Google Professional Cloud Security Engineer Exam Dumps and Practice Test Questions Set4 Q61-80

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Question 61:

Your organization wants to ensure that all Cloud SQL instances enforce encryption at rest using customer-managed keys (CMEK) while preventing unauthorized decryption. Which approach ensures compliance across all projects?

A) Apply an organization policy constraint for CMEK usage on Cloud SQL
B) Enable default Google-managed encryption
C) Use IAM roles to restrict Cloud SQL access
D) Manually configure each Cloud SQL instance

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Applying an organization policy constraint to enforce the use of Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) for Cloud SQL is the most secure and scalable approach. This ensures that every Cloud SQL instance automatically uses encryption keys controlled by the organization, providing full key lifecycle management, including rotation, revocation, and access logging. Enforcing this at the organization level prevents accidental or malicious creation of instances using default Google-managed keys, maintaining regulatory compliance and operational consistency across all projects.

B) Using default Google-managed encryption protects data at rest but does not provide organizations with control over key management. There is no ability to rotate, revoke, or audit keys independently, which may not satisfy compliance frameworks like HIPAA or PCI-DSS that require customer control over cryptographic material.

C) Restricting access via IAM roles is essential for limiting who can interact with Cloud SQL instances, but IAM policies do not enforce encryption standards. Users with sufficient privileges could still create instances without CMEK if no organization policy exists, leaving sensitive data potentially unprotecteD)

D) Manually configuring CMEK for each Cloud SQL instance is error-prone, time-consuming, and difficult to scale in large enterprises. Human error may lead to inconsistent application of encryption policies, resulting in potential data exposure or noncompliance.

By combining organization policies for CMEK with Cloud KMS integration, organizations achieve automated key management, granular access control, and audit logging. When integrated with Security Command Center, administrators gain continuous monitoring, alerts for misconfigurations, and verification that all Cloud SQL instances adhere to corporate encryption standards. This approach ensures that sensitive data is encrypted under organization-managed keys, simplifies compliance, and provides a centralized, scalable solution for enterprise-wide encryption enforcement.

Question 62:

You need to implement a solution that prevents Cloud Storage buckets from being exposed publicly while allowing authorized applications to access them. Which GCP feature achieves this?

A) Public Access Prevention enabled at the organization level
B) VPC firewall rules to block external IPs
C) Manually auditing bucket ACLs
D) Enabling Cloud Armor for all buckets

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Public Access Prevention (PAP) enabled at the organization level is the most effective and scalable method to ensure Cloud Storage buckets are never exposed publicly. By enforcing PAP across all projects, organizations can centrally prevent any IAM or ACL configuration from inadvertently granting public access, ensuring that only explicitly authorized users or service accounts can access datA) PAP also overrides legacy ACLs, eliminating the risk of misconfigured permissions exposing sensitive content.

B) VPC firewall rules control network-level traffic but cannot restrict access to Cloud Storage APIs directly. While helpful for controlling egress and ingress at the network layer, they do not prevent public access via authenticated API calls.

C) Manually auditing bucket ACLs is error-prone, labor-intensive, and not feasible at scale. Human oversight may miss misconfigurations, leaving sensitive data at risk of exposure.

D) Cloud Armor provides Layer 7 protection for HTTP(S) traffic but is unrelated to Cloud Storage bucket permissions. It cannot enforce access controls or prevent public exposure of storage objects.

Combining organization-level PAP with Cloud Logging and Security Command Center provides visibility into attempted access, enabling auditing, monitoring, and automated compliance enforcement. When integrated with VPC Service Controls, organizations can further restrict data egress and enforce perimeters around sensitive buckets, implementing a zero-trust security model. This approach ensures that sensitive workloads remain accessible only to authorized identities, aligns with GDPR, HIPAA, and other regulatory frameworks, and provides centralized enforcement, minimizing the risk of accidental public exposure across large enterprise environments.

Question 63:

A security engineer needs to detect when users exfiltrate sensitive BigQuery datasets to external networks. Which GCP solution provides proactive prevention?
A) VPC Service Controls with defined perimeters
B) Cloud Logging alerts for BigQuery exports
C) IAM role restrictions on users
D) Cloud Armor WAF policies

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) VPC Service Controls (VPC-SC) are the most effective mechanism to prevent unauthorized data exfiltration from Google Cloud services such as BigQuery, Cloud Storage, and Pub/SuB) By creating defined security perimeters around these sensitive services, VPC-SC ensures that data cannot leave the authorized network boundaries, even if a user’s credentials are compromiseD) The service enforces strict egress restrictions at the API layer, preventing accidental or malicious access from external networks or untrusted environments. This perimeter-based enforcement is essential for organizations handling regulated or sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), or financial datasets.

