Google Professional-Cloud-Security-Engineer Google Cloud Certified - Professional Cloud Security Engineer Exam Practice Test

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

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

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

Google Cloud - External HTTP(S) Load Balancer Overview

Google Cloud - Shared VPC Overview

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

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

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

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

References

Google Cloud VPC Firewall Rules

Google Cloud DDoS Protection

To ensure that a Compute Engine instance does not have access to the internet or to any Google APIs or services, you need to disable the following settings:

Public IP: Disabling the public IP address ensures that the instance does not have a direct connection to the internet. Without a public IP address, the instance cannot be accessed from or communicate with the internet directly.

Private Google Access: Disabling Private Google Access ensures that the instance does not have access to Google APIs and services through the internal Google network. Private Google Access allows instances without a public IP to reach Google APIs and services using private IP addresses, but disabling it will block this path.

Disabling these settings will effectively isolate the instance from both the public internet and Google's internal API services.

References

Google Cloud VPC Documentation - Overview

Configuring Private Google Access

Compute Engine Network Overview

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

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

To ensure least-privilege access and provide necessary permissions to the DevOps team only during a deployment issue, follow these steps:

Create a Service Account:

In your Google Cloud project, create a new service account specifically for the DevOps team.

Assign Limited Permissions:

Grant the service account permissions with only the necessary list/view roles. For instance, you can create a custom IAM role with compute.instances.list and compute.instances.get permissions.

Grant Service Account User Role:

Assign the Service Account User role to the DevOps team members for the created service account. This allows them to act as the service account and use its permissions.

Access Control During Incidents:

During a deployment issue, the DevOps team can temporarily use the service account to access the resources. This ensures they have the least-privilege access required to investigate and resolve the issue.

Automation and Monitoring:

Implement automation to enable and disable the service account access as needed and monitor the usage to ensure compliance with the least-privilege principle.

Benefits:

Security: Limits access to only what is necessary, reducing the risk of unauthorized changes.

Flexibility: Provides necessary access during incidents without granting permanent elevated permissions.

References

Creating and Managing Service Accounts

Service Account User Role

This approach allows you to control network traffic at the folder level. By attaching external IP addresses to the VMs in scope, you can ensure that the VMs have a unique, routable IP address for outbound connections. Then, by defining and applying a hierarchical firewall policy at the folder level, you can enforce that egress connections are limited to the specified IP range and only from the specified VPC network.

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

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

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

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

References

Cloud NAT Documentation

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

Step-by-Step:

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

Create Folders for Business Units:

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

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

Move Projects to Folders:

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

Set IAM Policies:

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

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

References:

Creating and Managing Folders

Managing IAM Policies

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

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

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

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

References:

Firewall Rules Logging

Using Logs Explorer

Encrypt non-sensitive data with Google default encryption:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References:

Cloud Key Management Service Documentation

Encryption at Rest in Google Cloud

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

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

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

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

Google Cloud - Organization Policy Constraints

Google Cloud - Best Practices for Enterprise Organizations

To securely access Google Cloud APIs from CI/CD pipelines running on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), follow these steps:

Create Service Accounts:

Create individual service accounts for each CI/CD pipeline. This ensures isolation and minimal permissions per pipeline.

Use a naming convention that includes an identifier for each pipeline, such as pipeline-a-sa, pipeline-b-sa, etc.

Configure Kubernetes Service Accounts:

Create Kubernetes service accounts for each CI/CD pipeline pod.

Map Kubernetes Service Accounts to Google Service Accounts:

Use Workload Identity to associate Kubernetes service accounts with the corresponding Google service accounts. This allows the pods to authenticate to Google Cloud APIs securely.

Example command to bind the Kubernetes service account to the Google service account:

gcloud iam service-accounts add-iam-policy-binding \ --role roles/iam.workloadIdentityUser \ --member "serviceAccount:.svc.id.goog[/]" \ @.iam.gserviceaccount.com

Deploy CI/CD Pipelines:

Ensure each pipeline runs in dedicated pods that use the specific Kubernetes service accounts configured earlier.

This setup ensures that each pipeline has the necessary permissions to interact with Google Cloud APIs securely, adhering to the principle of least privilege.

References

Using Workload Identity

Managing Service Accounts

https://cloud.google.com/logging/docs/access-control#considerations roles/logging.privateLogViewer (Private Logs Viewer) includes all the permissions contained by roles/logging.viewer, plus the ability to read Data Access audit logs in the _Default bucket.

