Google Cloud Professional Cloud Security Engineer Practice Exam

What feature of Google Cloud ensures secure access to applications running on VMs?

1. Identity-Aware Proxy

2. Compute Engine Auditing

3. Cloud Security Command Center

4. Google Cloud Armor

The correct answer is: Identity-Aware Proxy

The feature that ensures secure access to applications running on virtual machines (VMs) in Google Cloud is the Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP). IAP acts as a gatekeeper, enabling administrators to control access to applications based on the identity of the user, regardless of where they are accessing the application from. By using IAP, organizations can ensure that only authenticated and authorized users can access their applications running on Compute Engine. IAP handles identity verification and can enforce security policies at the application level, without requiring complex networking configurations such as VPNs or static IPs. This eliminates the need to expose your VMs directly to the internet, enhancing security by reducing the attack surface. In contrast, while Compute Engine Auditing provides insights and visibility into actions taken on Google Cloud resources, it does not directly manage or enforce access controls. Similarly, the Cloud Security Command Center focuses on security posture management and threat detection, but it does not facilitate secure access directly. Google Cloud Armor, on the other hand, is primarily a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection service and web application firewall (WAF) but does not address user identity or application access control in the same way as IAP. By leveraging IAP, organizations on