B) Cloud Logging alerts can detect potential misconfigurations or anomalous activity after it occurs, but they are inherently reactive. Alerts alone cannot prevent data from leaving the environment—they only notify administrators after the fact. While useful for monitoring and incident response, relying solely on logging does not provide a preventative control and leaves a window of exposure.

C) IAM role restrictions help limit which users or service accounts have access to resources but do not control where or how data flows once a user has valid credentials. Without perimeter enforcement, a user with sufficient permissions could export sensitive data to an unapproved location, circumventing IAM controls.

D) Cloud Armor protects HTTP(S) endpoints at the application layer by filtering malicious web traffic, mitigating DDoS attacks, and enforcing WAF policies. However, it does not provide API-level enforcement for BigQuery or other sensitive services, and cannot prevent data exfiltration through authorized API calls.

By combining VPC-SC perimeters with Access Context Manager, organizations can implement conditional access rules that enforce network, device, and identity-based controls, creating a zero-trust architecture. Any attempts to breach the perimeter generate audit logs, which SOC teams can analyze to investigate incidents and maintain compliance with frameworks like HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and ISO 27001. Integration with Security Command Center provides centralized visibility, allowing continuous monitoring of perimeter integrity and access patterns. This approach ensures that sensitive datasets remain securely contained within authorized boundaries while providing robust operational and regulatory oversight.

Question 64:

Your compliance team requires evidence of all administrative activity on Google Cloud resources, including actions performed by Google personnel. Which GCP feature fulfills this requirement?

A) Access Transparency logs
B) Cloud Audit Logs for Admin Activity
C) Security Command Center findings
D) Cloud Logging for application logs

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Access Transparency (AT) logs are a specialized Google Cloud feature that provides detailed visibility into actions performed by Google personnel on customer resources. Whenever a Google employee or system accesses a customer’s data or configuration for support, troubleshooting, or maintenance purposes, Access Transparency records the who, what, why, and when of the interaction. This includes the identity of the Google employee, the specific resource accessed, the action performed, and the justification for access. Such logs are critical for organizations in regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, or government, where compliance frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27018, and GDPR require auditable evidence of third-party access to sensitive datA) By exporting AT logs to Cloud Logging or an external SIEM, organizations can correlate these activities with customer-initiated events, providing a comprehensive audit trail for accountability and forensic investigations.

B) Cloud Audit Logs for Admin Activity record actions performed by customer identities, such as IAM role assignments, configuration changes, or policy modifications. While these logs are essential for tracking internal operations and detecting unauthorized activity by customer users, they do not provide visibility into actions performed by Google staff. Therefore, relying solely on Admin Activity logs leaves a blind spot regarding provider-level access.

C) Security Command Center (SCC) is a centralized security management and risk platform that identifies vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and potential threats across Google Cloud resources. While SCC is invaluable for threat detection, compliance posture assessment, and risk prioritization, it does not generate logs detailing Google employee interactions with resources, and therefore cannot satisfy transparency requirements for provider access.

D) Cloud Logging for application-level events captures logs generated by customer workloads, including application errors, transaction events, or business logic operations. These logs are critical for operational monitoring and troubleshooting, but they are not designed to provide administrative visibility into provider access or system-level changes initiated by Google personnel.

Access Transparency fills a unique and crucial gap in cloud security and compliance. By providing immutable, detailed logs of provider-initiated access, it ensures organizations can demonstrate accountability, enforce access controls, and satisfy regulatory audit requirements, especially when combined with Access Approval policies that require explicit authorization before sensitive data is accesseD) This dual capability—visibility plus control—establishes a robust framework for managing trust in cloud operations.

Question 65:

You want to enforce that all Compute Engine instances are launched with Shielded VM configuration to prevent boot-level compromise. How can this be achieved at scale?

A) Apply an organization policy constraint for Shielded VMs
B) Enable Cloud Armor policies for all instances
C) Manually enforce configuration per instance
D) Use IAM roles to restrict instance creation

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Applying an organization policy constraint for Shielded VMs is the most effective method to enforce a consistent security baseline across an entire Google Cloud organization. Shielded VMs provide advanced protections against low-level attacks, including rootkits and bootkits, by combining Secure Boot, vTPM (virtual Trusted Platform Module), and Integrity Monitoring. Secure Boot ensures that only signed and verified bootloaders and kernel modules are executed, preventing unauthorized code from running during startup. Integrity Monitoring continuously checks the boot and kernel state for changes, alerting administrators if tampering occurs. The vTPM provides cryptographic attestation of VM integrity, allowing organizations to verify the security posture of workloads. By enforcing Shielded VM creation through organization policies at the folder or organization level, administrators prevent the deployment of unprotected instances regardless of project-level actions, ensuring consistent adherence to security best practices and compliance requirements such as CIS Benchmarks, NIST SP 800-53, and ISO 27001.

