Cloud Digital Leader Google Cloud Security Practice Question
Which Google Cloud security layer is responsible for protecting data stored on disk using either Google-managed or customer-managed encryption keys?
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
✓
Data security
Data encryption at rest is a core component of data security, ensuring data stored on disk is encrypted. Google Cloud encrypts all data at rest by default using Google-managed keys, with options for CMEK and CSEK.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
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Operational security
Why it's wrong here
Operational security is the discipline of defining and enforcing policies, procedures, and access controls for day-to-day system administration, such as patch management, audit logging, and SOC workflows. While these measures help protect the environment, they do not directly perform or manage encryption of stored data; that capability sits in the data security layer, which specifically addresses data-at-rest protection.
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Infrastructure security
Why it's wrong here
Infrastructure security protects the foundation of the cloud — physical data centers, power, cooling, networking equipment, and the hypervisor boundary that isolates virtual machines. This layer mitigates risks like network-based attacks and hardware tampering, but it does not encrypt customer data objects inside storage services. Encryption at rest is a data-centric control, not an infrastructure-level control, so this option does not satisfy the question.
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Data security
Why this is correct
Data security is the Google Cloud layer that directly protects the data itself using encryption at rest and in transit, customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK), and data loss prevention APIs for classifying and redacting sensitive information. It is the only option that explicitly addresses how stored data is encrypted and how access to that encrypted data is managed. Google Cloud encrypts data at rest by default, and the data security layer governs key management, cipher suite selection, and rotation policies.
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Hardware security
Why it's wrong here
Hardware security focuses on the physical integrity of the server hardware itself, including the Titan security chip, secure boot, and tamper-evident seals that prevent malicious firmware or hardware modifications. These protections establish a trusted platform foundation, but they are not responsible for encrypting application data at rest. Data-at-rest encryption is applied at the storage and database layers, independent of the underlying hardware security mechanisms.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Data Types and Analytics Workloads
Key term
Data
Data is raw, unprocessed information, like numbers, words, or measurements, that can be stored, processed, and analyzed by computers.
Key term
Encryption
Encryption is the process of converting readable data into a secret code to prevent unauthorized access.
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This GCDL question is part of Courseiva's 848-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.