Google Professional Cloud Security Engineer Exam Dumps and Practice Test Questions Set5 Q81-100

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Question 81:

Your organization requires that all service accounts with elevated permissions be approved before usage and have their access loggeD) Which GCP-native solution provides this control?

A) Access Approval combined with IAM Conditions
B) Cloud Armor policies
C) Manual IAM reviews
D) VPC firewall rules

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Access Approval combined with IAM Conditions provides a highly effective method for managing and securing elevated privileges in Google Cloud environments. Access Approval requires explicit consent from designated approvers before sensitive actions—like granting high-level roles to service accounts—are executeD) Each approval request is fully logged, producing a comprehensive audit trail that records who approved the action, when it occurred, and which service account was affecteD) IAM Conditions enhance this process by enforcing time-bound, context-aware access, such as temporary elevation for a specific duration or requiring justification tags. This combination enforces least-privilege principles, minimizes standing privileges, and reduces the potential attack surface. It allows security teams to maintain operational flexibility while ensuring that elevated access is carefully controlled and auditable, supporting compliance with frameworks like SOC 2, HIPAA, and ISO 27001. By correlating Access Approval events with Cloud Logging, organizations gain visibility into any anomalous or unauthorized attempts, enabling rapid detection and remediation of risks while automating approval workflows to maintain operational efficiency.

B) Cloud Armor policies are primarily designed to protect applications from network threats such as DDoS or Layer 7 attacks. It does not control service account permissions, enforce just-in-time access, or provide an audit trail for privileged actions, making it unsuitable for managing elevated IAM roles.

C) Manual IAM reviews of IAM roles are time-consuming, error-prone, and cannot provide real-time enforcement. While they may help identify misconfigurations after the fact, they do not prevent improper access or ensure compliance dynamically, leaving potential security gaps.

D) VPC firewall rules restrict network traffic based on IP addresses, protocols, and ports. They do not manage identity, permissions, or approval workflows, and therefore cannot control the granting of service account privileges or enforce temporary elevation policies.

Question 82:

You need to ensure all Cloud Storage buckets containing sensitive data cannot be shared outside the organization. Which mechanism enforces this at scale?

A) Organization policy with Public Access Prevention enabled
B) VPC firewall rules
C) IAM role restrictions alone
D) Manual auditing of bucket ACLs

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Organization policy with Public Access Prevention enabled
Enabling Public Access Prevention (PAP) at the organization policy level is the most effective way to prevent unintended public exposure of Cloud Storage buckets. PAP ensures that no bucket can grant access to users outside the organization, overriding any legacy Access Control Lists (ACLs) or misconfigured IAM bindings. This policy enforces a zero-trust model for storage resources, making it impossible for data to be publicly accessible, regardless of human error or misconfigured permissions. By implementing PAP, organizations can centrally enforce security controls across all projects, eliminating the need to configure access individually on each bucket. PAP integrates with Cloud Logging, allowing administrators to track attempts to access resources, detect misconfigurations, and maintain a comprehensive audit trail. This is critical for meeting compliance obligations under regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS, which require organizations to protect sensitive data and demonstrate that controls are in place. Additionally, combining PAP with Security Command Center (SCC) enables continuous monitoring and automated alerts for any deviation from policy, providing proactive remediation guidance. This ensures that security teams can respond quickly to potential exposures, reducing operational risk and preventing accidental data leaks. The centralized enforcement, continuous monitoring, and integration with auditing tools make PAP a scalable and reliable solution for securing cloud storage while maintaining compliance with privacy and regulatory standards.

B) VPC firewall rules restrict network traffic at the IP and port level but do not provide protection for bucket-level permissions. While they can prevent unauthorized network access to certain endpoints, they cannot prevent public access granted via ACLs or misconfigured IAM policies.

C) IAM role restrictions alone control which identities can access buckets but cannot automatically prevent public exposure if roles are incorrectly assigneD) This leaves room for human error and does not enforce a blanket policy to block all external access.

D) Manual auditing of bucket ACLs is labor-intensive, error-prone, and not scalable, particularly in organizations with hundreds or thousands of buckets. Relying solely on audits can result in delayed detection of public exposures, increasing the risk of data breaches and noncompliance.

Question 83:

A company wants to enforce that all Compute Engine instances are created with Shielded VM security features to protect against rootkit attacks. Which solution ensures compliance?

