Google ACE Configuring Access and Security Practice Question
An organization uses Organization Policies to restrict the use of certain IAM roles. The security team wants to audit all modifications to IAM policies across the organization, including at the project level. Which log type should be enabled and analyzed?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Admin Activity audit logs
Admin Activity audit logs record all modifications to IAM policies. Data Access logs record reads of data, not policy changes. To audit IAM policy changes, Admin Activity logs must be enabled and analyzed.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Admin Activity audit logs
Why this is correct
Admin Activity audit logs record all API calls that modify configuration or metadata of resources, including IAM policy changes. In Cloud Logging, they are enabled by default and retained for 400 days. Since setting an IAM policy (e.g., projects.setIamPolicy) is a configuration-modifying operation, it's captured here. That's why this is the correct choice.
- ✗
System Event audit logs
Why it's wrong here
System Event audit logs capture GCP system actions that affect resource availability, such as maintenance events, host restarts, or live migration. They are generated by Google's infrastructure, not by user actions like modifying IAM policies. They don't contain information about who changed permissions or which policy bindings were altered. Hence they are irrelevant to investigating IAM changes.
- ✗
Data Access audit logs (READ)
Why it's wrong here
Data Access audit logs (READ) record read operations that access user-provided data, such as reading objects in Cloud Storage or querying BigQuery tables. These logs are disabled by default and are focused on data plane reads, not control plane actions like IAM modifications. An IAM policy change is a metadata update, not a data read, so it appears in no Data Access READ log. Thus it cannot answer the question.
- ✗
Data Access audit logs (WRITE)
Why it's wrong here
Data Access audit logs (WRITE) track write operations that modify user data, such as inserting rows into a table or overwriting an object. While they capture data-plane writes, they do not capture control-plane configuration changes like IAM policy updates. IAM changes are administrative operations, not user data writes, so they are absent from these logs. Therefore, they are not a valid source.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
GCP Security Services
Key term
IAM
Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a framework of policies and technologies that ensures the right individuals have the appropriate access to technology resources.
Key term
IAM policy
An IAM policy is a set of rules that determines who can access specific cloud resources and what actions they are allowed to perform.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.