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ACE Practice Question: A security team discovers that a service account…
This ACE practice question tests your understanding of a security team discovers that a service account…. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A security team discovers that a service account key was accidentally committed to a public GitHub repository 48 hours ago. What should be the immediate steps to remediate this incident?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Best answer
Delete the leaked key immediately, audit Cloud Audit Logs for unauthorized activity using the key, then create a new key or switch to keyless authentication
Immediate key deletion removes the attacker's access. Audit logs reveal if the key was used maliciously. Creating a replacement key (or preferably switching to Workload Identity) restores the service.
B
Distractor review
Change the service account's display name and email to invalidate the leaked key
Service account names and emails are metadata — changing them does not invalidate existing keys.
C
Distractor review
Rotate the service account key to generate a new one, keeping the old key active briefly for transition
The old key remains active during transition and is still compromised — it must be immediately deleted, not kept active.
D
Distractor review
Remove all IAM roles from the service account to deny all actions until the investigation completes
Removing IAM roles may help but the key still exists and could be re-used if roles are re-added. The key itself must be deleted first.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
Key takeaway
NAT direction and interface roles matter as much as the IP address mapping. Inside/outside designation controls which traffic is translated.
Related practice questions
Related ACE practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
What is the correct order of the Google Cloud resource hierarchy from highest to lowest level?
Question 2
A compliance archive stores legal documents accessed at most once per quarter. Which Cloud Storage class minimizes storage cost while meeting that access pattern?
Question 3
Which gcloud command creates a Compute Engine VM named 'web-01' using the e2-medium machine type in zone us-central1-a?
Question 4
A team wants to receive an email alert when the average CPU utilization of VMs in a managed instance group exceeds 80% for more than 5 minutes. What should they create in Cloud Monitoring?
Question 5
A junior developer needs read-only access to all GCP resources in a project. Which IAM role grants the minimum permissions required?
Question 6
A startup creates its first Google Cloud project. Before deploying any paid resources, what must be linked to the project?
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this ACE question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Delete the leaked key immediately, audit Cloud Audit Logs for unauthorized activity using the key, then create a new key or switch to keyless authentication — The key must be treated as compromised immediately. The response is: (1) disable or delete the leaked key, (2) audit the service account's IAM role bindings and recent activity via Cloud Audit Logs, (3) revoke and replace with a new key or eliminate keys entirely. Rotating the key generates a new one but the old one must be deleted — rotation alone is insufficient if the old key still exists.
What should I do if I get this ACE question wrong?
Review the four NAT address types (inside local, inside global, outside local, outside global), PAT port overload, and static vs dynamic NAT use cases. Then practise related ACE NAT questions on configuration and troubleshooting.
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This ACE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Google Cloud certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the ACE exam.