A) Organization policy constraints requiring Shielded VMs
B) Manual instance configuration
C) IAM role restrictions
D) Cloud Armor policies

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Organization policy constraints requiring Shielded VMs through organization policy constraints is a proactive and scalable approach to securing Compute Engine instances in Google ClouD) Shielded VMs provide advanced security features such as secure boot, virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM), and integrity monitoring, which protect against boot-level malware, rootkits, and unauthorized firmware or OS modifications. By implementing organization policy constraints, administrators ensure that every new VM created across all projects automatically includes these protections, eliminating reliance on manual configuration or user adherence. This centralized enforcement reduces the risk of human error, configuration drift, and inconsistent security postures, especially in large enterprises with multiple teams and projects. It aligns with regulatory and compliance frameworks such as NIST 800-53, CIS Benchmarks, and ISO 27001, which require assurance of VM integrity and secure boot mechanisms. Security Command Center (SCC) can continuously monitor instances for compliance with Shielded VM policies, providing actionable insights and alerting administrators to noncompliant instances. This enables timely remediation and strengthens the organization’s overall defense-in-depth strategy by preventing unauthorized modification of VM images or boot processes.

B) Manual instance configuration Shielded VM features on each instance is error-prone, inconsistent, and difficult to scale. Teams may forget to enable secure boot or vTPM, leaving workloads vulnerable to low-level attacks.

C) IAM role restrictions control who can create or manage instances, they cannot enforce VM-specific security features. Relying on IAM alone does not guarantee that Shielded VM protections are applieD)

D) Cloud Armor policies protects web-facing applications from network and application-level threats but does not manage or enforce VM security configurations. It is unrelated to the integrity of the virtual machine itself and cannot prevent boot-level compromises.

By combining organization policy constraints with SCC monitoring, organizations can achieve a consistent, auditable, and resilient security posture for all virtual machines, ensuring operational integrity and regulatory compliance.

Question 84:

You need to ensure all API keys in your projects are rotated and access-restricted after a breach. Which GCP service provides centralized management?

A) Secret Manager with key rotation policies
B) Cloud Logging
C) IAM role restrictions
D) Cloud Armor

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Secret Manager with key rotation policies to store API keys, service account credentials, and other sensitive information provides a centralized, secure, and auditable solution for credential management in Google ClouD) Secret Manager encrypts secrets using Google-managed or customer-managed encryption keys, ensuring that sensitive data is protected at rest. Implementing automated key rotation policies ensures that secrets are periodically replaced without requiring manual intervention, significantly reducing the risk of credential compromise from long-lived keys. Rotated secrets can be seamlessly propagated to applications, minimizing operational disruption while maintaining a secure credential lifecycle. Access control can be tightly enforced using IAM policies, restricting access to only the identities that require it. Fine-grained IAM roles prevent unauthorized users or service accounts from reading, modifying, or deleting secrets, thereby enforcing the principle of least privilege and supporting regulatory compliance.

B) Cloud Logging complements Secret Manager by providing audit trails for every secret access, creation, and modification event. While it does not manage or rotate secrets, it enables monitoring and alerting on suspicious access patterns, such as unauthorized retrieval attempts or abnormal usage, supporting incident detection and forensic investigations.

C) IAM role restrictions are critical for controlling who can access secrets, but they do not enforce automated key rotation. Relying solely on IAM roles without Secret Manager rotation policies leaves long-lived credentials vulnerable to compromise.

D) Cloud Armor protects applications from Layer 7 attacks, including DDoS and malicious HTTP traffic, but does not manage or rotate credentials, making it ineffective for secure key lifecycle management.

By combining Secret Manager with automated rotation, strict IAM access policies, and audit logging through Cloud Logging, organizations establish a comprehensive, secure, and compliant approach to credential management. This framework reduces operational risk, enforces least-privilege access, and ensures that sensitive API keys and secrets remain protected against accidental exposure, insider threats, or external compromise, aligning with industry standards such as PCI-DSS, SOC 2, and ISO 27001.

Question 85:

Your organization wants to prevent exfiltration of sensitive BigQuery datasets to external networks. Which solution provides proactive enforcement?