To ensure that application teams can only add users from within your organization to their groups, you need to configure the group settings in the Google Workspace Admin console. Here are the steps:

Access Google Workspace Admin Console:

Go to the Google Workspace Admin console.

Navigate to the Groups section.

Configure Group Settings:

Select the relevant groups used by the application teams.

Go to the group settings and set the group to only allow members from your domain.

This prevents external users from being added to these groups.

Apply and Save Changes:

Apply the changes to ensure that only users from within your organization can be added to these groups.

Verify Configuration:

Test the configuration by attempting to add an external user to the group and verifying that it is not allowed.

Benefits:

Security: Prevents unauthorized access by ensuring that only internal users can be added to groups.

Compliance: Helps in adhering to organizational policies regarding user access and management.

References

Google Workspace Admin Help: Groups

This approach allows you to leverage your existing on-premises PKI infrastructure while minimizing its impact and manual processes. By creating a subordinate CA in Google’s Certificate Authority Service, you can automate the process of issuing certificates for your HTTP load balancer frontends. This solution scales well as the number of load balancers increases.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Example using gcloud:

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

--member=user:[USER_EMAIL] \

--role=roles/bigquery.dataViewer \

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

References

Google Cloud IAM Conditions

Google Cloud BigQuery IAM Roles

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

Solution: Modify IAM roles and permissions.

Steps:

Step 1: Open the Google Cloud Console.

Step 2: Navigate to the IAM & Admin page.

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

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

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

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

References:

GCP IAM Documentation

Project Creator Role

https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/scan-with-dlp

Cloud Data Loss Prevention API allows to detect and redact or remove sensitive data before the comments or reviews are published. Cloud DLP will read information from BigQuery, Cloud Storage or Datastore and scan it for sensitive data.

The action fails because a constraints/iam.allowedPolicyMemberDomains organization policy is in place and only members from the flowlogistic.com organization are allowed. The inheritFromParent: false property on the “Apps” folder means that it does not inherit the organization policy from the organization node. Therefore, only the policy set at the folder level applies, which allows only members from the flowlogistic.com organization. As a result, the attempt to grant access to the user testuser@terramearth.com fails because this user is not a member of the flowlogistic.com organization.

Storing secrets securely is crucial for maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of your applications. Here is how you can achieve this using Google Cloud Platform:

Encrypt the Secrets: Use Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) to encrypt your secrets. CMEK allows you to have greater control over the encryption keys used to protect your data. This ensures that even if the storage medium is compromised, the secrets remain protected by strong encryption.

Store in Cloud Storage: Store the encrypted secrets in Google Cloud Storage. Cloud Storage is a secure and scalable object storage service. By using encrypted storage, you can ensure that the secrets are securely stored and can only be accessed by authorized entities.

This method provides a secure and managed way to store secrets, ensuring that they are not exposed in plain text within your source code management system.

References

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK)

Google Cloud Storage Security

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

Step-by-Step:

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

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

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

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

References:

Google Cloud Identity Security Settings

Password Policy Best Practices

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

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

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

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

Navigate to IAM & Admin in the GCP Console.

Select "Folders" from the left-hand menu.

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

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

Click on "Add" to assign a new role.

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

Assign the "Project Viewer" role to the group.

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

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

References:

Google Cloud IAM Documentation

Google Cloud Resource Manager Documentation

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

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

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

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

Set Up Interconnect:

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

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

Configure VPC and Private Google Access:

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

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

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

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

References:

Google Cloud Interconnect Overview

Configuring Private Google Access

Create a new Service Account that should be able to list the Compute Engine instances in the project. You want to follow Google-recommended practices.

https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/iso-27017

Understanding Unmanaged Users:

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

Challenge:

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

Using the Transfer Tool:

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

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

Steps to Use the Transfer Tool:

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

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

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

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

Benefits:

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

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

References:

Migrate unmanaged users

Google Cloud Directory Sync

https://cloud.google.com/resource-manager/docs/organization-policy/restricting-domains#setting_the_organization_policy

The domain restriction constraint is a type of list constraint. Google Workspace customer IDs can be added and removed from the allowed_values list of a domain restriction constraint. The domain restriction constraint does not support denying values, and an organization policy can't be saved with IDs in the denied_values list. All domains associated with a Google Workspace account listed in the allowed_values will be allowed by the organization policy. All other domains will be denied by the organization policy.

To ensure that an external user cannot gain access to an internal application on Google App Engine even if an employee’s password is compromised, configure Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP).

