GCP Security Interview Questions for Cloud Cybersecurity Roles

Google Cloud environments are built for scale, automation, and speed, which also means security engineers must think differently compared to traditional infrastructure. GCP security interviews focus heavily on identity design, permission boundaries, monitoring visibility, and cloud compliance controls. Interviewers look for candidates who understand how Google Cloud IAM works in practice, how misconfigurations lead to breaches, and how to respond using native GCP monitoring tools. This blog covers practical GCP security interview questions with clear, hands-on answers to help cloud cybersecurity professionals prepare confidently.

Interview Questions and Answers

Question 1. What does a GCP security engineer do?

Answer: A GCP security engineer is responsible for securing cloud resources by managing identities, permissions, network controls, monitoring activity, and ensuring compliance. The role focuses on protecting workloads, data, and services running in Google Cloud.

Question 2. What is Google Cloud IAM and why is it critical?

Answer: Google Cloud IAM controls who can access GCP resources and what actions they can perform. It is critical because overly permissive IAM roles are one of the most common causes of cloud security incidents.

Question 3. How does Google Cloud IAM differ from traditional access control?

Answer: Google Cloud IAM is policy-based and resource-centric. Permissions are granted through roles at different resource levels, allowing fine-grained access control that scales across large environments.

Question 4. What are predefined roles, basic roles, and custom roles in GCP?

Answer: Basic roles provide broad permissions and are generally discouraged. Predefined roles offer more controlled access for specific services. Custom roles allow organizations to define least-privilege permissions tailored to their needs.

Question 5. Hands-on scenario: A service account has Editor role at project level. What is the risk?

Answer: The Editor role allows wide modification of resources. If the service account is compromised, an attacker can alter configurations, deploy malicious resources, or disable security controls.

Question 6. What is the principle of least privilege in GCP security?

Answer: It means granting identities only the permissions they need to perform their tasks. This limits damage if credentials are leaked or abused.

Question 7. How do attackers exploit IAM misconfigurations in GCP?

Answer: Attackers look for overprivileged service accounts, inherited permissions, or exposed keys to escalate privileges and move laterally across projects.

Question 8. What is GCP monitoring and logging used for?

Answer: GCP monitoring and logging provide visibility into activity, performance, and security events. They are essential for threat detection, investigations, and incident response.

Question 9. What are Cloud Audit Logs and why are they important?

Answer: Cloud Audit Logs record administrative actions, data access, and system events. They are critical for tracking who did what and for investigating security incidents.

Question 10. Hands-on scenario: Audit logs show repeated permission denied errors followed by success. What does this indicate?

Answer: This may indicate an attacker probing permissions and eventually finding a role or identity with elevated access.

Question 11. How does GCP support cloud compliance?

Answer: GCP provides built-in compliance controls, policy enforcement, audit logging, and security posture management to support regulatory and organizational requirements.

Question 12. What is Organization Policy Service?

Answer: Organization Policy Service allows administrators to enforce constraints such as restricting public IP usage or limiting allowed services across projects.

Question 13. Hands-on scenario: A storage bucket is publicly accessible. How would you respond?

Answer: I would immediately restrict access, review audit logs to assess data exposure, rotate affected credentials, and update IAM policies to prevent recurrence.

Question 14. How does network security work in GCP?

Answer: Network security in GCP is managed using firewall rules, VPC segmentation, routing controls, and private access to reduce exposure to the internet.

Question 15. What is the difference between ingress and egress firewall rules?

Answer: Ingress rules control incoming traffic to resources, while egress rules control outbound traffic. Both are important for limiting attack paths and data exfiltration.

Question 16. Hands-on scenario: A VM is communicating with an unknown external IP. What steps would you take?

Answer: I would analyze VPC flow logs, isolate the VM using firewall rules, inspect recent activity, and determine whether the communication is malicious.

Question 17. What are VPC flow logs and how do they help security teams?

Answer: VPC flow logs capture metadata about network traffic. They help detect suspicious connections, lateral movement, and potential data exfiltration.

Question 18. How does GCP handle service account security?

Answer: GCP encourages short-lived credentials, workload identity, and key rotation to reduce the risk associated with long-lived service account keys.

Question 19. Hands-on scenario: A leaked service account key is discovered. What should be done first?

Answer: The key should be revoked immediately, affected permissions reviewed, audit logs analyzed, and workloads updated to use more secure authentication methods.

Question 20. What is Security Command Center?

Answer: Security Command Center provides centralized visibility into security risks, misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and threats across GCP environments.

Question 21. How does Security Command Center help during incidents?

Answer: It aggregates findings, prioritizes risks, and helps security teams understand the scope and impact of incidents quickly.

Question 22. How does threat detection work in GCP?

Answer: Threat detection relies on log analysis, behavior analytics, and integration with monitoring services to identify suspicious patterns.

Question 23. What role does automation play in GCP security?

Answer: Automation helps enforce security baselines, remediate misconfigurations, and respond to incidents faster with less manual effort.

Question 24. What are common GCP security mistakes?

Answer: Common mistakes include overprivileged IAM roles, exposed storage buckets, disabled logging, and lack of monitoring alerts.

Question 25. How should candidates prepare for a GCP security interview?

Answer: Candidates should understand Google Cloud IAM deeply, practice reviewing audit logs, analyze real security scenarios, and explain how they would respond to incidents.

Conclusion

GCP security interviews test practical understanding rather than memorization. Strong candidates demonstrate how attackers abuse misconfigurations and how defenders use Google Cloud IAM, monitoring, and policy enforcement to stop them. Hands-on experience with logs, permissions, and incident response workflows is essential for succeeding in cloud cybersecurity roles. Preparing with real-world scenarios helps build confidence and shows interviewers you can secure modern GCP environments effectively.