PCSE Supporting compliance requirements Practice Question
This PCSE practice question tests your understanding of supporting compliance requirements. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A healthcare organization is migrating to Google Cloud and needs to achieve HIPAA compliance. Which THREE actions are required to meet HIPAA requirements on GCP? (Choose THREE.)
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable Cloud Audit Logs for all services handling ePHI
Option A is correct because enabling Cloud Audit Logs for all services handling ePHI is a direct requirement under HIPAA's Security Rule (45 CFR § 164.312(b)), which mandates audit controls to record and examine activity in systems that contain or use electronic protected health information. Cloud Audit Logs provide immutable, tamper-evident logs of admin activities, data access, and system events, which are essential for demonstrating compliance during audits or breach investigations. Without these logs, the organization cannot meet the audit control standard for ePHI environments on GCP.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✓
Enable Cloud Audit Logs for all services handling ePHI
Why this is correct
HIPAA requires audit controls to record access to ePHI; Cloud Audit Logs meet this requirement.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Enable VPC Flow Logs for all subnets
Why it's wrong here
VPC Flow Logs are optional for network monitoring, not mandated by HIPAA; audit logs are required.
✓
Sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with Google Cloud
Why this is correct
A BAA is required for HIPAA compliance to establish Google as a business associate.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Use Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) for Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and other services
Why this is correct
HIPAA requires encryption of ePHI at rest; CMEK allows you to manage your own keys for compliance.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between mandatory HIPAA requirements (audit logs, BAA, encryption) and optional or unrelated networking features (VPC Flow Logs, Cloud NAT), leading candidates to mistakenly select VPC Flow Logs as an audit control when it only provides network telemetry, not access logging for ePHI.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Cloud Audit Logs are divided into Admin Activity logs (always enabled, 400-day retention) and Data Access logs (must be explicitly enabled, 30-day default retention), and for HIPAA, you must enable Data Access logs for all services that store or process ePHI, such as Cloud Storage and BigQuery, to capture every read and write operation. A real-world scenario: if a healthcare app uses Cloud SQL for ePHI and Data Access logs are not enabled, a breach via a compromised service account would leave no forensic trail, failing HIPAA's audit control requirement. Additionally, the BAA (Option C) is a contractual prerequisite under HIPAA's Business Associate rule (45 CFR § 164.308(b)(1)), and CMEK (Option D) ensures the organization retains control over encryption keys, meeting the encryption standard (45 CFR § 164.312(a)(2)(iv)) for ePHI at rest.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Supporting compliance requirements — This question tests Supporting compliance requirements — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Enable Cloud Audit Logs for all services handling ePHI — Option A is correct because enabling Cloud Audit Logs for all services handling ePHI is a direct requirement under HIPAA's Security Rule (45 CFR § 164.312(b)), which mandates audit controls to record and examine activity in systems that contain or use electronic protected health information. Cloud Audit Logs provide immutable, tamper-evident logs of admin activities, data access, and system events, which are essential for demonstrating compliance during audits or breach investigations. Without these logs, the organization cannot meet the audit control standard for ePHI environments on GCP.
What should I do if I get this PCSE question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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