PCSE Practice Question: Managing Operations in a Cloud Solution Environment
An incident responder needs to collect forensic evidence from a compromised Compute Engine instance for later analysis. They want to preserve disk state and network logs. Which THREE actions should they take?
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
✓
Export and analyze VPC Flow Logs for the instance's network traffic.
Creating a disk snapshot captures the disk state including deleted files. Analyzing VPC Flow Logs can reveal network connections. Isolating the instance with a firewall rule prevents further damage. Powering off the instance may alter evidence. Deleting the instance loses evidence. Cloning the instance may preserve some state but is not standard forensic practice.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Export and analyze VPC Flow Logs for the instance's network traffic.
Why this is correct
Provides network evidence.
- ✗
Delete the instance to stop billing.
Why it's wrong here
Deleting destroys evidence.
- ✓
Create a snapshot of the boot disk.
Why this is correct
Preserves the disk state for forensic analysis.
- ✗
Power off the instance to prevent further compromise.
Why it's wrong here
Powering off can alter evidence (e.g., memory, temp files). Recommended to isolate via firewall instead.
- ✓
Isolate the instance by applying a firewall rule that blocks all traffic except from a forensic workstation.
Why this is correct
Prevents further compromise while preserving state.
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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.