B) Cloud Armor is designed to protect applications at the network layer (Layer 7), filtering HTTP(S) traffic, blocking attacks like DDoS, SQL injection, and XSS. While essential for perimeter security, Cloud Armor does not enforce VM-level configuration or integrity, making it insufficient for protecting against boot-level compromises or ensuring secure instance creation.

C) Manual enforcement of Shielded VM settings per instance is highly error-prone and operationally unsustainable in large-scale environments. Administrators may miss configurations, leading to inconsistent security posture across projects and workloads.

D) IAM roles can restrict who can create or manage VM instances but cannot enforce security features such as Shielded VM compliance. Misconfigured instances can still be deployed if proper policies are not in place.

By combining organization policy constraints with Security Command Center monitoring, organizations achieve a proactive, automated security enforcement mechanism. SCC can identify noncompliant instances, trigger alerts, and support remediation workflows, creating a scalable, auditable, and defense-in-depth architecture that protects sensitive workloads against both external threats and internal misconfigurations. This approach ensures operational integrity, regulatory compliance, and reduced attack surfaces.

Question 66:

Your organization wants to centrally manage and rotate cryptographic keys used across multiple services including BigQuery, Cloud Storage, and Compute Engine. Which GCP service provides this capability?

A) Cloud Key Management Service (Cloud KMS)
B) Secret Manager
C) Cloud HSM only
D) IAM service accounts

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Cloud Key Management Service (Cloud KMS) is a fully managed, centralized solution for creating, storing, and managing cryptographic keys in Google ClouD) It enables organizations to maintain control over encryption keys across multiple services, including BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, and others. KMS supports customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK), allowing enterprises to define key rotation schedules, enforce key access policies, and integrate with other security controls such as VPC Service Controls to limit key usage from trusted networks. Audit logs generated for key operations provide visibility into who accessed or used keys, supporting compliance with regulatory frameworks like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR. Automated rotation reduces the risk of key compromise, while granular IAM policies on keys and keyrings allow precise enforcement of least-privilege access. Cloud KMS also integrates with Google Cloud services natively, enabling seamless encryption and decryption operations without manual key handling.

B) Secret Manager is designed to securely store application secrets, such as API keys, passwords, and certificates. While it ensures encrypted storage and controlled access, it is not intended for managing encryption keys across multiple services or automating key rotation for cryptographic operations. Secret Manager often complements KMS, where secrets can be encrypted using KMS keys, but it does not replace the centralized management capabilities of KMS.

C) Cloud HSM provides hardware-backed cryptographic operations with FIPS 140-2 Level 3 compliance. It ensures that keys are generated and used within a tamper-resistant hardware module. However, HSM alone does not offer centralized management, automated rotation, or seamless integration across GCP services at scale, which are essential for enterprise key governance.

D) IAM service accounts define access permissions to resources but do not manage key creation, rotation, or lifecycle. They are critical for access governance but cannot fulfill encryption key management requirements.

Overall, Cloud KMS provides a centralized, automated, and auditable framework for encryption key management, combining scalability, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency. It ensures that sensitive data remains protected while allowing secure, policy-driven key usage across the organization.

Question 67:

A development team must deploy applications that require temporary elevated permissions only during specific tasks. Which GCP mechanism supports this approach?

A) IAM Conditions with time-bound access
B) Assign permanent roles to service accounts
C) Use Cloud Armor to enforce access
D) Disable service accounts outside work hours

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) IAM Conditions are a powerful GCP-native feature that enable context-aware and time-bound access control. By applying conditions to IAM role bindings, administrators can enforce just-in-time privilege elevation, limiting the scope and duration of permissions granted to users or service accounts. This approach aligns with the principle of least privilege, ensuring that high-level access is only available when necessary, reducing the risk of misuse or compromise. For example, you can define a condition that grants a user the Storage Admin role for a four-hour window or restrict BigQuery read access to business hours (e.g., 9 am to 5 pm). Conditions can also be based on attributes like IP address, device type, or membership in a specific group, providing fine-grained control beyond standard IAM role assignments. This ensures that only authorized identities can perform sensitive operations under defined circumstances.

B) Assigning permanent roles to service accounts or users (option B) is a common but insecure practice. Permanent privileges increase the attack surface and expose critical systems to prolonged risk if credentials are compromiseD) They violate the least-privilege principle and make auditing and compliance more challenging.

