest, ensuring compliance with your organization's security policies.

Cloud External Key Manager (EKM):

Cloud EKM allows you to use keys managed by an external key management provider to encrypt data in Google Cloud services.

Integrate your external key management system with Google Cloud using supported protocols and APIs.

Configure your data warehouse services to use the external keys for encryption, ensuring that key management is handled outside of the Google Cloud environment.

Key Access Justifications:

Enable Key Access Justifications to provide visibility into why encryption keys are being accessed. This helps in monitoring and auditing key usage to ensure compliance and security.

Set up policies and logging to capture and review key access requests, providing insights into how and why keys are used.

Access Transparency and Approval:

Implement Access Transparency to gain visibility into Google’s access to your data and encryption keys.

Configure Access Approval to require explicit approval for Google support or engineering access to your data, adding an additional layer of security and control.

References:

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK)

Cloud External Key Manager (EKM)

Key Access Justifications

Access Transparency

Access Approval

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.

References:

Google Cloud Logging

Monitoring BigQuery logs

SSO/SAML Integration: Implement SSO (Single Sign-On) with SAML integration through Cloud Identity to streamline user authentication and lifecycle management. This ensures centralized management of user identities and access.

Predefined Roles: Use predefined roles to provide granular access control. These roles are designed to follow the principle of least privilege, ensuring that users have the minimum necessary permissions to perform their tasks.

User Management: By leveraging SSO/SAML, user provisioning and de-provisioning become more efficient and secure. This integration helps maintain consistent access policies across your organization.

Access Control: Predefined roles reduce the risk of over-permission by offering well-defined access levels, enhancing security and compliance. References:

Google Cloud - SSO with SAML

Google Cloud - IAM Best Practices

Objective: Implement an encryption at-rest strategy that balances key management complexity and control for sensitive and non-sensitive data, ensuring FIPS 140-2 L1 compliance.

Solution: Use Google default encryption for non-sensitive data and Cloud Key Management Service (KMS) for sensitive data.

Steps:

Step 1: Store non-sensitive data using Google Cloud’s default encryption, which automatically encrypts data at rest without additional configuration.

Step 2: For sensitive data, use Cloud KMS to create and manage encryption keys.

Step 3: Configure key rotation policies for the keys managed by Cloud KMS to meet compliance requirements.

Step 4: Ensure that all data encryption keys used by Cloud KMS comply with FIPS 140-2 Level 1 standards.

By using Google default encryption for non-sensitive data and Cloud KMS for sensitive data, you can manage encryption efficiently while maintaining control over key residency and rotation for sensitive data.

References:

Google Cloud Default Encryption

Cloud Key Management Service

FIPS 140-2 Compliance

External HTTP(S) Load Balancer: Deploy an external HTTP(S) load balancer to manage traffic to your VMs. This load balancer will handle incoming traffic from the internet while the VMs themselves do not have public IP addresses.

Host (VPC) Project Deployment: Deploy the load balancer in the host (VPC) project. This allows for centralized management of network resources and maintains the integrity of your shared VPC configuration.

Backend Configuration: Configure the MIG as the backend for the load balancer. This setup ensures that the VMs can still serve external users while reducing their direct exposure to the internet. This solution provides the required access to external users through the load balancer, enhancing security by not exposing individual VM IP addresses. References:

Google Cloud - External HTTP(S) Load Balancer Overview

Google Cloud - Shared VPC Overview

The minimum length for passwords in Cloud Identity can be set to 8 characters. This aligns with common security best practices for password policies, ensuring a basic level of complexity and security.

Step-by-Step:

Access Admin Console: Log in to the Google Admin console.

Navigate to Security Settings: Go to Security > Password Management.

Set Minimum Length: Set the minimum length for passwords to 8 characters.

Save Changes: Save the settings and ensure that all user accounts adhere to the new policy.

References:

Google Cloud Identity Security Settings

Password Policy Best Practices

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.

