PCSE Practice Question: Configuring Access Within a Cloud Solution Environment
You need to grant a security auditor read-only access to all resources in a project, but they must not be able to view data within resources (e.g., table contents). Which predefined IAM role should you grant?
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
✓
roles/viewer
The roles/viewer role provides read-only access to view resource configurations but not data. For example, it allows listing Compute Engine instances but not connecting to them or reading data from BigQuery tables. The Security Reviewer role (roles/iam.securityReviewer) is similar but includes additional permissions; however, the question asks for read-only access without data access, and roles/viewer is the standard read-only role.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
roles/iam.securityReviewer
Why it's wrong here
The `roles/iam.securityReviewer` role grants permission to list and inspect IAM policies across the project, but it does not restrict access to data within resources such as table contents. This fails the requirement because the auditor must be unable to view data, yet this role still allows reading resource metadata and configurations that could expose data-location or schema details. It is tempting because the name suggests a read-only security audit function, and it would be correct if the goal were solely to review IAM policy bindings without any data access.
- ✗
roles/owner
Why it's wrong here
Owner role grants full management access and data access, which is too permissive.
- ✓
roles/viewer
Why this is correct
Viewer role provides read-only access to resource configurations without data access.
- ✗
roles/editor
Why it's wrong here
Editor role includes write permissions and data access.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every PCSE question from scratch — 960 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or 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.