C) Cloud Armor (option C) focuses on network-level security, enforcing Layer 7 protections for HTTP(S) traffic such as DDoS mitigation and WAF rules. While it secures endpoints, it does not provide any control over IAM permissions, temporal access, or identity-based restrictions.

D) Disabling service accounts outside work hours (option D) is a manual, brittle approach that introduces operational overheaD) It cannot dynamically adjust permissions for users needing temporary access during maintenance windows or automated workflows.

Using IAM Conditions combined with Cloud Logging and monitoring ensures that temporary elevated permissions are fully auditable. Organizations can track who used what permission, when, and why, supporting compliance with frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR. Automation through Infrastructure-as-Code tools like Terraform or Cloud Functions allows scalable, repeatable deployment of temporary access policies. This reduces human error, maintains operational efficiency, and ensures that elevated privileges exist only when required, minimizing exposure and supporting a robust zero-trust security posture. By leveraging IAM Conditions, enterprises can implement just-in-time access securely, meeting regulatory requirements while maintaining flexibility for legitimate operational needs.

Question 68:

Your security operations team wants to detect exposed secrets in source code stored in Cloud Source Repositories. Which tool provides automated scanning?

A) Security Command Center with Secret Scanning
B) Cloud Armor
C) IAM Conditions
D) VPC Service Controls

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Security Command Center (SCC) with Secret Scanning provides a proactive, centralized solution to detect exposed secrets and sensitive information in source code, configuration files, and repositories across Google Cloud environments. SCC continuously scans Cloud Source Repositories, GitHub integrations, and other storage locations for hardcoded API keys, passwords, tokens, and certificates. Once a secret is detected, SCC can trigger alerts via Pub/Sub, email notifications, or integration with SIEM systems, enabling rapid incident response and remediation. This automation ensures that sensitive credentials do not remain in code for prolonged periods, reducing the risk of unauthorized access, data breaches, or operational compromise. Exported logs can be stored in Cloud Logging or other centralized audit systems, allowing organizations to correlate events with IAM changes, Access Transparency logs, and other security telemetry to produce a comprehensive audit trail. This visibility is critical for compliance frameworks like SOC 2, PCI-DSS, and HIPAA, which mandate strict control and monitoring of sensitive data access and storage.

B) Cloud Armor provides network and application-layer protections, such as Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules and DDoS mitigation. While effective at protecting HTTP(S) endpoints from attacks, it does not inspect source code or configuration for embedded secrets, so it cannot prevent sensitive credential exposure in repositories.

C) IAM Conditions enforce context-aware and time-bound access control, allowing granular permission management based on attributes like IP address, device, or time of day. While crucial for least-privilege enforcement, IAM Conditions cannot identify or remediate secrets in code.

D) VPC Service Controls define security perimeters to prevent unauthorized data exfiltration at the API level. While they restrict network access and mitigate leaks at runtime, they do not scan source code for embedded secrets.

By leveraging SCC with Secret Scanning, organizations combine proactive detection with automated alerts and centralized auditability, creating a scalable, compliance-aligned solution that prevents secret exposure before it can be exploiteD) This approach supports secure development practices, reduces operational risk, and strengthens the overall cloud security posture.

Question 69:

Your organization needs to ensure all logs are immutable for regulatory compliance and cannot be deleted prematurely. Which GCP configuration enforces this?

A) Log Buckets with retention lock in Cloud Logging
B) Cloud Monitoring alerting policies
C) Cloud Armor logging
D) IAM conditions on logs

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Cloud Logging Log Buckets with retention lock provide a robust, GCP-native solution for ensuring the immutability and security of logs. Retention locks act like WORM (Write Once Read Many) storage for logs, preventing modification or deletion of entries until the specified retention period expires. This is critical for audit and compliance purposes, ensuring that critical operational and security events remain tamper-proof. By centralizing logs into dedicated buckets with retention lock enabled, organizations can enforce consistent, organization-wide logging policies and prevent accidental or malicious deletion of critical records. Integration with Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) further strengthens security by allowing encryption under keys fully controlled by the organization, ensuring that sensitive log data remains confidential while immutable.

B) Cloud Monitoring alerting policies complement logging by notifying administrators of specific events or threshold breaches. While alerts provide real-time awareness, they do not enforce immutability or retention; they serve primarily for operational monitoring rather than regulatory compliance.

C) Cloud Armor logging captures network traffic and security events, such as HTTP(S) request patterns, WAF detections, and DDoS attempts. While valuable for monitoring and forensic investigation, these logs do not provide WORM-like retention or prevent deletion, making them insufficient for compliance purposes on their own.