Enable IAP:

Go to the Cloud Console, navigate to the App Engine application, and select "Identity-Aware Proxy".

Enable IAP for the application.

Configure Access Policies:

Set up access policies to restrict who can access the application.

Use IAM roles to grant access only to specific users or groups.

Enforce Authentication:

IAP enforces Google authentication, ensuring that users must log in with their GSuite credentials.

Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA):

Enforce 2FA for all GSuite users to add an extra layer of security.

Advantages:

Protection against Compromised Credentials: Even if passwords are compromised, attackers cannot access the application without passing IAP authentication.

Centralized Access Management: Easily manage and monitor access through IAM and IAP policies.

References:

Identity-Aware Proxy Overview

Setting up IAP

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

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

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

Steps:

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

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

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

References:

Google Cloud Directory Sync

Transfer Tool for Unmanaged Users

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

Set Up Cloud HSM:

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

Create and Manage Keys:

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

Key Rotation:

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

Geographic Redundancy:

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

Compliance:

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

Benefits:

Security and Compliance: Meets stringent compliance requirements.

Automated Management: Simplifies key management and rotation.

Redundancy: Ensures high availability of keys across multiple regions.

References

Cloud HSM Documentation

Key Management with Cloud KMS and Cloud HSM

Uniform bucket-level access allows you to manage permissions at the bucket level, rather than at the object level. This simplifies permission management and ensures that access to objects is controlled consistently via IAM roles, without allowing uploaders full control over the objects.

Steps:

Enable Uniform Bucket-Level Access: In the Google Cloud Console, enable uniform bucket-level access for the Cloud Storage bucket.

Configure IAM Policies: Assign appropriate IAM roles to users and groups to control access to the bucket.

Audit Logging: Enable Cloud Audit Logs to track access and modifications to the bucket.

References:

Google Cloud: Uniform bucket-level access

Managing access with IAM

Objective: Ensure that a Cloud Storage bucket in Project A can only be readable from Project B and prevent data access or copying to Cloud Storage buckets outside the network, even with correct credentials.

Solution: Use VPC Service Controls to create a security perimeter.

Steps:

Step 1: Open the Google Cloud Console.

Step 2: Navigate to the VPC Service Controls page.

Step 3: Create a new service perimeter.

Step 4: Add Project A and Project B to the service perimeter.

Step 5: Include Cloud Storage service in the perimeter configuration.

Step 6: Define access levels to ensure that only resources within the perimeter can access the Cloud Storage bucket.

By setting up a VPC Service Controls perimeter, you can enforce security boundaries that restrict data access and movement to within defined projects, providing an extra layer of protection beyond IAM permissions.

References:

VPC Service Controls Overview

Configuring VPC Service Controls

Challenge:

Ensuring secure access to Google Cloud resources from GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines without directly managing service account keys.

Workload Identity Federation:

Allows for the delegation of access to Google Cloud resources based on federated identities, such as those from GitHub.

Benefits:

This approach eliminates the need to manage service account keys, reducing the risk of key leakage.

It leverages GitHub's identity provider capabilities to authenticate and authorize access.

Steps to Configure Workload Identity Federation:

Step 1: Create a workload identity pool in Google Cloud.

Step 2: Add GitHub as an identity provider within the pool.

Step 3: Configure the necessary permissions and bindings for the identity pool to allow GitHub Actions to access Google Cloud resources.

Step 4: Update the GitHub Actions workflow to use the identity federation for authentication.

References:

Workload Identity Federation

Configuring Workload Identity Federation with GitHub

This option directly addresses the needs of the business user who must access curated reports. By creating curated tables in a separate dataset, you can control access to specific data. Assigning the roles/bigquery.dataViewer role allows the business user to view the data in BigQuery.

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/g-suite/7-ways-admins-can-help-secure-accounts-against-phishing-g-suite

https://www.duocircle.com/content/email-security-services/email-security-in-cryptography#:~:text=Customer%20Login-,Email%20Security%20In%20Cryptography%20Is%20One%20Of%20The%20Most,Measures%20To%20Prevent%20Phishing%20Attempts &text=Cybercriminals%20love%20emails%20the%20most,networks%20all%20over%20the%20world.

To ensure that data is encrypted while in use by the virtual machines (VMs) and enforce this policy across your organization, you should use Confidential VM instances. Here are the steps:

Enable Confidential VM:

Ensure that Confidential VMs are available in your selected regions and enabled for your project.

Set Organization Policy:

Implement an organization policy to enforce the use of Confidential VM instances for all VMs across your organization.