References:

Domain-wide Delegation of Authority

Using OAuth 2.0 for Server to Server Applications

Objective: Identify the layers of the stack the customer shares responsibility for in a shared security responsibility model for IaaS.

Solution: Understand the shared responsibility model.

Explanation:

Network Security: Customers are responsible for configuring network security, such as setting up firewalls, managing VPCs, and ensuring secure network traffic.

Access Policies: Customers are responsible for managing access policies, including IAM roles and permissions, to ensure only authorized users can access resources.

In IaaS, the cloud provider is typically responsible for the underlying infrastructure, while the customer is responsible for securing their applications and data on the cloud.

References:

Shared Responsibility Model

Google Cloud Security Overview

https://cloud.google.com/confidential-computing/confidential-vm/docs/creating-cvm-instance#considerations

Confidential VM does not support live migration. You can only enable Confidential Computing on a VM when you first create the instance. https://cloud.google.com/confidential-computing/confidential-vm/docs/creating-cvm-instance

https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/billing-access#overview-of-cloud-billing-roles-in-cloud-iam

Billing Account Costs Manager (roles/billing.costsManager)

- Manage budgets and view and export cost information of billing accounts (but not pricing information)

Billing Account Viewer (roles/billing.viewer)

- View billing account cost information and transactions.

To delegate management of access control permissions to each business unit effectively, organizing projects into folders and assigning permissions to Google groups at the folder level allows for scalable and manageable access control. Using Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS) to synchronize users and groups from the on-premises directory service ensures that access controls are maintained and updated automatically as users change roles or leave the company.

Steps:

Organize Projects in Folders: Create a folder structure in the Google Cloud Resource Manager to organize projects by business unit.

Assign Permissions to Google Groups: Use IAM to assign necessary permissions to Google Groups at the folder level, ensuring each business unit can manage access controls for their own projects.

Synchronize Users and Groups: Use GCDS to sync users and group memberships from your on-premises directory service to Google Cloud Identity, ensuring that changes in the on-premises directory are reflected in Google Cloud.

References:

Google Cloud Resource Manager

Google Cloud Directory Sync

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

"To support common use cases like setting a Time to Live (TTL) for objects, retaining noncurrent versions of objects, or "downgrading" storage classes of objects to help manage costs, Cloud Storage offers the Object Lifecycle Management feature. This page describes the feature as well as the options available when using it. To learn how to enable Object Lifecycle Management, and for examples of lifecycle policies, see Managing Lifecycles." https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/lifecycle

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

"The service evaluates all changes and remote access attempts to detect runtime attacks in near-real time." : https://cloud.google.com/security-command-center/docs/concepts-container-threat-detection-overview This has nothing to do with KNOWN security Vulns in images

To enforce private connectivity between on-premises hosts and Google Cloud APIs while optimizing for cost and operational efficiency, using a dedicated or Partner Interconnect is the best solution. This setup ensures a reliable, high-bandwidth connection with private IP addressing.

Choose Interconnect Type: Decide between Dedicated Interconnect and Partner Interconnect based on your bandwidth needs and proximity to Google Cloud locations.

Set Up Interconnect:

For Dedicated Interconnect, order circuits through the Google Cloud Console.

For Partner Interconnect, select a supported service provider and order the connection through them.

Configure VPC and Private Google Access:

In your VPC, enable Private Google Access to allow on-premises hosts to access Google APIs privately.

Go to "VPC network" -> "Private Google Access" and enable it for your subnets.

Establish Connectivity: Work with your network team and (if applicable) your Partner Interconnect provider to set up the physical and logical connections.

Test Connectivity: Verify that on-premises hosts can reach Google Cloud services using private IP addresses.

References:

Google Cloud Interconnect Overview

Configuring Private Google Access

Use the org policy constraint "Google Cloud Platform - Resource Location Restriction" on your Google Cloud organization node: This organizational policy constraint allows you to restrict the locations where your resources can be created. By setting this constraint to allow only Europe regions, you can ensure compliance with GDPR and other regional regulations.