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

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) VPC Service Controls with defined perimeters (VPC-SC) provide a robust mechanism for protecting sensitive Google Cloud resources by establishing security perimeters around services such as BigQuery, Cloud Storage, and Pub/SuB) These perimeters prevent data from being exfiltrated outside the defined boundaries, even if an attacker has valid credentials. By enforcing API-level network restrictions, VPC-SC reduces the risk of accidental or malicious data exposure, supporting a zero-trust security model where access is not automatically granted based on identity alone. Organizations can define perimeters at the project, folder, or organization level, ensuring consistent security policies across all workloads and teams.

B) Cloud Logging alerts can capture events, API calls, and other activities within the VPC-SC perimeter, providing visibility into attempted violations or anomalous behavior. While logging and alerting are critical for incident detection and forensic analysis, they are reactive measures and do not prevent data exfiltration in real time. Alerts can notify security teams of perimeter breaches, but they rely on monitoring after the event has occurreD)

C) IAM role restrictions control who can access specific resources and what actions they can perform. However, IAM alone does not enforce network-level boundaries. A user with permissions could potentially access sensitive services from unauthorized networks if VPC-SC is not in place, leaving a gap in data protection.

D) Cloud Armor policies provide protection against Layer 7 attacks such as DDoS or malicious HTTP requests targeting web applications. While essential for application security, Cloud Armor does not govern API-level access to services or prevent data exfiltration from resources like BigQuery or Cloud Storage.

By combining VPC-SC with Access Context Manager, organizations can enforce contextual access policies based on IP addresses, device compliance, or identity attributes, further strengthening security. This approach ensures sensitive data remains protected within approved perimeters, supports regulatory compliance frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS, and generates comprehensive audit logs for continuous monitoring and incident response. VPC-SC thus provides a proactive, scalable, and centralized method to prevent unauthorized access or exfiltration while maintaining operational flexibility.

Question 86:

You need to detect anomalous behavior in GCP workloads, such as unusual login attempts or privilege escalation. Which service provides automated detection?

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 with Event Threat Detection (SCC) integrated with Event Threat Detection (ETD) provides a comprehensive, organization-wide security monitoring solution that detects anomalous behavior and potential threats in real time. ETD continuously analyzes login patterns, API activity, and administrative actions to identify suspicious events such as unusual service account activity, repeated failed login attempts, or abnormal access from atypical locations. By correlating data from multiple sources across projects, SCC provides security teams with actionable insights to prioritize high-risk findings, reducing the likelihood of breaches or data exfiltration. The integration of SCC and ETD also allows automated alerts and workflows, enabling rapid incident response and remediation of threats before they impact critical workloads.

B) Cloud Armor is designed to protect web applications and HTTP/S endpoints against external attacks such as DDoS, Layer 7 vulnerabilities, or SQL injection attempts. While it is essential for safeguarding public-facing applications, it does not provide visibility into internal API usage, user behavior, or administrative actions within Google ClouD) Relying solely on Cloud Armor would leave gaps in detecting malicious insider activity, compromised credentials, or unusual patterns in service usage.

C) IAM Conditions enforce access policies based on context such as IP address, device security posture, or time of day, ensuring least-privilege access. However, IAM Conditions are preventive controls that govern access but do not inherently detect anomalies or report unusual behavior. They cannot identify insider threats, account compromise, or abnormal API usage patterns.

D) Cloud Logging alone captures detailed records of administrative actions, API calls, and system events. While crucial for audit and forensic purposes, logging by itself is passive and does not provide automated detection or real-time alerts. Security teams would need to manually analyze logs to identify potential threats, which is inefficient and error-prone in large-scale environments.

By combining SCC with ETD, organizations achieve proactive security monitoring. This integrated approach supports centralized visibility, behavioral analytics, and compliance with regulatory frameworks such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, and HIPAA) Security teams can detect insider threats, compromised credentials, or unusual activity quickly, respond with automated workflows, and maintain a robust, auditable security posture across all cloud projects. This strategy minimizes operational risk, enhances incident response efficiency, and strengthens overall cloud security governance.

Question 87:

Your compliance team requires immutable logs of all administrative activities in GCP for at least seven years. Which configuration ensures this?