D) IAM conditions allow organizations to restrict who can access logs and under what context, providing access governance. However, access control alone cannot prevent modification or deletion of logs if retention is not enforceD)

By combining Cloud Logging log buckets with retention lock, organizations achieve a secure, tamper-proof logging solution that meets regulatory frameworks like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOX, and ISO 27001. The approach ensures forensic readiness, supports auditability, and integrates seamlessly with SIEM systems for automated monitoring, alerting, and incident response, providing both operational visibility and compliance assurance.

Question 70:

A cloud engineer needs to ensure that all sensitive API endpoints are protected from SQL injection and XSS attacks. Which GCP-native service accomplishes this?

A) Cloud Armor with WAF managed rules
B) VPC firewall rules
C) IAM conditions on APIs
D) Cloud Logging

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Cloud Armor with Web Application Firewall (WAF) managed rules offers a robust, GCP-native solution for protecting applications from Layer 7 attacks. Its managed rules specifically target common vulnerabilities outlined in the OWASP Top 10, including SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), remote code execution, and command injection. By inspecting incoming HTTP(S) request payloads before they reach backend services, Cloud Armor blocks malicious traffic at the edge, reducing the risk of application compromise and data leakage. Unlike network-level controls, it provides deep packet inspection and application-layer intelligence, ensuring threats that bypass traditional firewalls are mitigateD) Integration with Google’s global HTTP(S) Load Balancer allows for distributed, high-availability protection that automatically scales with traffic, providing resilient security even during high-volume attacks or spikes.

B) VPC firewall rules provide network-level security at Layers 3 and 4, filtering traffic based on IP addresses, ports, and protocols. While essential for general network hygiene, they cannot inspect HTTP(S) payloads, leaving applications vulnerable to sophisticated Layer 7 attacks. Therefore, relying solely on VPC firewall rules is insufficient for comprehensive web application security.

C) IAM conditions enable identity- and context-based access controls for APIs, restricting who can perform actions under certain conditions. However, they do not provide protection against application-layer threats such as SQL injection or XSS because they operate at the authorization level rather than inspecting network or application traffiC)

D) Cloud Logging captures detailed logs of requests, security events, and user activities. While it is critical for auditing, monitoring, and compliance, it does not provide real-time protection against attacks. Cloud Armor logs can be exported to SIEM solutions or Security Command Center to correlate events and alert security teams, combining visibility with proactive enforcement.

Overall, Cloud Armor with WAF managed rules provides proactive, scalable, and automated application-layer protection, while VPC firewall rules, IAM conditions, and logging complement the security posture by addressing network controls, access governance, and auditing. This layered approach ensures compliance with regulatory standards such as PCI-DSS, NIST 800-53, and ISO 27001 while defending against modern web application threats.

Question 71:

Your organization requires centralized visibility into misconfigurations and vulnerabilities across multiple projects. Which GCP service is best suited?

A) Security Command Center at the organization level
B) Cloud Logging
C) Cloud Monitoring dashboards
D) BigQuery

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Security Command Center (SCC) enabled at the organization level provides a centralized, comprehensive security and risk management platform for Google Cloud environments. By aggregating findings across all projects, folders, and organizational units, SCC delivers a unified view of misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, exposed resources, and compliance violations. Integration with services such as Web Security Scanner, Event Threat Detection, Container Analysis, and Cloud DLP allows SCC to detect threats and sensitive data exposure, providing prioritized security insights that help organizations focus remediation efforts on high-risk issues. Organization-level enablement ensures that security governance is consistent across all projects, eliminating silos, reducing manual overhead, and supporting large-scale cloud environments with hundreds or thousands of resources. SCC findings can be automatically routed to Cloud Functions, Pub/Sub, or ticketing systems to trigger remediation workflows, reducing the mean time to resolution and ensuring that critical vulnerabilities are addressed promptly. This centralized approach aligns with regulatory frameworks such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, and HIPAA, which require continuous monitoring, risk management, and compliance auditing.

B) Cloud Logging stores raw logs from all Google Cloud services, including IAM activity, API calls, and system events. While essential for auditing and forensic investigations, raw logs require manual analysis or custom tooling to extract actionable security insights, making it less efficient than SCC for continuous security monitoring.

C) Cloud Monitoring dashboards provide visibility into metrics and system performance, such as CPU utilization, network traffic, and error rates. While useful for operational observability, they do not identify security vulnerabilities or compliance issues and cannot automatically correlate risks across services.

D) BigQuery can store logs and other security-related data for analysis. Organizations can write custom queries to identify anomalies or trends, but this requires significant operational effort and does not provide real-time detection or integrated remediation capabilities.

