Question 1easymultiple choice
Full question →Question 289 of 300
easymultiple choiceObjective-mapped
GCDL Practice Question: A company's security team wants to be alerted…
This GCDL practice question tests your understanding of a company's security team wants to be alerted…. 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 company's security team wants to be alerted when someone with administrative permissions changes an IAM policy in their Google Cloud organization. Which Google Cloud capability enables this detection?
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
Distractor review
Data Access audit logs, which record when data is read from Cloud Storage buckets
Data Access audit logs record data reads and writes (reading bucket objects, querying BigQuery, etc.). IAM policy changes are administrative actions recorded in Admin Activity audit logs, not Data Access logs.
B
Distractor review
Cloud Armor, which blocks unauthorized IAM policy changes at the network layer
Cloud Armor is a web application firewall and DDoS protection service operating on network traffic. It cannot intercept or monitor IAM API calls, which are management plane operations authenticated through Google's IAM system.
C
Distractor review
VPC flow logs, which capture all network traffic including IAM API calls
VPC flow logs capture metadata about network traffic (source/destination IP, bytes, ports). They don't capture application-layer API call content including IAM operations.
D
Best answer
Admin Activity audit logs combined with Cloud Monitoring log-based alerting, which records and alerts on IAM policy modifications by any principal
Admin Activity audit logs record all IAM policy changes (SetIamPolicy calls) automatically and cannot be disabled. A log-based metric in Cloud Monitoring can count these events, and an alerting policy triggers a notification whenever an IAM change is detected. This is the standard approach for IAM change monitoring.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Related practice questions
Related GCDL 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
A traditional retailer currently maintains its own data centers, purchasing servers every 3–5 years and paying for facilities, power, and staff regardless of demand. When it migrates its workloads to the public cloud, which change in cost model does it experience?
Question 2
An e-commerce company plans its infrastructure for peak shopping events (e.g., Black Friday) which drive 50× normal traffic. On-premises, they must maintain 50× capacity year-round. In the cloud, they provision 50× capacity only during peak periods. Which cloud characteristic enables this cost optimization?
Question 3
Which term describes the process by which organizations integrate digital technology into all areas of their business, fundamentally changing how they operate and deliver value to customers?
Question 4
When a company moves from maintaining its own data center to using Google Cloud, which operational responsibility does Google assume that the company previously managed?
Question 5
A hospital runs a patient records system that must remain on-premises due to strict regulatory data residency requirements. However, they also want to use cloud-based AI for diagnostic imaging analysis. Which cloud deployment model best describes their architecture?
Question 6
What is virtualization in the context of cloud computing, and why is it fundamental to how cloud providers deliver services?
Practice this exam
Start a free GCDL practice session
Short sessions build daily habit. Longer sessions build exam-day stamina. Try a timed session to simulate real conditions.
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this GCDL question test?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Admin Activity audit logs combined with Cloud Monitoring log-based alerting, which records and alerts on IAM policy modifications by any principal — Admin Activity audit logs in Cloud Logging record all administrative actions — including IAM policy changes, resource creation/deletion, and configuration changes — by users and service accounts. Cloud Monitoring alerting policies can trigger on log-based metrics derived from these audit logs. Security Command Center can also surface IAM findings.
What should I do if I get this GCDL question wrong?
Identify which GCDL exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Discussion
Loading comments…
Sign in to join the discussion.
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.