PCSE Ensuring Data Protection Practice Question
A security team needs to monitor and log all Google Cloud administrator access to customer data stored in Cloud Storage and BigQuery. They want to receive near-real-time alerts when such access occurs. Which two services should they use together? (Choose TWO).
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
✓
Access Transparency
Access Transparency provides logs of Google admin access to customer content. These logs are delivered to the customer's Cloud project. Cloud Audit Logs can be used to route Access Transparency logs to Pub/Sub, and then Cloud Functions can process them for alerts. Cloud Monitoring can create alerting policies based on log metrics. Cloud DLP is for data inspection, not for logging access. Cloud KMS is for key management.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Access Transparency
Why this is correct
Access Transparency logs provide details of Google admin access to customer content.
- ✗
Cloud DLP
Why it's wrong here
DLP inspects and de-identifies data, it does not log admin access.
- ✗
Cloud KMS
Why it's wrong here
Cloud KMS key access is separate; it does not log all admin access to data.
- ✓
Cloud Audit Logs
Why this is correct
Cloud Audit Logs can route Access Transparency logs to Pub/Sub or to Cloud Logging for alerting.
- ✗
Cloud Functions
Why it's wrong here
While Cloud Functions could be used to process logs, it is not a logging service itself. The pair is Access Transparency and Cloud Audit Logs.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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This PCSE question is part of Courseiva's 960-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 PCSE 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 PCSE exam.