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

The problem requires a publicly accessible Cloud Run service with HTTPS, TLS termination at the edge, threat mitigation, and geo-based access restrictions.

External HTTP(S) Load Balancer: This is the standard Google Cloud component for exposing public-facing web applications, providing a single global IP address, global load balancing, and crucially, TLS termination at the edge of Google's network.

Serverless Network Endpoint Group (NEG): A serverless NEG connects an HTTP(S) Load Balancer to a Cloud Run service (or other serverless backends like Cloud Functions or App Engine), allowing the load balancer to route traffic to the serverless application.Extract Reference: "You can use an external HTTP(S) Load Balancer with a serverless network endpoint group (NEG) to integrate Cloud Run services with advanced load balancing features, such as Cloud CDN, Google Cloud Armor, and Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Connect a Cloud Run service to an HTTP(S) Load Balancer | Cloud Run Documentation" - https://cloud.google.com/run/docs/integrating/load-balancers)

Google-Managed Certificate for TLS Termination: Using Google-managed SSL certificates simplifies the management of HTTPS, as Google handles the provisioning, renewal, and deployment of certificates. The external HTTP(S) Load Balancer terminates TLS using these certificates.Extract Reference: "Google-managed SSL certificates let you use Google Cloud's globally distributed infrastructure to automatically provision and renew your certificates." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Google-managed SSL certificates overview | Load Balancing" - https://cloud.google.com/load-balancing/docs/ssl-certificates/google-managed-certs)

Cloud Armor for Threat Mitigation and Geo-Based Access Control: Cloud Armor is a Web Application Firewall (WAF) service that integrates with HTTP(S) Load Balancers. It provides DDoS protection, allows custom rules for threat mitigation (e.g., SQL injection, XSS), and supports geo-based access control rules to allow or deny traffic based on the source's geographic region.Extract Reference: "Google Cloud Armor helps protect your Google Cloud deployments from various threats, including Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and application attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection (SQLi)." and "Google Cloud Armor supports geo-based access control, allowing you to filter requests based on geographic region." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Google Cloud Armor overview" - https://cloud.google.com/armor/docs/overview)

Let's evaluate the other options:

A. IAP for authentication and IP-based access control + custom SSL certs: IAP is primarily an authentication layer for users/identities, not a WAF for threat mitigation or geo-blocking for a publicly accessible service before any authentication takes place. While it can apply IP-based access, it's typically for post-authentication controls.

B. Assign custom domain, enable HTTPS, allUsers IAM, firewall rules & VPC SC: While Cloud Run supports custom domains and HTTPS, and allUsers makes it public, direct Cloud Run services do not leverage traditional VPC firewall rules for public ingress. VPC Service Controls are for API access and data exfiltration, not for WAF or geo-blocking of public web traffic.

D. Cloud DNS public zone, static IP, VPC firewall rules, threat signatures: Cloud Run services are managed and do not typically expose a static IP address that can be directly associated with VPC firewall rules for public traffic. VPC firewall rules apply to VMs within a VPC, not to the managed global infrastructure of Cloud Run's public endpoints.

Therefore, deploying an external HTTP(S) Load Balancer with a serverless NEG and integrating it with Google-managed certificates and Cloud Armor is the most comprehensive and Google-recommended solution for meeting all the specified security requirements for a publicly accessible Cloud Run application.

To minimize the attack surface of the container for an internet-facing application running on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), the best practice is to build small containers using small base images. This approach helps in the following ways:

Reduce Vulnerabilities: Smaller base images contain fewer packages and dependencies, which minimizes the potential vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit.

Improved Security: Using minimal base images such as distroless or Alpine Linux ensures that only the necessary components are included, reducing the attack surface significantly.

Easier Maintenance: Small containers are easier to maintain and update, ensuring that security patches can be applied quickly without dealing with unnecessary components.

Steps to Implement:

Choose a Minimal Base Image:

Use base images like gcr.io/distroless/base or alpine.

FROM gcr.io/distroless/base COPY myapp /myapp CMD ["/myapp"]

Optimize Container Image:

Remove unnecessary tools and libraries.

Use multi-stage builds to keep the final image small.

Regularly Update Base Images:

Keep the base images up-to-date with the latest security patches.

Distroless Images

Best Practices for Building Containers

The problem requires gaining "detailed visibility into changes to IAM policies, user activity, service account behavior, and access to sensitive projects" due to security inconsistencies.