Implementation: To implement this, you need to configure the organization policy with the constraint constraints/gcp.resourceLocations. You can specify allowed regions such as europe-west1 and europe-west4 to ensure resources are only created in these locations.

References

Resource Location Restriction documentation

GDPR compliance on Google Cloud

To ensure that Vertex AI Workbench Instances (formerly AI Platform Notebooks) are automatically updated and that users cannot modify operating system settings, it's crucial to implement organizational policies that enforce these requirements.

disableRootAccess Organization Policy:This policy prevents users from obtaining root access on virtual machines. By enforcing this policy, you ensure that users cannot make unauthorized changes to the operating system settings, maintaining the integrity and security of the instances.

requireAutoUpgradeSchedule Organization Policy:This policy mandates that virtual machines have an auto-upgrade schedule for their operating systems. By enforcing this policy, you ensure that instances are automatically kept up-to-date with the latest security patches and updates, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities.

Given the options:

Option A: Enabling VM Manager helps in managing updates and configurations but does not inherently prevent users from altering OS settings.

Option B: Enforcing the disableRootAccess and requireAutoUpgradeSchedule organization policies directly addresses both requirements: preventing unauthorized OS modifications and ensuring automatic updates.

Option C: Assigning specific roles controls user permissions but does not enforce OS-level restrictions or automatic updates.

Option D: Implementing firewall rules to prevent SSH access adds a layer of security but does not ensure automatic updates or prevent OS modifications through other means.

Therefore, Option B is the most effective approach, as it directly enforces the necessary policies to meet both requirements.

References:

Organization Policy Service

VM Manager Overview

Here are the permissions available to organizationRoleAdmin

iam.roles.create

iam.roles.delete

iam.roles.undelete

iam.roles.get

iam.roles.list

iam.roles.update

resourcemanager.projects.get

resourcemanager.projects.getIamPolicy

resourcemanager.projects.list

resourcemanager.organizations.get

resourcemanager.organizations.getIamPolicy

There are sufficient as per least privilege policy. You can do user management as well as auditing.

https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/understanding-custom-roles

Packet Mirroring Setup: Configure Packet Mirroring in your Google Cloud VPC to capture traffic to and from specific VM instances. This allows you to analyze the traffic for security and compliance purposes.

Security Software: Use specialized security software to inspect the mirrored traffic. This software can detect invalid or malicious content in the IP packets.

Mirroring Configuration: Specify the instances, network, and traffic direction (ingress, egress, or both) to be mirrored. Ensure that the mirrored traffic is directed to an appropriate analysis destination.

Traffic Analysis: Continuously monitor and analyze the mirrored traffic for any signs of malicious activity or anomalies. Use the findings to enhance your security posture and respond to potential threats. References:

Google Cloud - Packet Mirroring

Google Cloud - Packet Mirroring Best Practices

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 identify all principals who can change firewall rules, you need to determine which users or service accounts have permissions that allow them to modify firewall rules in your Google Cloud project. The correct permissions to check for this are compute.firewalls.create and compute.firewalls.delete. These permissions enable a user to create and delete firewall rules, respectively.

The Policy Analyzer tool in Google Cloud allows you to query and analyze IAM policies to identify which principals have specific permissions. By using Policy Analyzer, you can effectively identify all principals with the compute.firewalls.create and compute.firewalls.delete permissions.

Open Policy Analyzer: Go to the Google Cloud Console, navigate to IAM & Admin, and select Policy Analyzer.

Set Up Query: Create a new query specifying the permissions compute.firewalls.create and compute.firewalls.delete.

Run Query: Execute the query to retrieve a list of principals who have these permissions.

Review Results: Analyze the results to identify all users and service accounts with the capability to modify firewall rules.

This method ensures you have a comprehensive list of all principals who can change firewall rules, enhancing your audit and security posture.

