Cloud Digital Leader Trust and security with Google Cloud Practice Question
A company uses Cloud Load Balancing to distribute traffic to Compute Engine VMs. They want to protect against SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks. Which service should they enable?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) with a security filter for application-layer attacks, but IAP only authenticates and authorizes users, not inspects traffic for malicious payloads like SQL injection or XSS.
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
✓
Cloud Armor
Cloud Armor is the correct service because it provides web application firewall (WAF) capabilities that can inspect HTTP/S traffic for malicious patterns, including SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) signatures. It integrates directly with Cloud Load Balancing to filter requests before they reach backend Compute Engine VMs, using pre-configured rules from the ModSecurity Core Rule Set (CRS) to block these common OWASP Top 10 threats.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP)
Why it's wrong here
Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) controls access by verifying user identity and context before granting entry to an application, typically via OAuth2 or SSO, but it does not inspect the content of HTTP requests for attack patterns. IAP operates as an authentication and authorization layer, not a traffic-filtering security overlay, so attacks like SQL injection or cross-site scripting pass through to the backend if the user is authenticated.
- ✓
Cloud Armor
Why this is correct
Cloud Armor is a web application firewall (WAF) and DDoS protection service that works natively with Cloud Load Balancing to filter inbound traffic. It provides preconfigured rules to block common attacks like SQLi, XSS, and OWASP Top 10 threats, as well as custom rules for IP and geolocation-based blocking, making it the correct tool for defending against web attacks.
- ✗
Cloud CDN
Why it's wrong here
Cloud CDN accelerates content delivery by caching static assets at edge locations, which reduces latency and origin load, but it does not inspect request payloads for malicious patterns. Caching decisions are based on cache keys and TTLs, and un-cached dynamic traffic is forwarded directly to the backend, so it lacks the deep request analysis needed to block web attacks.
- ✗
VPC Service Controls
Why it's wrong here
VPC Service Controls enforces security perimeters around Google Cloud resources to prevent data exfiltration by linking services to a trusted network boundary. It works at the organizational or network policy level, not at the application layer, and it does not evaluate HTTP headers, body content, or request metadata for attack signatures, so it does not block web attacks.
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Related to this question
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Cloud Digital Transformation
Key term
Cloud Load Balancing
Cloud Load Balancing is the process of distributing incoming network traffic across multiple servers or resources in the cloud to ensure no single resource is overwhelmed, improving availability and reliability.
Key term
SQL injection
SQL injection is a web security vulnerability that allows an attacker to interfere with the queries an application makes to its database, often to read, modify, or destroy data.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This GCDL 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 GCDL exam.