Cloud Audit Logs: Cloud Audit Logs records administrative activities, data access, and system events across Google Cloud. These logs are the primary source of truth for tracking "who did what, where, and when" in your Google Cloud environment.

Extract Reference: "Cloud Audit Logs maintains the following audit logs for each project, folder, and organization: Admin Activity audit logs, Data Access audit logs, System Event audit logs, Policy Denied audit logs."

Extract Reference: "Admin Activity audit logs contain log entries for API calls or other actions that modify the configuration or metadata of resources. Data Access audit logs record API calls that read the configuration or metadata of resources, as well as user-provided data." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Cloud Audit Logs overview" - https://cloud.google.com/logging/docs/audit)

These logs directly capture:Changes to IAM policies: Recorded in Admin Activity logs.

User activity: Recorded in Admin Activity and Data Access logs.

Service account behavior: Actions performed by service accounts are logged in the same way as user actions.

Access to sensitive projects: Data Access logs, especially for sensitive data services, record access events.

Log Export Sinks: To gain "detailed visibility" and enable "correlation with other event sources," these audit logs should be exported to a centralized Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution. Log sinks allow you to route logs from Cloud Logging to various destinations, including BigQuery, Cloud Storage, or Pub/Sub (which can then feed into a SIEM).

Extract Reference: "You can use sinks to route some or all of your logs to supported destinations." and "Many security information and event management (SIEM) systems can ingest logs through Cloud Pub/Sub." (Google Cloud Documentation: "Routing and storage overview | Cloud Logging" - https://cloud.google.com/logging/docs/routing-overview)

Let's evaluate the other options:

A. OS Config Management agent: This service manages operating system configurations, patching, and inventory on VMs. It is not designed to monitor or log IAM policy changes, user activity, or service account behavior within Google Cloud's IAM system.

B. Metrics Explorer in Cloud Monitoring: While Cloud Monitoring can provide some metrics related to service account authentication, it focuses on time-series data and operational health metrics. It does not provide the detailed, event-level audit records necessary for forensic analysis of IAM policy changes, specific user actions, or granular access events to sensitive data that Cloud Audit Logs offer.

D. Cloud Functions triggered by IAM policy changes + Policy Simulator: This describes a reactive automation pattern for some IAM changes. While useful for immediate alerting on risky modifications, it's a custom solution for a subset of the requirements. It doesn't inherently provide "detailed visibility" into all user activity or comprehensive service account behavior across all projects, nor does it replace the robust logging and correlation capabilities of a SIEM solution ingesting raw audit logs. Cloud Audit Logs are the fundamental data source this approach would rely on.

Therefore, leveraging Cloud Audit Logs and exporting them to a SIEM is the most comprehensive and recommended approach for gaining detailed visibility into IAM-related changes and activities across your Google Cloud organization.

To evaluate Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for PCI compliance and identify Google's inherent controls, you should review the "Google Cloud Platform: Customer Responsibility Matrix". This document provides detailed information about the shared responsibility model, outlining the security controls managed by Google and those that are the responsibility of the customer.

Steps to access and use the document:

Access the Document:

Go to the Google Cloud compliance resource center.

Locate the "Customer Responsibility Matrix" for PCI DSS compliance.

Review Inherent Controls:

The document lists various controls and specifies whether they are managed by Google, the customer, or both.

It covers different aspects such as infrastructure security, data protection, and compliance requirements.

Analyze PCI Compliance:

Use the matrix to understand which PCI DSS requirements are inherently addressed by Google Cloud.

Identify the controls you need to implement and manage as a customer to ensure full compliance.

By reviewing this document, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of the inherent controls provided by Google Cloud and the responsibilities you must fulfill to achieve PCI compliance.

Google Cloud Compliance Documentation

PCI DSS Compliance on Google Cloud

Set the Resource Location Restriction organization policy constraint at the Folder level:

Setting the constraint at the folder level allows for very granular control over data residency requirements.

Each folder can represent a specific geographical location, and projects within those folders will inherit the location constraint, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

This approach provides flexibility to manage data residency across different regions within the same organization.

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.

Google Cloud Logging Documentation

Audit Logs Overview

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

Use Cryptographic Verification If there is a risk of IAP being turned off or bypassed, your app can check to make sure the identity information it receives is valid. This uses a third web request header added by IAP, called X-Goog-IAP-JWT-Assertion. The value of the header is a cryptographically signed object that also contains the user identity data. Your application can verify the digital signature and use the data provided in this object to be certain that it was provided by IAP without alteration.

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.

Google Cloud IAM Documentation

Google Cloud Resource Manager Documentation