References:

Google Cloud Policy Analyzer Documentation

Google Cloud IAM Documentation

Managing IAM permissions at the KeyRing level is more efficient and scalable compared to managing them at the individual Key level. By creating a single KeyRing and placing all encryption keys within it, you can apply uniform IAM permissions to the entire KeyRing, simplifying the management of permissions.

Steps:

Create a KeyRing: Set up a single KeyRing in Cloud KMS for all the encryption keys required for the persistent disks.

Create Encryption Keys: Generate the necessary encryption keys within this KeyRing.

Set IAM Permissions: Assign IAM roles and permissions to the KeyRing to manage access control at this level, ensuring that all keys within the KeyRing inherit these permissions.

References:

Google Cloud: Cloud Key Management Service (KMS)

Managing access to resources

https://cloud.google.com/kms/docs/ekm#how_it_works

- First, you create or use an existing key in a supported external key management partner system. This key has a unique URI or key path.

- Next, you grant your Google Cloud project access to use the key, in the external key management partner system.

- In your Google Cloud project, you create a Cloud EKM key, using the URI or key path for the externally-managed key.

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.

References:

Binary Authorization Documentation

Enabling Binary Authorization on Cloud Run

To grant read access to a third-party disk image stored in an external Google Cloud organization so it can be deployed into a VPC Service Controls perimeter, you need to update the service perimeter to allow egress traffic from your projects to the external project.

Update the Service Perimeter:

Go to the Google Cloud Console, navigate to Security > VPC Service Controls.

Select the appropriate service perimeter that includes your image repository project.

Configure Egress Policy:

Within the perimeter settings, configure the egressTo field to allow traffic to the external project.

Set the identityType to ANY_IDENTITY to permit any principal to access the external project for this specific egress rule.

Specify External Project and Service:

In the egressFrom field, include the external Google Cloud project number as an allowed resource.

Set the serviceName to compute.googleapis.com to specifically allow access to the Compute Engine service in the external project.

This configuration permits your internal projects to read the disk image from the external project while maintaining the security boundaries established by the service perimeter.

References:

VPC Service Controls Documentation

Configuring Service Perimeters

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

When you use a customer-managed encryption key (CMEK) to secure a Cloud Storage bucket, the key and the bucket must be located in the same region. In this case, the key is in europe-west3 and the bucket is in europe-west1, which is why you’re unable to access the key.

For managing and rotating encryption keys in a Compute Engine-based cluster using Managed Instance Groups (MIGs), Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) with Cloud KMS is the appropriate solution.

Set Up Cloud KMS:

Go to the Cloud Console and navigate to Security > Cryptographic Keys.

Create a keyring and a key.

Create and Use CMEK:

While creating or updating a Compute Engine instance, specify the CMEK key.

Example command:

gcloud compute instances create example-instance \ --image-family=debian-9 \ --image-project=debian-cloud \ --boot-disk-kms-key=projects/[PROJECT_ID]/locations/global/keyRings/[KEY_RING]/cryptoKeys/[KEY]

Rotate Keys:

Rotate keys periodically using Cloud KMS by creating new key versions and updating the instances to use the new key versions.

References:

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK)

Using Customer-Managed Encryption Keys

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.

References:

Google Cloud: Access Context Manager

Service perimeter automation

To migrate the current data backup and disaster recovery solutions to GCP while keeping the production environment on-premises, the most scalable and cost-efficient solution is using Google Cloud Storage with scheduled tasks and the gsutil command.

Setup Cloud Storage: Create a Cloud Storage bucket to store the backups.

Go to the Cloud Console and navigate to Cloud Storage.

Click "Create bucket" and follow the prompts to configure the storage bucket.

Install gsutil: Ensure gsutil is installed on the on-premises servers.

gsutil is a command-line tool for interacting with Cloud Storage.

Follow the installation guide here.

Create Backup Script: Write a script to upload data to Cloud Storage using gsutil.

#!/bin/bash gsutil -m cp -r /path/to/local/backup gs://your-bucket-name

Schedule Backup Task: Use a scheduling tool like cron on Linux to run the backup script at regular intervals.

