Professional-Cloud-Security-Engineer Google Exam Lab Questions

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

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.

References:

Distroless Images

Best Practices for Building Containers

Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) allows you to control access to your web applications running on Google Cloud. It ensures that only authenticated users who are part of a specified Google Group can access the application. Here’s how you can restrict access to in-progress sites using IAP:

Enable IAP: First, you need to enable Cloud IAP for your App Engine application. This will require configuring OAuth consent and setting up necessary permissions.

Create a Google Group: Create a Google Group that includes all the customers and company employees who should have access to the in-progress sites.

Configure Access: Configure IAP to allow access only to members of the created Google Group. This involves setting up the necessary IAP policies and ensuring that only authenticated users in the group can access the application.

By using IAP, you ensure that the access control is centrally managed and only authorized users can view the in-progress sites from any location.

References

Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy Documentation

Setting up IAP

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