Overall, SCC at the organization level combines centralized visibility, automated detection, and integration with other security services, making it the most effective approach for continuous, scalable, and auditable cloud security management. It complements logging, monitoring, and data storage by providing actionable intelligence and compliance support at scale.

Question 72:

You need to enforce that only approved users from corporate domains can access GCP resources, regardless of location. Which feature achieves this?

A) Access Context Manager with identity-based access levels
B) VPC firewall rules
C) Cloud Armor IP restrictions
D) IAM roles alone

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Access Context Manager (ACM) provides fine-grained, identity-aware access control in Google Cloud by allowing administrators to define access levels based on user identity, device security posture, location, or network attributes. This enables organizations to implement zero-trust principles, ensuring that only authorized users or groups meeting specific contextual criteria can access sensitive resources. For example, ACM can restrict access to employees connecting from corporate-managed devices or approved IP ranges while blocking all other requests. When combined with IAM, ACM enforces these contextual restrictions on resource access, ensuring that permissions are not sufficient on their own—users must also meet the defined conditions to gain entry. This approach prevents unauthorized access even if credentials are compromised and reduces the risk of insider threats. All access events can be logged to Cloud Logging for auditing, monitoring, and compliance purposes, providing visibility into who accessed what, when, and under what conditions.

B) VPC firewall rules operate at the network layer (Layer 3/4), controlling traffic based on IP addresses, ports, and protocols. While they are effective at limiting network exposure, they cannot validate user identity or enforce access policies based on contextual attributes, making them insufficient for identity-aware access control.

C) Cloud Armor protects applications by filtering traffic at Layer 7, enforcing IP-based restrictions, rate limiting, and WAF rules. However, it cannot authenticate users or apply identity-based policies, so it cannot prevent unauthorized users within approved networks from accessing resources.

D) IAM roles define permissions for users and service accounts but do not inherently enforce contextual restrictions, such as device posture or location. Without ACM, a user with sufficient permissions could access sensitive resources from an untrusted environment.

By combining ACM with IAM, organizations achieve a zero-trust access model that enforces identity, context, and least privilege, while providing detailed audit trails for compliance frameworks such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, and HIPAA) This approach ensures secure access to cloud resources while minimizing operational and security risks.

Question 73:

Your security team wants automated detection and response to misconfigured Cloud Storage buckets containing sensitive datA) Which approach is most effective?

A) Security Command Center with automated remediation playbooks
B) Manual periodic audits
C) Cloud Armor rules
D) IAM role restrictions only

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Security Command Center (SCC) with automated remediation playbooks provides a proactive and scalable approach to securing Google Cloud resources. SCC continuously monitors your cloud environment for misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and policy violations across all projects in an organization. By integrating automated remediation playbooks, SCC can not only detect issues such as publicly accessible Cloud Storage buckets, overly permissive IAM roles, or misconfigured firewall rules, but also automatically correct them. For instance, when a bucket is found to be publicly accessible, a playbook can immediately revoke public access, adjust IAM policies, and notify security teams via Pub/Sub or email. This reduces the time window of exposure and ensures consistent enforcement of security policies across large, multi-project environments.

B) Manual periodic audits are inherently slow, error-prone, and cannot provide real-time protection. They often require security teams to sift through large volumes of logs and configurations, increasing the likelihood that misconfigurations will go undetected for extended periods.

C) Cloud Armor provides network and application-level protections such as WAF rules and DDoS mitigation. While effective for securing web applications, it does not detect or remediate storage-level misconfigurations or IAM misassignments. Therefore, relying solely on Cloud Armor does not address risks associated with public data exposure.

D) IAM role restrictions limit who can access resources but do not inherently detect misconfigurations or enforce compliance. Overly permissive roles or accidental assignments may leave sensitive data exposed, and manual monitoring would be needed to catch these issues.

By combining SCC with automated remediation, organizations achieve continuous visibility, rapid incident response, and consistent enforcement of security controls. Integration with Cloud Logging ensures auditability and traceability of remediation actions, while Pub/Sub and Cloud Functions enable scalable notifications and orchestration. This approach significantly enhances operational efficiency, reduces human error, and ensures compliance with frameworks like HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and PCI-DSS. Automated security enforcement also aligns with the principle of defense-in-depth, ensuring that sensitive resources are protected even in complex cloud environments.

Question 74:

You need to provide temporary access to a developer to debug a production Cloud SQL instance without granting permanent elevated privileges. Which method is recommended?