Edit the crontab file with crontab -e and add an entry like:

References:

Cloud Storage Documentation

gsutil Documentation

To migrate a legacy application to GCP without knowing what ports it uses and ensuring the environment is secure, the best approach is to use a "Lift & Shift" method in an isolated project and analyze the traffic using VPC Flow logs. Here’s a step-by-step explanation:

Isolated Project:

Create a new, isolated project within your GCP environment to host the legacy application. This isolation ensures that any potential misconfigurations do not affect other projects.

Lift & Shift:

Migrate the application as-is (lift and shift) to the new isolated project. This involves moving the application without altering its architecture.

Enable Internal TCP Traffic:

Configure VPC Firewall rules to allow all internal TCP traffic within the VPC network. This step ensures that the application components can communicate internally without interruption.

Use VPC Flow Logs:

Enable VPC Flow logs to capture information about the traffic to and from your application. VPC Flow logs provide details about the source, destination, port, and protocol of the traffic.

Analyze Traffic:

Analyze the VPC Flow logs to identify the necessary ports and protocols used by the application.

Based on this analysis, create specific firewall rules to allow only the required traffic, thereby tightening security.

Implementation Steps:

Navigate to the VPC network section in the GCP Console.

Create a new VPC or use an existing one, and configure firewall rules to allow internal TCP traffic.

Enable VPC Flow logs from the VPC network settings.

Migrate your application to the new project.

Monitor and analyze the VPC Flow logs to refine your firewall rules.

By following these steps, you can safely migrate the application, understand its network requirements, and secure it appropriately in the new GCP environment.

References:

Google Cloud VPC Documentation

VPC Flow Logs Documentation

Objective: Implement external web application protection and validate policy changes before enforcement.

Solution: Use Google Cloud Armor's preconfigured rules in preview mode.

Steps:

Step 1: Open the Google Cloud Console.

Step 2: Navigate to the Google Cloud Armor section.

Step 3: Create or select a security policy.

Step 4: Apply preconfigured rules to the policy.

Step 5: Enable preview mode to simulate the effects of the rules without enforcing them.

Step 6: Monitor the logs to validate the policy changes.

Google Cloud Armor's preview mode allows you to test and validate the impact of security policies on your application traffic before applying them, ensuring that they work as intended without disrupting the service.

References:

Google Cloud Armor Documentation

Using Preview Mode

When configuring SAML-based Single Sign-On (SSO) in an organization that's using Active Directory, the general steps would involve setting up a SAML profile, specifying the necessary URLs for sign-in and sign-out processes, uploading an X.509 certificate for secure communication, and setting up the Entity ID and Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL in the Identity Provider (which in this case would be Active Directory).

Since the domain is already being used by G Suite, the best course of action is to minimize disruption by discovering any existing uses of Google-managed services. Collaborate with the existing Super Administrator to align the setup with the company's requirements.

Step-by-Step:

Identify Existing Usage: Have the customer's management identify all current uses of the domain within Google-managed services.

Collaboration: Work closely with the existing Super Administrator of the domain.

Provision Required Accounts: Ask the Super Administrator to provision necessary accounts and permissions for the data science manager or other relevant personnel.

Integrate SAML IdP: Ensure that the existing domain integrates with the company’s SAML 2.0 IdP for user authentication.

Set Up Cloud Identity: Configure Cloud Identity under the guidance of the Super Administrator without disrupting current services.

References:

Google Cloud Identity Administration

Google Support for Domain Issues

Objective: Ensure VMs can access Cloud Storage without reaching the public internet.

Solution: Enable Private Google Access on the VPC network, allowing VMs with only internal IP addresses to access Google APIs and services privately.

Steps:

Step 1: Open the Google Cloud Console.

Step 2: Go to the VPC Network section.

Step 3: Select the relevant VPC network and subnet.

Step 4: Enable Private Google Access for the subnet.