A) Cloud Logging log buckets with retention lock
B) Cloud Monitoring alerts
C) Cloud Armor logs
D) IAM conditions

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Cloud Logging log buckets with retention lock provide an essential mechanism for maintaining immutable audit logs in Google ClouD) By enabling retention locks, logs are stored in a Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) fashion, ensuring that once data is written, it cannot be modified or deleted until the defined retention period expires. This capability is critical for maintaining data integrity, supporting forensic investigations, and demonstrating compliance with regulatory standards such as PCI-DSS, SOX, HIPAA, and ISO 27001. Immutable logs provide organizations with a verifiable audit trail of administrative actions, API calls, and security events, which is crucial for detecting suspicious activity, conducting post-incident analysis, and supporting internal and external audits.

B) Cloud Monitoring alerts provide operational visibility into metrics and system health but do not address log immutability. While these alerts can notify teams of unusual activity or service issues, they cannot ensure that the underlying log data remains tamper-proof or preserved for compliance purposes. Relying solely on monitoring alerts would leave gaps in auditability and regulatory adherence.

C) Cloud Armor logs capture network traffic related to web application security, including DDoS attempts and Layer 7 attacks. However, they focus on network-level events rather than administrative actions or API usage, making them insufficient for capturing a complete, immutable record of all cloud operations.

D) IAM conditions enforce access policies and can restrict who can read or write to resources, but they do not guarantee log retention or immutability. Without retention locks, authorized users could potentially alter or delete logs, undermining the integrity of audit records.

By using Cloud Logging with retention lock, organizations ensure that logs are preserved in a tamper-proof manner, while integration with SIEM tools, Security Command Center, and alerting pipelines provides actionable visibility. This approach enables proactive detection of suspicious activity, supports automated compliance reporting, and strengthens accountability across the cloud environment. Immutable logs serve as a foundation for incident response, auditing, and regulatory compliance, reducing operational and legal risks while providing reliable historical records for governance and security operations.

Question 88:

You want to prevent Cloud Storage buckets from being accidentally made public across all projects. Which GCP-native solution enforces this?

A) Organization policy with Public Access Prevention
B) VPC firewall rules
C) Manual audits of bucket ACLs
D) IAM roles alone

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Enabling Public Access Prevention (PAP) via an organization policy is the most effective method to prevent unintended public exposure of Cloud Storage buckets. PAP enforces that no bucket, regardless of ACLs or IAM configurations, can be publicly accessible outside the organization. This proactive control eliminates the risk of accidental or malicious exposure of sensitive data, providing a robust enforcement layer at the bucket level. By applying PAP at the organization or folder level, administrators ensure consistent access policies across all projects, which is particularly critical in large enterprises with multiple teams and projects. This approach aligns with regulatory frameworks like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS that mandate strict control over data access and disclosure.

B) VPC firewall rules help control network traffic by limiting inbound and outbound connections to resources within the VPC, but they cannot restrict access to storage buckets at the API level. Even if network traffic is limited, a misconfigured bucket ACL or IAM policy could still expose data publicly, leaving gaps in security coverage.

C) Manual audits of bucket ACLs are labor-intensive, error-prone, and difficult to scale in organizations with hundreds or thousands of storage buckets. They are reactive rather than preventive, meaning that sensitive data could already have been exposed before the audit identifies misconfigurations.

D) IAM roles manage access for individual users or service accounts, but they cannot override public access permissions if legacy ACLs or overly permissive roles exist. Relying solely on IAM roles risks standing privileges being exploited or misconfigured policies allowing unintended exposure.

By combining PAP with automated monitoring tools such as Security Command Center, organizations gain continuous visibility into bucket compliance, receive real-time alerts for policy violations, and can implement automated remediation workflows. This multi-layered approach ensures adherence to zero-trust principles, enforces least-privilege access, and maintains a strong security posture across all cloud storage resources. Implementing PAP not only prevents accidental public exposure but also provides a scalable, auditable, and enforceable framework for cloud storage governance, reducing operational risk and enhancing compliance across the enterprise.

Question 89:

A company wants to enforce time-bound elevated access to Cloud SQL instances for debugging purposes. Which GCP feature enables this securely?