A) Use IAM Conditions with time-bound Cloud SQL Admin role
B) Assign permanent Cloud SQL Admin role
C) Use Cloud Armor policies
D) Share service account keys directly

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Using IAM Conditions with a time-bound Cloud SQL Admin role provides a secure, least-privilege approach to granting elevated access for specific tasks. By defining a temporal constraint, the developer gains administrative privileges only for the duration required to debug the production issue. Once the time window expires, permissions are automatically revoked, eliminating the risk of prolonged over-privileged access. This method ensures auditability through Cloud Logging, as all role grants and usage events are recorded, supporting compliance frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, and NIST.

B) Assigning a permanent Cloud SQL Admin role is a poor practice because it grants indefinite access, expanding the potential blast radius in case of credential compromise and violating least-privilege principles.

C) Cloud Armor policies protect HTTP(S) traffic and mitigate application-layer threats, but they do not manage IAM roles or temporal access, making them irrelevant for granting temporary Cloud SQL privileges.

D) Sharing service account keys directly is insecure and difficult to audit. Keys can be leaked, reused, or improperly stored, creating significant security risks and making compliance difficult to demonstrate.

By leveraging IAM Conditions for time-bound access, organizations enforce just-in-time privilege elevation, minimize risk exposure, and maintain operational agility, ensuring elevated permissions are temporary, auditable, and compliant with security best practices.

Question 75:

A company needs to ensure that all Compute Engine disks are encrypted with customer-managed keys and cannot use Google-managed keys. How can this be enforced?

A) Organization policy requiring CMEK for disks
B) Manual configuration per instance
C) IAM role restrictions
D) Cloud Armor rules

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Enforcing Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) through an organization policy ensures that all Compute Engine disks are automatically created with keys controlled by the organization. This provides centralized governance, consistent encryption across projects, and full control over key lifecycle, including rotation, revocation, and audit logging. Integration with Cloud KMS allows administrators to track key usage and maintain compliance with frameworks such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and ISO 27001, ensuring that sensitive data remains under organizational control.

B) Manual configuration per instance is error-prone, does not scale in large environments, and risks inconsistent application of encryption policies.

C) IAM role restrictions control who can access resources but do not enforce encryption at rest or guarantee the use of CMEK, leaving gaps in compliance.

D) Cloud Armor rules protect web applications from Layer 7 attacks, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting, but they have no impact on disk encryption or key management.

By leveraging organization policy constraints for CMEK, organizations enforce a uniform security posture, reduce the risk of misconfigurations, and ensure that all Compute Engine disks are encrypted according to regulatory and internal security requirements, while maintaining centralized auditability and operational efficiency.

Question 76:

You want to restrict access to BigQuery datasets based on device security posture and identity. Which solution achieves this?

A) Access Context Manager with context-aware policies
B) VPC firewall rules
C) IAM roles alone
D) Cloud Armor WAF

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Access Context Manager (ACM) with context-aware policies provides fine-grained, zero-trust access control for sensitive datasets like BigQuery. It enforces conditions based on user identity, device compliance, network location, and other contextual attributes, ensuring that only authorized users on trusted devices can access datA) This reduces the risk of unauthorized access and aligns with regulatory frameworks such as HIPAA, SOC 2, and ISO 27001. Combined with IAM roles, ACM enables organizations to implement conditional permissions, maintain audit trails in Cloud Logging, and ensure that access is granted dynamically according to policy rather than statically.

B) VPC firewall rules control network-level traffic but cannot enforce identity or device-based conditions. They cannot distinguish between trusted and untrusted endpoints, making them insufficient for protecting sensitive datasets.

C) IAM roles alone grant permissions based on identity but lack the ability to evaluate the context of access. Without context-aware controls, over-privileged access may occur, increasing risk.

D) Cloud Armor WAF protects applications from web-layer attacks such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting, but it does not enforce access controls at the dataset or API level.

By leveraging ACM with IAM, organizations achieve granular, auditable, and policy-driven protection for sensitive data, enforcing zero-trust principles while maintaining compliance and operational efficiency.

Question 77:

Your organization wants to enforce that all API calls to Cloud Storage occur from trusted networks only. Which feature provides this control?

A) VPC Service Controls with defined perimeters
B) Cloud Armor IP allowlists
C) IAM role restrictions
D) Cloud Logging alerts

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) VPC Service Controls (VPC-SC) provide a robust method to protect sensitive data by creating security perimeters around services like Cloud Storage. These perimeters ensure that API requests originating from outside trusted networks are automatically blocked, mitigating risks of data exfiltration even if credentials are compromiseD) VPC-SC can be combined with Access Context Manager to enforce contextual access rules based on identity, device trust, and network location, enabling a zero-trust security model.

B) Cloud Armor IP allowlists protect web-facing applications by restricting traffic to specific IP ranges but do not provide protection at the API or storage layer, leaving data vulnerable to unauthorized API calls.