Private Google Access ensures that instances can access Google APIs and services (such as Cloud Storage) over a private network connection, without requiring a public IP address.

References:

Configuring Private Google Access

Best Practices for Secure Access

"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

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.

References:

Envelope Encryption Overview

Google Cloud Key Management Service Documentation

To comply with FIPS 140-2 for the messaging app, you need to ensure that both data at rest and data in transit are encrypted according to the standard. Using customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) ensures that you have control over the encryption keys, and BoringSSL is a library that meets FIPS 140-2 standards for encrypting data in transit.

Steps:

Encrypt Local SSDs: Modify the instance template for the Managed Instance Group (MIG) to use customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) for encrypting Local SSDs.

Enable BoringSSL: Update the application to use the BoringSSL library for all instance-to-instance communication to ensure that all data in transit is encrypted according to FIPS 140-2 standards.

References:

Google Cloud: Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK)

BoringSSL documentation

To ensure that the developers can view audit logs for the development environment and the security team can review all logs, you should grant IAM roles at the appropriate resource levels:

Grant logging.admin Role to the Security Team:

Assign the logging.admin role to the security team at the organization resource level.

This grants the security team full access to all logging data across the organization, including both production and development environments.

Grant logging.viewer Role to the Developer Team:

Assign the logging.viewer role to the developer team at the folder resource level that contains all the development projects.

This restricts the developers' access to only view logs in the development environment, ensuring they do not have access to production logs.

By using these roles and assigning them at the appropriate levels, you ensure that each team has the access they need while adhering to the principle of least privilege.

References:

IAM Roles for Cloud Logging

Resource Hierarchy in Google Cloud

https://cloud.google.com/architecture/framework/security/data-residency-sovereignty#manage_your_operational_sovereignty

To ensure compliance with GDPR and implement data residency and operational sovereignty in the EU, the following steps can be taken:

Limit Physical Location of Resources: Use the Organization Policy Service to enforce the resource locations constraint. This ensures that all new resources are created within the specified regions (EU in this case).

Configure Organization Policy: Set up an organization policy that restricts the locations where new resources can be created. This is done through the Google Cloud Console or via the gcloud command-line tool.

Example:

gcloud resource-manager org-policies allow constraints/gcp.resourceLocations [europe-west1,europe-west2] --organization=YOUR_ORG_ID

Key Access Justifications (KAJ): Use Key Access Justifications to limit Google personnel's access to encryption keys based on attributes like their geographic location or citizenship.

Set Up KAJ: Implement KAJ policies to ensure that only authorized personnel within the EU can access encryption keys.

References

Organization Policy Service

Key Access Justifications

https://cloud.google.co m/load-balancing/docs/tcp

TCP Proxy Load Balancing is implemented on GFEs that are distributed globally. If you choose the Premium Tier of Network Service Tiers, a TCP proxy load balancer is global. In Premium Tier, you can deploy backends in multiple regions, and the load balancer automatically directs user traffic to the closest region that has capacity. If you choose the Standard Tier, a TCP proxy load balancer can only direct traffic among backends in a single region. https://cloud.google.com/load-balancing/docs/load-balancing-overview#tcp-proxy-load-balancing

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

Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) allows you to control access to your web applications running on Google Cloud. It ensures that only authenticated users who are part of a specified Google Group can access the application. Here’s how you can restrict access to in-progress sites using IAP:

Enable IAP: First, you need to enable Cloud IAP for your App Engine application. This will require configuring OAuth consent and setting up necessary permissions.

Create a Google Group: Create a Google Group that includes all the customers and company employees who should have access to the in-progress sites.

Configure Access: Configure IAP to allow access only to members of the created Google Group. This involves setting up the necessary IAP policies and ensuring that only authenticated users in the group can access the application.

By using IAP, you ensure that the access control is centrally managed and only authorized users can view the in-progress sites from any location.

