There have been several modifications in the cloud industry as the world of information technology has evolved. To handle these updates and manage every process to operate in a stepwise manner, it is important to give priority to the security department. That is to say, with the introduction of advanced concepts, things have become more complicated. To ensure a secure path, a professional must maintain an eye on these locations. And it is here that Google Professional Cloud Security Engineer is highlighted. This role has a high level of value in top organizations. Considering a career with this role, will not provide stability but you will get to experience new innovative sectors.
So, let’s begin with learning about the GCP Cloud Security Engineer and understand the ways/methods to achieve the role!
Who is a Google Cloud Security Engineer?
- A Cloud Security Engineer’s role is to help businesses build and deploy secure workloads and infrastructure on Google Cloud.
- Secondly, by using Google security technology and having a thorough understanding of security best practices and industry security needs, these experts design, implement and maintain a safe infrastructure.
- Lastly, the Cloud Security Engineer should be knowledgeable in all aspects of cloud security, including:
- identity and access management
- defining organizational structure and policies
- using Google technologies to provide data protection
- configuring network security defenses
- collecting and analyzing Google Cloud logs
- managing incident responses
- demonstrating an understanding of how to apply dynamic regulatory considerations.
And, to get into the role of a Cloud Security Engineer, the best way is to pass the GCP Exam.
Understanding the Professional Cloud Security Engineer Exam:
The Professional Cloud Security Engineer exam measures your abilities to set up access in a cloud solution environment, implement network security, maintain data security, manage operations in a cloud solution environment, and assure compliance. However, this is a two-hour exam with questions in multiple-choice and multiple-select formats. In addition, the exam is available in English at a fee of $200. (plus tax where applicable). Furthermore, the exam delivery mode specifies that you can take the exam:
- From remote location or,
- At a testing center
Recommended experience:
- For the Professional Cloud Security Engineer exam, it is suggested to have more than three years of industry experience including more than one year of experience in designing and managing solutions using Google Cloud
However, the question that arises here is how to get better exam preparation? So, let’s focus on passing the Professional Cloud Security Engineer exam to make one step closer to the role.
Methods for passing Professional Cloud Security Engineer exam
1. Getting Familiar with the Exam Topics
The Google exam guide includes a comprehensive list of subjects that may be included in the exam. On the other hand, the Google Cloud Security Engineer exam will test your ability to develop and deploy secure workloads and infrastructure on Google Cloud. You must be knowledgeable in all elements of cloud security, including identity and access management, organizational structure and policies, data protection utilizing Google technologies, and network security defenses. Furthermore, review the exam topics that cover the following sections to have a deeper understanding of these concepts.
Topic 1: Configuring access within a cloud solution environment
1.1 Configuring Cloud Identity.
- Configuring Google Cloud Directory Sync and third-party connectors
- Management of super administrator account (Google Documentation: Super administrator account best practices, Creating and managing organizations)
- Automating the user lifecycle management process
- Administering user accounts and groups programmatically
1.2 Managing service accounts. Considerations include:
- Protecting and auditing service accounts and keys (Google Documentation: Audit logs for service accounts, Understanding service accounts)
- Automating the rotation of user-managed service account keys (Google Documentation: Understanding service accounts)
- Identification of scenarios requiring service accounts (Google Documentation: Understanding service accounts, Service accounts)
- Creating, disabling, authorizing, and securing service accounts (Google Documentation: Understanding service accounts, Service accounts)
- Configuring workload identity federation
- Securing default service accounts
- Managing service account impersonation
1.3 Managing authentication.
- Creating a password policy for user accounts (Google Documentation: Enforce and monitor users’ password requirements)
- Setting up Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and OAuth (Google Documentation: Signing in users with SAML)
- Configuring and enforcing two-factor authentication (Google Documentation: Multi-factor authentication (MFA))
1.4 Managing and implementing authorization controls. Considerations include:
- Managing privileged roles and separation of duties with Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles and permissions
- Granting permissions to different types of identities (Google Documentation: IAM Overview)
- Managing IAM and access control list (ACL) permissions
- Designing identity roles at the organization, folder, project, and resource level