C) IAM role restrictions control which identities have permissions to access resources but do not enforce where or under what conditions those resources are accesseD) Over-privileged roles or compromised credentials could still lead to data leakage without perimeter enforcement.

D) Cloud Logging alerts provide visibility into suspicious activity but are reactive and do not prevent unauthorized access in real time.

By implementing VPC-SC with organization-level perimeters and combining it with Access Context Manager, organizations achieve proactive, policy-driven protection for sensitive datA) This approach enforces network and identity constraints, provides audit logs for regulatory compliance, and aligns with standards such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and ISO 27001, ensuring both security and compliance.

Question 78:

A developer accidentally committed a secret key to Cloud Source Repositories. What is the immediate GCP-native remediation?

A) Revoke the exposed key and rotate credentials using Secret Manager
B) Delete the repository
C) Change IAM roles
D) Enable Cloud Armor

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) The most effective and secure response to an exposed key is to revoke it immediately and rotate the credentials using Secret Manager. This ensures that any malicious actor who may have obtained the key is immediately blocked from accessing resources. Secret Manager allows centralized storage, access control, and automated rotation of secrets, reducing the risk of future exposures. Logging key revocations provides traceability and supports incident response and compliance audits, ensuring accountability.

B) Deleting the repository does not remove cached copies, forks, or backups that may contain the key, and therefore is insufficient as a mitigation strategy.

C) Changing IAM roles may limit the impact but does not invalidate the exposed key itself. Attackers could still use the key until it is revoked, leaving a window of vulnerability.

D) Cloud Armor protects web traffic and application endpoints but has no capability to secure secrets stored in code or configuration files.

By revoking the key and rotating credentials via Secret Manager, organizations enforce immediate containment, reduce attack surface, and maintain compliance with least-privilege and regulatory requirements. Integrating this with logging and monitoring provides auditability and ensures future secret management follows best practices.

Question 79:

You need to detect anomalous login activity across multiple projects and trigger alerts. Which GCP-native solution is appropriate?

A) Security Command Center with Event Threat Detection
B) Cloud Armor
C) IAM conditions
D) Cloud Logging alone

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Security Command Center (SCC) with Event Threat Detection (ETD) provides a comprehensive, proactive solution for monitoring anomalous login activity across Google Cloud projects. ETD analyzes Cloud Audit Logs and IAM activity to detect unusual behavior, such as logins from unexpected IP addresses, geographic locations, or brute-force attempts, and generates near real-time alerts. It enables security teams to respond quickly to potential account compromises and integrates with Cloud Monitoring, Pub/Sub, or automated remediation workflows for incident response.

B) Cloud Armor protects HTTP(S) endpoints from web-based threats but cannot analyze or detect anomalous login behavior at the account level.

C) IAM conditions enforce context-aware access, such as restricting access by device or IP, but they do not provide behavioral detection or alerting for suspicious login patterns.

D) Cloud Logging alone captures logs for auditing but does not include automated threat detection or correlation of anomalies.

By combining SCC with ETD, organizations gain proactive, organization-wide visibility into security threats, supporting compliance frameworks such as HIPAA, SOC 2, and ISO 27001. This approach reduces the risk of account compromise, enables faster incident response, and ensures continuous monitoring of user and service account activity across the cloud environment.

Question 80:

Your organization requires that all Cloud Storage bucket access events be immutable and stored for audit purposes. Which GCP configuration ensures this?

A) Log Buckets with retention lock in Cloud Logging
B) Cloud Monitoring metrics
C) Cloud Armor logs
D) IAM conditions

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Cloud Logging Log Buckets with retention lock provide a tamper-proof, immutable storage mechanism for audit logs, including bucket access events. Once locked, these logs cannot be deleted or modified until the retention period expires, ensuring WORM-like compliance and enabling reliable forensic investigations. This immutability is critical for meeting regulatory requirements such as PCI-DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA, and ISO 27001, which mandate secure and auditable record-keeping of sensitive operations.

B) Cloud Monitoring metrics provide operational visibility into system performance and resource utilization but do not capture immutable access events, making them insufficient for compliance-level auditing.

C) Cloud Armor logs track HTTP(S) traffic to web applications, including potential attacks, but do not capture granular Cloud Storage bucket access or changes, limiting their applicability for audit or compliance.

D) IAM conditions enforce fine-grained access policies based on attributes like identity, device security, or time of access, but they do not create persistent or immutable records of actions.

By combining Cloud Logging locked buckets with SIEM integration or Security Command Center, organizations can monitor access, trigger alerts for anomalous activity, and maintain an auditable trail of all access events. This approach ensures that sensitive data is both secure and fully compliant, while supporting automated detection and response workflows.