A) IAM Conditions with temporary Cloud SQL Admin role
B) Permanent Cloud SQL Admin assignment
C) Cloud Armor policies
D) Sharing service account keys

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Using IAM Conditions to grant temporary Cloud SQL Admin access is a best practice for maintaining least-privilege principles while providing developers with the access needed to perform debugging, maintenance, or administrative tasks. By defining conditions such as time-bound access, justification tags, or request approvals, administrators can ensure that elevated privileges exist only for the duration necessary to complete a specific task. This approach minimizes the risk of privilege abuse or accidental changes, as access is automatically revoked once the condition expires. It also allows organizations to maintain granular control over who can perform sensitive operations, reducing the potential attack surface for compromised accounts or insider threats. Cloud Logging captures all temporary access events, enabling full auditability and supporting compliance with regulatory standards such as SOC 2, HIPAA, and ISO 27001. Logs record who accessed Cloud SQL, what operations were performed, and when, providing traceable accountability without hindering operational efficiency.

B) Permanent Cloud SQL Admin role assignments provide ongoing access to sensitive systems, violating the principle of least privilege. This increases the risk of misconfiguration, accidental data exposure, or malicious activity, and creates challenges in auditing and compliance enforcement, as permanent privileges cannot be automatically revokeD)

C) Cloud Armor policies are designed to protect HTTP and HTTPS endpoints from Layer 7 attacks, such as DDoS or SQL injection, but they do not govern IAM permissions or internal access to Cloud SQL instances. Relying on Cloud Armor alone would not prevent privilege misuse.

D) Sharing service account keys is a highly insecure practice that bypasses IAM controls and eliminates auditability. Keys can be copied or leaked, giving unauthorized users unrestricted access, and cannot enforce conditions or automatic revocation, leaving systems vulnerable.

By combining temporary IAM Conditions with logging and approval workflows, organizations can achieve a balance between operational flexibility and robust security. This approach enforces time-bound privileges, ensures auditable access, aligns with compliance requirements, and significantly reduces risks associated with standing privileges or key sharing, maintaining a strong security posture across cloud operations.

Question 90:

You need to monitor sensitive workloads for misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and compliance violations across multiple projects. Which service is designed for this?

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 offers a centralized platform to monitor and manage security across all projects, providing visibility into misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, exposed resources, and compliance violations. By integrating with tools like Web Security Scanner, Container Analysis, Event Threat Detection, and Cloud DLP, SCC aggregates findings to present a holistic view of the organization’s security posture.

B) Cloud Logging captures raw logs from services and administrative actions, but it does not automatically analyze these logs for security threats or vulnerabilities, making it insufficient for proactive security monitoring.

C) Cloud Monitoring dashboards provide visualization of metrics such as CPU usage, network activity, or resource health, but they do not identify security misconfigurations or compliance issues.

D) BigQuery can store large datasets and logs, but analyzing security posture using BigQuery requires custom queries and manual effort, lacking automated insights.

Enabling SCC at the organization level ensures that security teams can receive automated alerts, prioritize remediation workflows, and maintain regulatory compliance with standards such as HIPAA, SOC 2, and ISO 27001. This centralized monitoring allows for proactive threat detection, operational efficiency, and a strong, organization-wide security posture.

Question 91:

You need to enforce that all Compute Engine instances are launched in approved regions only. Which solution achieves this at scale?

A) Organization policy constraints for resource locations
B) Manual instance review
C) IAM role restrictions
D) Cloud Armor policies

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Organization policy constraints, such as constraints/gcp.resourceLocations, provide a proactive mechanism to enforce geographic restrictions on Google Cloud resources. By defining approved regions, administrators ensure that all resources, including Compute Engine instances, Cloud Storage buckets, and BigQuery datasets, are created only within authorized locations. This centralized control prevents accidental or unauthorized deployment in disallowed regions, supporting compliance with data residency and privacy regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO 27001.

B) Manual instance reviews are slow, error-prone, and difficult to scale across multiple projects and teams, making them unreliable for enforcing consistent geographic compliance.

C) IAM role restrictions control who can create or manage resources but do not govern the physical or regional placement of those resources, leaving gaps in regulatory compliance.

D) Cloud Armor policies protect applications against network-based attacks, such as DDoS or Layer 7 threats, but do not enforce resource location restrictions.

By implementing organization-level resource location constraints, organizations gain centralized enforcement, reduce operational risk, and maintain consistent governance. Security Command Center can further monitor policy violations, providing visibility, auditability, and automated reporting to ensure that deployments adhere to organizational and regulatory requirements.

Question 92:

A security engineer must monitor all privileged user actions in GCP, including actions by Google personnel. Which solution fulfills this requirement?