- Configuring Access Context Manager
- Applying Policy Intelligence for better permission management
- Managing permissions through groups
1.5 Defining resource hierarchy.
- Creating and managing organizations (Google Documentation: Creating and managing organizations)
- Managing organization policies for organization folders, projects, and resources
- Using resource hierarchy for access control and permissions inheritance (Google Documentation: Using resource hierarchy for access control)
Topic 2: Configuring perimeter and boundary security
2.1 Designing perimeter security. Considerations include:
- Configuring network perimeter controls (firewall rules, hierarchical firewalls, Identity-Aware Proxy [IAP], load balancers, and Certificate Authority Service)
- Identifying differences between private and public addressing
- Configuring web application firewall (Google Cloud Armor)
- Configuring Cloud DNS security settings
2.2 Configuring boundary segmentation. Considerations include:
- Configuring security properties of a VPC network, VPC peering, Shared VPC, and firewall rules
- Configuring network isolation and data encapsulation for N-tier application design
- Configuring VPC Service Controls
2.3 Establish private connectivity.
- Private RFC1918 connectivity between VPC networks and GCP projects (Shared VPC, VPC peering) (Google Documentation: VPC Network Peering overview, Using VPC Network Peering)
- Designing and configuring private connectivity between VPC networks and Google Cloud projects (Shared VPC, VPC peering, and Private Google Access for on-premises hosts)
- Designing and configuring private connectivity between data centers and VPC network (IPsec and Cloud Interconnect)
- Establishing private connectivity between VPC and Google APIs (Private Google Access, restricted Google access, Private Google Access for on-premises hosts, Private Service Connect) (Google Documentation: Configuring Private Google Access, Private access options for services)
- Using Cloud NAT to enable outbound traffic
Topic 3: Ensuring data protection
3.1 Protecting sensitive data and preventing data loss. Considerations include:
- Identifying and redaction of PII (Google Documentation: Classification, redaction, and de-identification, De-identifying sensitive data)
- Configuring pseudonymization
- Configuring format-preserving substitution
- Restricting access to BigQuery, Cloud Storage, and Cloud SQL datastores
- Securing secrets with Secret Manager
- Protecting and managing compute instance metadata
3.2 Managing encryption at rest, in transit, and in use. Considerations include:
- Understanding the use cases for Google default encryption, customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) including customer-supplied encryption keys (CSEK), Cloud External Key Manager (EKM), and Cloud HSM (Google Documentation: Encrypt disks with customer-supplied encryption keys, Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys, Customer managed encryption keys (CMEK))
- Creating and managing encryption keys for CMEK, CSEK, and EKM
- Applying Google’s encryption approach to use cases
- Configuring object lifecycle policies for Cloud Storage
- Enabling Confidential Computing
- Encryption in transit
Topic 4: Managing operations within a cloud solution environment
4.1 Building and deploying secure infrastructure and applications. Considerations include:
- Automating security scanning for Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) through a continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipeline
- Automating virtual machine image creation, hardening, maintenance, and patch management
- Automating container image creation, verification, hardening, maintenance, and patch management
- Automating policy as code and drift detection
4.2 Configuring logging, monitoring, and detection. Considerations include:
- Configuring and analyzing network logs (firewall rule logs, VPC flow logs, packet mirroring, Cloud Intrusion Detection System [Cloud IDS])
- Designing an effective logging strategy
- Logging, monitoring, responding to, and remediating security incidents
- Exporting logs to external security systems
- Configuring and analyzing Google Cloud audit logs and data access logs
- Configuring log exports (log sinks and aggregated sinks)
- Configuring and monitoring Security Command Center (Security Health Analytics, Event Threat Detection, Container Threat Detection, Web Security Scanner)
Topic 5: Supporting compliance requirements
5.1 Determining regulatory requirements for the cloud. Considerations include:
- Determining concerns relative to compute, data, and network
- Evaluating the security shared responsibility model (Access Transparency)
- Configuring security controls within cloud environments (regionalization of data and services)
- Limiting compute and data for regulatory compliance
- Determining the Google Cloud environment in scope for regulatory compliance
2. Gain skills using Google learning path