Use the Google Cloud Console or the gcloud command-line tool to set this policy. Example command:

gcloud resource-manager org-policies set-policy my_policy.yaml

Example my_policy.yaml:

name: organizations/1234567890/policies/compute.requireConfidentialCompute spec: rules: - enforce: true

Verify and Monitor:

Ensure that all newly created VMs across your organization are Confidential VMs.

Regularly monitor compliance through the Google Cloud Console and set up alerts if non-compliant VMs are created.

Benefits:

Data Encryption in Use: Confidential VMs ensure that data is encrypted not just at rest and in transit but also while in use.

Policy Enforcement: Organization policies provide a way to enforce security configurations across all projects under your organization.

References

Confidential Computing Documentation

Creating and Managing Organization Policies

This is a Customer-supplied encryption keys (CSEK). We generate our own encryption key and manage it on-premises. A KEK never leaves Cloud KMS.There is no KEK or KMS on-premises. Encryption at rest by default, with various key management options https://cloud.google.com/security/encryption-at-rest

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

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

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

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

Example:

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

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

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

References

Organization Policy Service

Key Access Justifications

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

Resource Location Restriction documentation

GDPR compliance on Google Cloud

Cloud Bigtable is a fully managed NoSQL database service designed to handle large analytical and operational workloads. One of its key features is the ability to replicate data across multiple geographic locations automatically, ensuring high availability and resilience. Here’s a detailed explanation:

Replication: Cloud Bigtable supports multi-cluster routing and replication across different geographic regions. This means that data can be replicated across multiple zones within a region or even across regions, providing geo-redundancy.

Automatic Handling: Once configured, Bigtable automatically manages replication without requiring manual intervention. This is in line with the company's policy for long-term data storage that necessitates automatic replication over at least two geographic places.

Use Case Suitability: Bigtable is ideal for applications that require low-latency access to large amounts of data, which makes it suitable for various use cases including analytical applications, IoT, and financial data processing.

Configuration: Setting up replication involves creating instances in multiple zones and configuring them to replicate data. Google Cloud’s management interface and APIs make this straightforward to configure and monitor.

References:

Google Cloud Bigtable Documentation

Google Cloud Storage Options

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

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

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

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

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

The Organization Administrator and Super Admin roles have extensive administrative privileges at the organization level. Restricting these roles is crucial to limit the number of users who have the ability to manage critical resources and configurations within the organization, thereby enhancing security and minimizing potential risks.

Organization Administrator: Has comprehensive permissions to manage all aspects of the Google Cloud organization, including projects, folders, and IAM policies.

Super Admin: In Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), the Super Admin has access to all administrative features and can manage user accounts, services, and settings across the organization.

References:

Google Cloud IAM roles

Managing super admin roles in Google Workspace

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

Create a Service Account:

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

Click "Create Service Account" and provide necessary details.

Grant Domain-Wide Delegation:

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

Download the JSON key file.

Configure API Access in G Suite:

Go to the Google Admin Console.

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

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

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

Implement in Application:

Use the Google API Client Library for the desired language.

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

References:

Domain-wide Delegation of Authority

Using OAuth 2.0 for Server to Server Applications

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

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

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

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

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

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

References:

Google Cloud IAM Documentation

Google Cloud Security Best Practices

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK):

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

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

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

Cloud External Key Manager (EKM):

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

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

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

Key Access Justifications:

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

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

Access Transparency and Approval:

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

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

References:

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK)

Cloud External Key Manager (EKM)

Key Access Justifications

Access Transparency

Access Approval

When dealing with VPC Service Controls (VPC SC), it's important to ensure that only authorized resources can access sensitive data and services. To allow a resource in Project B to access Pub/Sub in Project A without compromising security, you should configure an ingress policy for the service perimeter in Project A.

Identify the Service Account: Determine the service account in Project B that requires access to the Pub/Sub topic in Project A.

Configure Ingress Policy:

Go to the Google Cloud Console.

Navigate to Security > VPC Service Controls.

Select the service perimeter for Project A.

Add an ingress rule specifying the service account from Project B and allowing it access to the necessary Pub/Sub resources.

Define Conditions: Ensure that the ingress policy adheres to the principle of least privilege, granting only the necessary permissions to collect messages from the Pub/Sub topic.

Save and Apply: Save the policy and apply the changes to enforce the new access controls.

This approach maintains the security boundaries set by VPC SC while enabling the required access from Project B to Project A.