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

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Access Transparency logs offer a detailed record of actions performed by Google personnel on customer resources, including the exact time, reason, and identity of the actor. This allows organizations to monitor and audit provider access to sensitive datA)

B) Cloud Audit Logs track customer-initiated administrative actions and API calls but do not capture activities performed by Google employees, leaving a gap in visibility for provider access.

C) Security Command Center identifies vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and potential threats but does not provide records of administrative actions performed by the cloud provider itself.

D) Application logs capture events and actions within customer applications but do not record administrative or provider-level access.

By leveraging Access Transparency logs, organizations gain a complete, auditable record of provider interactions with their resources. Exporting these logs to Cloud Logging or SIEM platforms enables continuous monitoring, automated alerts, and integration with compliance workflows. When combined with Access Approval, this ensures that any access by Google personnel requires explicit approval, supporting least-privilege principles. This solution strengthens accountability, regulatory compliance with frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27018, HIPAA, and GDPR, and fosters trust in cloud operations by providing a transparent view of provider actions on critical resources.

Question 93:

You need to detect and prevent exposed secrets in Cloud Source Repositories automatically. Which tool is best suited?

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

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

Security Command Center (SCC) with Secret Scanning automatically scans Cloud Source Repositories for sensitive data such as API keys, passwords, or credentials. Cloud Armor (option B) protects web applications, IAM conditions (option C) enforce access policies but do not detect secrets, and VPC Service Controls (option D) prevent exfiltration but cannot scan code. SCC integrates with alerting and automated remediation workflows to prevent exposure. Alerts are logged in Cloud Logging, providing full auditability. Secret scanning reduces the risk of accidental exposure, supports compliance with SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS, and enforces secure coding practices. This proactive detection helps development teams remediate security issues early in the software development lifecycle.

Question 94:

You need to ensure all Cloud Storage buckets are encrypted using CMEK and prevent Google-managed key usage. Which approach is correct?

A) Apply an organization policy constraint for CMEK
B) Manually configure each bucket
C) IAM role restrictions
D) Cloud Armor rules

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Security Command Center (SCC) with Secret Scanning provides automated detection of sensitive information such as API keys, passwords, and credentials in Cloud Source Repositories. By continuously scanning code, SCC helps prevent accidental exposure of secrets before they reach production or external environments.

B) Cloud Armor protects web applications from network-based attacks such as DDoS but does not inspect code repositories for sensitive information.

C) IAM Conditions enforce access policies based on attributes like time, identity, or device, but they do not provide any scanning or detection capabilities for secrets in source code.

D) VPC Service Controls prevent data exfiltration and restrict network boundaries but do not analyze repository contents for sensitive information.

Using SCC with Secret Scanning integrates automated alerts and remediation workflows to reduce the risk of accidental exposure. Alerts can be routed to Cloud Logging for audit and compliance purposes, providing a clear record of detected issues and actions taken. This approach supports regulatory requirements such as SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS while promoting secure coding practices. By detecting sensitive data early in the development lifecycle, development teams can remediate risks proactively, minimizing the potential impact of compromised credentials or secrets on production systems.

Question 95:

You want to enforce that only devices meeting security posture requirements can access BigQuery datasets. Which GCP feature achieves this?

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

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Access Context Manager (ACM) enables organizations to implement context-aware access controls for Google Cloud resources like BigQuery. By evaluating attributes such as device security posture, user identity, location, and network context, ACM ensures that only authorized and compliant devices can access sensitive datA) This fine-grained, conditional access aligns with zero-trust security principles, where trust is never assumed solely based on identity or network location.

B) VPC firewall rules restrict network-level traffic but cannot enforce policies based on device compliance or user context, leaving gaps in securing sensitive datasets.

C) IAM roles define permissions for users and service accounts but cannot enforce contextual or conditional access, making them insufficient for ensuring device-based security controls.

D) Cloud Armor WAF protects web applications from Layer 7 attacks like DDoS and SQL injection but does not control access to BigQuery or other internal cloud services.

Combining ACM with IAM ensures that access is granted only when all contextual conditions are met, significantly reducing the risk of unauthorized access. Audit logs track all access attempts and policy enforcement events, providing a verifiable record for incident response, regulatory compliance, and security monitoring. This integrated approach strengthens data protection, enforces least-privilege principles, and helps organizations maintain compliance with frameworks such as SOC 2, HIPAA, and ISO 27001.