References

Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy Documentation

Setting up IAP

Rewriting the objects in-place within the same bucket, specifying the new CMEK for encryption, allows you to re-encrypt the data without downloading and re-uploading it, thus minimizing costs and time.

https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/encryption/using-customer-managed-keys

If a user loses their second factor for 2-Step Verification (2SV), you can help them regain access with minimal risk by generating a backup code.

Generate a Backup Code (A):

In the Google Admin console, navigate to the user's account settings.

Generate a backup code for the user. This code allows them to sign in despite not having access to their usual second factor.

Instruct the user to log in using the backup code and then update their second factor in their account settings.

This method ensures that only the affected user’s access is temporarily adjusted, minimizing risk while maintaining overall security policies.

References

Google Admin console 2-Step Verification documentation

o ensure that users can only access the data in a BigQuery table during working hours, you can assign the BigQuery Data Viewer role with an IAM condition that specifies the allowed access times. This method leverages IAM Conditions, which allow you to define and enforce time-based access policies. Here's how to do it:

Identify the BigQuery Table: Determine which BigQuery table(s) require restricted access.

Create an IAM Policy with Conditions: Define an IAM policy that includes a condition for time-based access. You can do this using the Google Cloud Console, gcloud command-line tool, or directly editing the IAM policy JSON.

Specify Working Hours: In the IAM condition, specify the time frame during which access is allowed. For example, you can set access to be allowed from 9 AM to 5 PM on weekdays.

Assign the Role with Conditions: Apply the policy to the users or groups who need access. Ensure that the condition is correctly attached to the BigQuery Data Viewer role.

Example using gcloud:

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding [PROJECT_ID] \

--member=user:[USER_EMAIL] \

--role=roles/bigquery.dataViewer \

--condition=expression="(request.time.getFullYear() == 2024) && (request.time.getDayOfWeek() in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) && (request.time.getHours() >= 9) && (request.time.getHours() < 17)",title="Working hours condition",description="Access limited to working hours"

References

Google Cloud IAM Conditions

Google Cloud BigQuery IAM Roles

Requirement:

Enforce the use of Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) for all new Cloud Storage resources in the organization.

Policy Constraint:

Use the constraints/gcp.restrictNonCmekServices constraint to enforce CMEK usage.

Policy Type and Value:

Set the policy type to allow to specify which services must use CMEK.

In this case, the policy value should be storage.googleapis.com to target Cloud Storage.

Command:

Applying the organization policy with the appropriate binding ensures that all new Cloud Storage resources under the organization will require CMEK.

Steps:

Step 1: Go to the Google Cloud Console.

Step 2: Navigate to the Organization Policies page.

Step 3: Apply the policy constraint constraints/gcp.restrictNonCmekServices with the allow policy type and storage.googleapis.com as the policy value.

References:

Organization Policy Constraints

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK)

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.

To prepare for migrating Google Cloud projects to a new organization node, it's crucial to ensure that the projects' current configurations and dependencies are appropriately managed. The two necessary preparation steps are:

Identify inherited Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles on projects to be migrated (C):

Projects inherit IAM roles from their parent resources. Identifying these roles is essential to understand the permissions and access levels that users have on the projects. This will help in ensuring that after migration, the appropriate roles and permissions are applied correctly.

Remove the specific migration projects from any VPC Service Controls perimeters and bridges (E):

VPC Service Controls provide security boundaries around your Google Cloud resources to mitigate data exfiltration risks. Before migrating the projects, they need to be removed from any existing VPC Service Controls perimeters and bridges to prevent any disruption in access or network communication. After migration, the projects can be added back to the necessary perimeters.

References

Google Cloud IAM documentation

VPC Service Controls documentation

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.

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.

References:

Google Cloud IAM Documentation

Google Cloud Security Best Practices

To ensure that PII data is separated from non-PII data, using Cloud Pub/Sub and Cloud Functions to trigger a scan by the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) API is an effective approach. This method allows for automated detection and handling of PII.