The learning path takes you through a series of courses to help you prepare for the Cloud Security Engineer exam. You’ll learn about cloud security best practices and how the Google Cloud security model can help you safeguard your technology stack. However, existing Google Cloud implementations are actively assessed by Security Engineers, who identify possible security concerns and prioritize remedies. Further, the paths include:
➼ Google Cloud Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure
Reference: https://cloud.google.com/training/course/core-infrastructure
You’ll learn about Google Cloud’s compute and storage services, such as Compute Engine and Google Kubernetes Engine, as well as resource and policy management tools like the Resource Manager hierarchy, Cloud Identity, and Access Management, in this course. Further, the modules covered here are:
- Introducing Google Cloud
- Virtual Machines in the Cloud
- Storage in the Cloud
- Containers in the Cloud
- Applications in the Cloud
- Developing, Deploying and Monitoring in the Cloud
- Machine Learning and Big Data in the Cloud
➼ Networking in Google Cloud
Reference: https://cloud.google.com/training/course/networking-gcp
This course covers Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) networks, subnets, firewalls, load balancing, Cloud DNS, Cloud CDN, and Cloud NAT, as well as how to manage and grow your organization’s networks on Google Cloud. This covers common network design patterns as well as automated deployment using Deployment Manager or Terraform. Further, the modules covered here are:
- Google Cloud VPC Networking Fundamentals
- Controlling Access to VPC Networks
- Sharing Networks across Projects
- Load Balancing
➼ Creating and Securing Networks in Google Cloud
Cloud computing relies heavily on networking. Learn more about the most important Google Cloud networking services and technologies. Moreover, get the hands-on experience you need to start building solid networks. After you’ve completed the course, earn a skill badge to show that you know what you’re talking about. Further, in this course you will learn how to use a variety of networking-related resources on Google Cloud to create, expand, and protect your apps, including how to:
- Enable Identity-Aware Proxy.
- Create virtual private network (VPC) networks.
- Then, using Compute Engine, create virtual machine instances with Nginx web servers.
- Create firewall rules to govern access to your VMs from both inside and outside the network.
- After that, using an HTTP load balancer and Google Cloud Armor to configure, stress, and defend a multi-region HTTP service.
- Set up and test a regional backend service using an internal TCP load balancer.
➼ Security in Google Cloud
Reference: https://cloud.google.com/training/course/security-in-google-cloud-platform
This course provides learners with a thorough understanding of Google Cloud security measures and strategies. Mitigation approaches for assaults at multiple points in a Google Cloud-based infrastructure, such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, phishing attacks, and risks affecting content classification and usage, are among the security use cases described in this course. Further, the modules covered here are:
- Foundations of Google Cloud Security
- Then, Cloud Identity
- Identity and Access Management (IAM)
- Lastly, Configuring Virtual Private Cloud for Isolation and Security
➼ Verifying Access and Identity in Google Cloud
By creating VPCs and VPNs, you’ll get hands-on experience with Google Cloud’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) service and network security. Upon completion of this course, you’ll have the chance to acquire a talent badge. Further, in this course you’ll learn how to:
- use Identity and Access Management (IAM) to recognize and assign roles and users
- assign predefined roles and create custom roles
- create and manage service accounts
- Then, securely enable private connectivity between resources in multiple virtual private clouds (VPCs)
- limit application access depending on authentication using Identity-Aware Proxy
- After that, set up a secure Cloud Storage bucket
- view remoting data
➼ Securing Workloads in Google Kubernetes Engine
While deploying and managing production GKE setups, gain insights into security at scale. Moreover, you’ll learn about role-based access control, hardening, VPC networking, and binary authorization, as well as earn a skill badge to demonstrate your understanding. Further, you’ll learn how to:
- migrate containers from virtual machines to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
- use firewalls and Network Policies to restrict network connections in GKE
- use role-based access controls (RBAC) in GKE
- utilizing Binary Authorization for image security controls
- secure applications in GKE using three access levels: host, network, and Kubernetes API, and harden GKE cluster configurations.
