Google Updated Professional-Cloud-Security-Engineer Exam Questions and Answers by arwen

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

When a vulnerability patch is released for a running container in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), the recommended approach is to update the application code or apply the patch directly to the codebase. Then, a new container image should be built incorporating these changes. After building the new image, it should be deployed to replace the running containers. This method ensures that the containers run the updated, secure code.

Steps:

Update Application Code: Modify the application code or dependencies to incorporate the vulnerability patch.

Build New Image: Use a tool like Docker to build a new container image with the updated code.

Push New Image: Push the new container image to the Container Registry.

Update Deployments: Update the Kubernetes deployment to use the new image. This can be done by modifying the image tag in the deployment YAML file.

Redeploy Containers: Apply the updated deployment configuration using kubectl apply -f <deployment-file>.yaml, which will redeploy the containers with the new image.

References:

Google Cloud: Container security

Kubernetes: Updating an application

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

Objective: Understand the security characteristics of VPC peering.

Security Characteristics:

Non-transitive Peering: VPC peering connections are non-transitive. This means that peering is strictly between two VPC networks. If VPC A is peered with VPC B, and VPC B is peered with VPC C, VPC A cannot communicate with VPC C unless a direct peering connection is established.

Inter-Organization Peering: VPC peering allows you to connect VPC networks across different Google Cloud Platform organizations, facilitating private communication between distinct organizational units.

These characteristics ensure controlled and secure connectivity between VPC networks while preventing unintended data exposure.

References:

GCP VPC Peering Documentation

VPC Network Peering Overview