Google PCA Designing for Security and Compliance Practice Question
A company needs to allow a third-party auditor to view all Compute Engine resources in a project but not allow any modifications. The auditor must not have access to any other services. Which THREE steps should be taken?
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
✓
Grant the 'Compute Viewer' role (roles/compute.viewer)
The correct IAM role is Compute Viewer. To restrict access to only Compute Engine, do not grant other roles. The viewer role should be assigned at the project level to cover all Compute resources.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Grant the 'Viewer' primitive role (roles/viewer)
Why it's wrong here
Viewer primitive role grants read access to all services, not just Compute Engine.
- ✓
Grant the 'Compute Viewer' role (roles/compute.viewer)
Why this is correct
Compute Viewer provides read-only access to Compute Engine resources.
- ✓
Ensure no other IAM roles are granted to the auditor
Why this is correct
Granting only Compute Viewer prevents access to other services.
- ✓
Assign the role at the project level
Why this is correct
Project-level assignment applies to all Compute Engine resources in that project.
- ✗
Assign the role at the resource (VM) level
Why it's wrong here
Resource-level would require assigning to each VM individually, inefficient.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Key term
Least privilege
Least privilege is a security principle that means giving users, systems, or programs only the minimum permissions they need to do their job and nothing more.
Key term
Compute Engine
Compute Engine is Google Cloud's Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering that lets you create and run virtual machines on Google's infrastructure.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCA 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 PCA exam.