3. Using Additional Training Resources
The more Cloud Security Engineer certification Exam study resources you have, the better. To put it another way, you should focus on enhancing your core understanding if you want a solid rewrite. Nonetheless, there are a few resources worth looking into:
- Taking a webinar:
- Use the webinar to learn about the newest and forthcoming Google Cloud Certifications, as well as the benefits they may bring to your career and business. Experts will discuss the following topics during this webinar:
- An introduction of the Google Cloud Certified Answers to your queries, including study pathways, programs, and tools.
- Further, learn useful hints and suggestions for passing the Google Cloud Professional Security Engineer Certification test.
- Use the webinar to learn about the newest and forthcoming Google Cloud Certifications, as well as the benefits they may bring to your career and business. Experts will discuss the following topics during this webinar:
- Others:
4. Get yourself enrolled in Online Course
You’ll need a good grasp of how to set up access in a cloud solution environment, implement network security, maintain data security, manage operations in a cloud solution environment, and ensure compliance to pass the Cloud Security Engineer Exam. Enrolling in the test online course is one way to do so. It will assist you in studying for the Google test with having e pert assistance available to assist you with any challenges or questions you may have.
Here are a few online course providers who can help you become well-versed and equipped with in-depth knowledge so that you can pass the test.
- Udemy
- Coursera
- Testprep Training
- Simplilearn
5. Evaluate yourself with Practice Tests
Practice tests for Google Certified Cloud Security Engineer can help you discover your areas of weakness so you can improve. By analyzing yourself with these evaluations, you will be able to analyze your strong and weak areas. You’ll be able to enhance your answering abilities as well, which will save you time. However, the best time to start holding mock exams is when you’ve finished one whole topic.
6. Scheduling the Exam
- To begin, go to Google Cloud and sign up for the exam you want to take.
- Google Cloud certificates, on the other hand, are accessible in a range of languages. On the exam page, there is a list of accessible languages.
- Secondly, if you’re a first-time test taker or wish to take the certification exam in a localized language, establish a new user account in Google Cloud’s instance of that language in Webassessor.
- Then, from the catalog, choose an exam and a delivery method for it (remote or from a testing center).
- After that, choose an exam day, time, and testing center (if applicable). Then, confirm your payment.
- Lastly, Kryterion sends you an email with a unique Test Taker Authorization Code after your registration is complete. You’ll also need this code to start your exam at the testing center.
7. Pass the Exam and start applying your skills to get job!
Following certification, you should work on a variety of professional tasks to broaden your knowledge and skills. This will set you up for a successful performance. Google certification, on the other hand, may lead to a variety of high-paying employment. If you have some job experience and certification, you may develop your career by earning more money and working in a more stimulating position. However, for those with less than a year of experience, the average Google Security Engineer pay in India is ₹23 lakhs. The compensation range for a Security Engineer at Google is between ₹12 and 30 lakhs.
In addition, the following are some of the top firms that are hiring for this position:
- Uber
- Paypal
- Accenture
- McAfee
Final Words
Earning the position of Google Cloud Security Engineer is not difficult if you have industry expertise, including more than one year of building and managing solutions utilizing Google Cloud. To put it another way, all you need is a solid understanding of the subject, a passing score on the Google Cloud Security Engineer test, and some work experience. Almost every company, large or little, requires cloud security engineers. So don’t put it off any longer and start preparing for the role.