Question 96:

Your organization wants to detect anomalous API activity across projects and alert security teams automatically. Which service is most 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 solution for proactive threat monitoring in Google ClouD) ETD continuously analyzes logs, API calls, and administrative actions to identify anomalous patterns, suspicious behavior, or potential security incidents. By correlating activity across multiple services, ETD enables security teams to detect insider threats, compromised credentials, or policy violations before they escalate into breaches. SCC centralizes these findings, allowing teams to prioritize high-risk events and respond efficiently. Alerts generated by ETD can be integrated with Cloud Monitoring and SIEM platforms, creating automated workflows for incident response and remediation. This real-time detection capability ensures that organizations maintain visibility over critical workloads while enforcing security best practices.

B) Cloud Armor is designed to protect applications from web-based attacks, such as DDoS or Layer 7 exploits, but it does not analyze API calls, administrative activity, or internal service usage. While it is essential for network security, it cannot detect behavioral anomalies or unauthorized access within cloud workloads, making it insufficient for threat detection purposes on its own.

C) IAM Conditions provide conditional access controls based on identity, location, or device context, enforcing policies and least-privilege access. However, they do not generate alerts for anomalous activity or monitor unusual patterns in user behavior. Without complementary monitoring, IAM Conditions cannot detect compromised credentials or insider threats.

D) Cloud Logging captures detailed records of events and administrative actions but, on its own, does not provide automated detection, correlation, or prioritization of anomalies. Manual review of logs is time-consuming and prone to error, limiting the effectiveness of reactive security monitoring.

By leveraging SCC with ETD, organizations achieve a proactive, centralized, and automated security posture. The combination of anomaly detection, contextual awareness, and integration with logging and monitoring ensures rapid response to threats, supports compliance frameworks like SOC 2, HIPAA, and ISO 27001, and reduces risk across the cloud environment. This approach not only identifies potential security incidents but also provides auditability and continuous improvement for cloud security operations.

Question 97:

You want to prevent Cloud SQL instances from being deployed in non-compliant regions. Which GCP feature enforces this automatically?

A) Organization policy constraints for resource locations
B) IAM role restrictions
C) Manual audits
D) Cloud Armor

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Organization policy constraints for resource locations, such as constraints/gcp.resourceLocations, are a highly effective method for enforcing geographic restrictions on Google Cloud resources. By applying these constraints at the organization or folder level, administrators can ensure that all newly created resources—such as Compute Engine instances, Cloud SQL databases, Cloud Storage buckets, and BigQuery datasets—are provisioned only within approved regions. This enforcement occurs at creation time, preventing misconfigured deployments and reducing the risk of noncompliance. This approach is particularly important for organizations that must adhere to data residency requirements under regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and other industry-specific standards. By preventing resources from being deployed in unauthorized regions, organizations minimize potential exposure of sensitive data and maintain operational governance consistently across all projects.

B) IAM role restrictions control what actions users or service accounts can perform on resources but do not enforce the physical location of those resources. While role restrictions are essential for maintaining least-privilege access, they cannot prevent accidental creation of resources in disallowed regions, leaving a compliance gap if used alone.

C) Manual audits of resource locations are time-consuming, error-prone, and not scalable for large enterprises with hundreds or thousands of resources across multiple projects. Relying on periodic audits increases the risk that misconfigured resources may exist for extended periods before detection, potentially violating regulatory requirements.

D) Cloud Armor focuses on protecting web applications from DDoS attacks and Layer 7 threats but does not provide control over resource provisioning or placement.

By combining organization policy constraints with monitoring through Security Command Center, administrators gain real-time visibility into attempted violations, automated enforcement, and centralized governance. This approach ensures that all resources remain within approved regions, supports compliance mandates, reduces operational risk, and enables scalable, auditable, and enforceable cloud governance across the enterprise.

Question 98:

Your team must ensure that all service accounts accessing production workloads are used temporarily and logged for audit purposes. Which solution is recommended?

A) Just-in-time access with IAM Conditions and Cloud Logging
B) Assign permanent service account roles
C) Cloud Armor policies
D) Disable service accounts outside work hours

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Implementing just-in-time (JIT) access using IAM Conditions combined with Cloud Logging is a highly effective strategy for managing privileged access to service accounts in Google ClouD) JIT access allows administrators to grant temporary, context-aware permissions based on factors such as time limits, request justification, or device posture. This ensures that service accounts only have elevated privileges when needed, enforcing least-privilege principles and significantly reducing the risk associated with standing privileges. By defining precise conditions, such as “access allowed only for two hours” or “require specific approval tags,” organizations can control operational access without compromising productivity.