References:

VPC Service Controls Documentation

Configuring Ingress Policies

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

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

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

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

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

Steps:

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

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

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

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

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

References:

Google Cloud Default Encryption

Cloud Key Management Service

FIPS 140-2 Compliance

Set up a Dedicated Interconnect link between the on-premises environment and Google Cloud:

Dedicated Interconnect provides a direct physical connection between your on-premises network and Google's network, which is ideal for high-throughput, low-latency connections.

Request a Dedicated Interconnect from the Google Cloud Console, specifying the required bandwidth and location.

Once provisioned, set up the connection on your on-premises router and configure the BGP sessions to exchange routes with Google Cloud.

Configure private access using the restricted.googleapis.com domains in on-premises DNS configurations:

Configure your on-premises DNS server to resolve Google APIs to restricted.googleapis.com. This ensures that the traffic stays within the Google network and is not exposed to the public internet.

Update your DNS settings to use restricted.googleapis.com for the necessary API endpoints.

This setup ensures that all Google Cloud API traffic is routed through the private link and subject to VPC Service Controls for additional security and compliance.

References:

Dedicated Interconnect Overview

Configuring DNS to use restricted.googleapis.com

To prevent developers from creating user-managed service account keys and reduce the risk of key mismanagement, you should enable an organization policy that specifically prohibits the creation of these keys.

Enable an organization policy to prevent service account keys from being created (C):

Google Cloud provides the capability to enforce organizational policies that restrict various actions, including the creation of service account keys. By enabling this policy, you ensure that developers cannot create new user-managed service account keys, thus minimizing the risk of key mismanagement and potential security breaches.

References

Service Accounts documentation

Organization Policy Service documentation

Objective: Encrypt data using envelope encryption.

Solution: Follow the envelope encryption process.

Steps:

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

Step 2: Encrypt the data using the DEK.

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

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

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

References:

Envelope Encryption Overview

Google Cloud Key Management Service Documentation

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

Install GCDS:

Download and install Google Cloud Directory Sync from here.

Configure GCDS:

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

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

Run Synchronization:

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

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

Benefits:

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

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

References:

Google Cloud Directory Sync Documentation

GCDS Administration Guide

Objective: Ensure that a Cloud Storage bucket in Project A can only be readable from Project B and prevent data access or copying to Cloud Storage buckets outside the network, even with correct credentials.

Solution: Use VPC Service Controls to create a security perimeter.

Steps:

Step 1: Open the Google Cloud Console.

Step 2: Navigate to the VPC Service Controls page.

Step 3: Create a new service perimeter.

Step 4: Add Project A and Project B to the service perimeter.

Step 5: Include Cloud Storage service in the perimeter configuration.

Step 6: Define access levels to ensure that only resources within the perimeter can access the Cloud Storage bucket.

By setting up a VPC Service Controls perimeter, you can enforce security boundaries that restrict data access and movement to within defined projects, providing an extra layer of protection beyond IAM permissions.

References:

VPC Service Controls Overview

Configuring VPC Service Controls

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

Steps:

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

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

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

References:

Google Cloud: Cloud Key Management Service (KMS)

Managing access to resources

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

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

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

Steps:

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

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

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

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

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

References:

Google Cloud Logging

Monitoring BigQuery logs

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

Steps:

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

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

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

References:

Google Cloud: Access Context Manager

Service perimeter automation

To keep track of "who did what, where, and when?" within GCP projects, the administrator should focus on Admin Activity logs and Data Access logs. Here’s a detailed explanation of why these two log streams are essential:

Admin Activity Logs:

These logs capture administrative actions performed in your Google Cloud resources. This includes actions like creating, modifying, or deleting resources.

Admin Activity logs provide detailed information about the user who performed the action, the resource that was affected, the action performed, and the timestamp.

Data Access Logs:

These logs capture read and write operations on data within your Google Cloud services. This includes actions like accessing or modifying data stored in databases, storage buckets, etc.

Data Access logs help track the access patterns of users and services to sensitive data, providing insights into who accessed which data and when.

Steps to Enable and Access Logs:

Navigate to the Google Cloud Console.

Go to Logging in the left-hand menu.

Enable Admin Activity and Data Access logs if not already enabled.

Use Logs Explorer to filter and view specific logs based on your requirements.

By monitoring both Admin Activity and Data Access logs, administrators can gain comprehensive visibility into the actions performed on their GCP resources and data, ensuring robust security and compliance tracking.

References:

Google Cloud Logging Documentation

Audit Logs Overview