Steps:

Set Up Cloud Pub/Sub: Configure a Cloud Pub/Sub topic to receive notifications whenever a file is uploaded to the shared Cloud Storage bucket.

Deploy Cloud Functions: Create a Cloud Function that is triggered by the Pub/Sub topic. This function will invoke the DLP API to scan the uploaded file for PII.

Move Detected PII Files: If the scan detects PII, the Cloud Function will move the file to a secure Cloud Storage bucket accessible only by the administrator.

Set Permissions: Ensure that appropriate permissions are set on the Cloud Storage buckets to restrict access to files containing PII.

References:

Google Cloud: Data Loss Prevention

Cloud Functions documentation

Objective: Prevent users from creating projects while allowing only the DevOps team to create projects.

Solution: Modify IAM roles and permissions.

Steps:

Step 1: Open the Google Cloud Console.

Step 2: Navigate to the IAM & Admin page.

Step 3: At the organizational level, find and remove all users from the Project Creator role.

Step 4: Create or identify a group for the DevOps team.

Step 5: Assign the Project Creator role to the DevOps team group at the organizational level.

By removing all users from the Project Creator role and granting it only to the DevOps team, you ensure that only the designated team can create projects.

References:

GCP IAM Documentation

Project Creator Role

A security key is a physical device that you can use for two-step verification, providing an additional layer of security for your Google Account. Security keys can defend against phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks, making your login process more secure.

Objective: Create a Service Account that can list Compute Engine instances in the project following Google-recommended practices.

Solution: Create a custom role and assign it to the Service Account.

Steps:

Step 1: Open the Google Cloud Console.

Step 2: Navigate to the IAM & Admin page and select "Roles".

Step 3: Click on "Create Role" and define a new role with a suitable name and description.

Step 4: Add the permission compute.instances.list to the custom role.

Step 5: Save the custom role.

Step 6: Go to the "Service Accounts" section.

Step 7: Create a new Service Account or select an existing one.

Step 8: Assign the newly created custom role to the Service Account.

By creating a custom role with the specific permission to list Compute Engine instances, you follow the principle of least privilege, which is a recommended security practice.

References:

Creating and Managing Custom Roles

Best Practices for IAM

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

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

Objective: Understand the security characteristics of VPC peering.

Security Characteristics:

Non-transitive Peering: VPC peering connections are non-transitive. This means that peering is strictly between two VPC networks. If VPC A is peered with VPC B, and VPC B is peered with VPC C, VPC A cannot communicate with VPC C unless a direct peering connection is established.

Inter-Organization Peering: VPC peering allows you to connect VPC networks across different Google Cloud Platform organizations, facilitating private communication between distinct organizational units.

These characteristics ensure controlled and secure connectivity between VPC networks while preventing unintended data exposure.

References:

GCP VPC Peering Documentation

VPC Network Peering Overview

https://cloud.google.com/network-intelligence-center/docs/firewall-insights/concepts/overview#shadowed-firewall-rules

Firewall Insights analyzes your firewall rules to detect firewall rules that are shadowed by other rules. A shadowed rule is a firewall rule that has all of its relevant attributes, such as its IP address and port ranges, overlapped by attributes from one or more rules with higher or equal priority, called shadowing rules.

To ensure end-user access is only allowed if the traffic originates from a specific known good CIDR and to utilize GCP's native SYN flood protection, you can use the following product:

VPC Firewall Rules: By configuring VPC firewall rules, you can control traffic to and from your instances based on IP address, protocol, and port. You can set rules to only allow traffic from a specific CIDR block, ensuring that only authorized traffic can reach your application.

Additionally, Google Cloud Platform provides built-in protections against SYN flood attacks, which are a type of DDoS attack. These protections are part of the underlying infrastructure and do not require additional configuration.

Using VPC firewall rules will help you comply with the internal requirement of allowing access only from a specific CIDR and provide the necessary SYN flood DDoS protection.

References

Google Cloud VPC Firewall Rules

Google Cloud DDoS Protection