B) Assigning permanent roles to service accounts is less secure, as it leaves elevated privileges active indefinitely, increasing the risk of misuse if credentials are compromiseD) Permanent assignments violate the principle of least privilege and make it harder to maintain an auditable trail of access events.

C) Cloud Armor policies provide protection against Layer 7 attacks and DDoS threats but do not manage service account permissions. While valuable for application security, Cloud Armor does not contribute to controlling access or minimizing privilege exposure in administrative contexts.

D) Disabling service accounts outside work hours is operationally cumbersome, difficult to enforce consistently, and may disrupt legitimate processes that require automated or scheduled access. It is also not context-aware and cannot respond dynamically to varying operational needs.

Combining JIT IAM Conditions with Cloud Logging ensures that elevated access is granted only when necessary, automatically revoked after a defined period, and fully auditable. Cloud Logging captures all access activity, enabling security teams to review, analyze, and detect anomalies in near real-time. This integrated approach supports compliance with regulatory frameworks such as HIPAA, SOC 2, and ISO 27001, reduces the attack surface, and enforces operational accountability. Automated revocation, auditing, and contextual access evaluation create a robust security posture while maintaining operational flexibility for production workloads.

Question 99:

You need to detect misconfigured Cloud Storage buckets containing sensitive data and automatically remediate them. Which approach is most effective?

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

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Security Command Center (SCC) combined with automated remediation playbooks provides organizations with a proactive, scalable approach to securing Cloud Storage buckets containing sensitive datA) SCC continuously monitors resources for misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and policy violations, and when integrated with automated playbooks, it can trigger predefined corrective actions immediately upon detection. This ensures that issues such as publicly exposed buckets or improper IAM permissions are remediated without manual intervention, reducing the window of exposure and maintaining data security.

B) Manual audits are slow, resource-intensive, and prone to human error, making it difficult to maintain consistent security across large, multi-project environments.

C) Cloud Armor policies protect web applications from Layer 7 attacks and DDoS threats but do not address storage configuration issues or automate remediation.

D) IAM role restrictions enforce access control but cannot correct misconfigured buckets automatically, leaving potential gaps in security.

By leveraging SCC with automated remediation, organizations gain real-time detection, rapid mitigation, and continuous compliance monitoring. Integration with Cloud Logging, Pub/Sub, and Cloud Functions allows the creation of end-to-end workflows that enforce organizational security policies, reduce operational overhead, and maintain a zero-trust security posture. This approach ensures sensitive data is consistently protected while supporting regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, SOC 2, and ISO 27001.

Question 100:

Your organization wants all administrative actions to be logged immutably for at least 10 years. Which GCP configuration achieves this?

A) Cloud Logging log buckets with retention lock
B) Cloud Monitoring dashboards
C) Cloud Armor logs
D) IAM Conditions

Correct Answer: A

Explanation:

A) Cloud Logging log buckets with retention lock provide immutable storage for administrative and operational logs, ensuring that once logs are written, they cannot be modified or deleted until the retention period expires. This Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) approach is critical for meeting compliance requirements and regulatory frameworks such as SOC 2, SOX, HIPAA, and ISO 27001. By preserving an untampered audit trail, organizations can demonstrate accountability and maintain trust in their security and operational processes.

B) Cloud Monitoring dashboards provide visualization of system metrics and operational health but do not enforce immutability of logs, making them unsuitable for long-term compliance requirements.

C) Cloud Armor logs record network traffic and security events, offering insights into Layer 7 threats and DDoS activity, but they do not capture administrative actions or configuration changes, limiting their audit value.

D) IAM Conditions enforce fine-grained access controls and can restrict who can read or modify resources, but they do not guarantee that logs themselves are immutable.

By using retention-locked log buckets, organizations can integrate logging with Security Command Center and SIEM solutions to enable continuous monitoring, automated alerting, and forensic investigation. This combination ensures that critical logs remain secure, verifiable, and available for audits, providing strong evidence of regulatory compliance and operational accountability.