Google Professional-Cloud-Security-Engineer - Google Cloud Certified - Professional Cloud Security Engineer

Objective: Quickly recover a deleted service account used for data transfers.

Solution: Use the undelete command available in the gcloud command-line tool to recover the service account.

Steps:

Step 1: Open the Cloud Shell in the Google Cloud Console.

Step 2: Run the following command to list the deleted service accounts:

gcloud iam service-accounts list --filter="deleted: true"

Step 3: Identify the name and ID of the deleted service account.

Step 4: Use the undelete command to recover the service account:

gcloud iam service-accounts undelete [SERVICE_ACCOUNT_ID]

Step 5: Verify that the service account has been restored and reassign any necessary permissions.

By using the undelete command, you can quickly restore the service account and resume application functionality without compromising security.

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

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

Set Up Cloud KMS:

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

Create a keyring and a key.

Create and Use CMEK:

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

Example command:

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

Rotate Keys:

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

Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK)

Using Customer-Managed Encryption Keys

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

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

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

References

Supply Chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA) documentation

Cloud Build documentation

Security insights in Google Cloud console

To monitor and get notified in case the script causing the Compute Engine instance to crash is executed again, you should create an Alerting Policy in Stackdriver (now known as Google Cloud Monitoring). The Process Health condition can be set to monitor the number of executions of the script and ensure it remains below the desired threshold. By enabling notifications, you will be alerted if this threshold is exceeded.

Step-by-Step:

Log Script Executions: Ensure that the script execution is logged.

Create a User-Defined Metric: Go to Google Cloud Console > Logging > Logs-based Metrics, and create a new user-defined metric that counts the number of times the script executes.

Set Up Alerting Policy:

Navigate to Google Cloud Console > Monitoring > Alerting.

Click on “Create Policy”.

Add a condition and select “Logs-based Metric”.

Configure the condition to trigger when the number of script executions exceeds the threshold.

Configure Notifications: Add notification channels (email, SMS, etc.) to the alerting policy.

Save and Test: Save the policy and test to ensure notifications are received when the script is executed beyond the threshold.

Google Cloud Logging User-defined Metrics

Google Cloud Monitoring Alerting Policies

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The immediate goal is to improve password security and enforce the change due to a recent event. This is done through the Google Workspace Admin console, which controls the identity provider for Google Cloud users.

Improve Password Security: The most effective control is to Enforce strong password policy, which requires users to use long, complex, and unguessable passwords, addressing the core security weakness.

Immediate Enforcement: Checking the option to Enforce password policy at the next sign-in ensures that all current users are immediately prompted to change their weak passwords to ones that meet the new strong policy requirements.

Option C is based on the outdated security practice of frequent password expiration, which often leads to users choosing weaker, predictable passwords (e.g., Spring2025 -> Summer2025). The modern recommendation is strong passwords and multi-factor authentication, not frequent expiration.

Option A is a detective control, not a preventative measure to improve password strength.

Extracts:

"In the Google Workspace Admin console, you can require users to use passwords that meet a strong password policy. A strong password must meet minimum complexity requirements, such as a minimum length and a mix of characters." (Source 6.1)

"After changing the password policy, you can select the option to Require all users to change their password at the next sign-in. This is the fastest way to enforce the new policy immediately across the organization." (Source 6.2)

"Google Cloud's recommended security best practice for identity is to prioritize strong passwords and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) over frequent password expiry." (Source 6.3)

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

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

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

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

References

Audit Logs Overview

Exporting with Sinks

To ensure that payment information is encrypted between the customer’s browser and Google Cloud Platform during checkout, the company should configure an SSL certificate on an L7 (Layer 7) Load Balancer. Here’s why this is the best solution:

SSL/TLS Termination: An L7 Load Balancer can handle SSL/TLS termination, which means it can decrypt HTTPS traffic, offloading the work from the backend servers. This is essential for handling encrypted connections securely.

HTTPS Configuration: By configuring an SSL certificate, the load balancer ensures that all traffic between the customer’s browser and the application is encrypted using HTTPS.

Security Best Practices: Using an L7 Load Balancer with an SSL certificate aligns with best practices for securing web applications, particularly for e-commerce sites handling sensitive payment information.

Managed Certificates: Google Cloud offers managed SSL certificates, which simplifies the process of obtaining, deploying, and renewing SSL certificates.

Implementation Steps:

Obtain an SSL certificate.

Configure the L7 Load Balancer in the GCP Console.

Associate the SSL certificate with the load balancer.

Ensure that the backend services are configured to handle HTTPS traffic.

Google Cloud Load Balancing Documentation

Setting up HTTPS Load Balancing