The answer is to enable destroy protection on the key ring. This is correct because destroy protection is a key ring-level setting that overrides all IAM permissions, meaning that even a user with the cloudkms.admin role cannot delete any key within that protected key ring until the destroy protection is first disabled. For the Google Professional Cloud Security Engineer exam, this concept tests your understanding of how Cloud KMS enforces a defense-in-depth approach to prevent accidental or unauthorized key deletion, often appearing as a trap where candidates mistakenly think IAM roles alone can block deletion. The key insight is that destroy protection acts as a hard guardrail, not a permission, so it must be explicitly removed by a designated role before any key can be destroyed. Memory tip: think of destroy protection as a physical lock on the key ring box—no one, not even the key holder, can take a key out until the lock is removed.
PCSE Supporting compliance requirements Practice Question
This PCSE practice question tests your understanding of supporting compliance requirements. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 financial institution is required to use customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) for all data at rest in Google Cloud. They need to prevent key deletion by anyone except a specific IAM role. What should they do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable destroy protection on the key ring
Option A is correct because enabling destroy protection on the key ring prevents any Cloud KMS key within that key ring from being destroyed, regardless of IAM permissions. This is a key ring-level setting that overrides IAM roles, ensuring that only a specific IAM role (e.g., cloudkms.admin) can disable destroy protection and then delete keys, meeting the requirement to restrict key deletion to a specific role.
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 destroy protection on the key ring
Why this is correct
Destroy protection prevents deletion of a key ring and its keys until the protection is disabled by an authorized user.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use Organization Policies with a constraint to restrict key destruction
Why it's wrong here
Organization policies can restrict key creation but not specifically prevent deletion of existing keys.
✗
Assign the cloudkms.admin role only to a security team
Why it's wrong here
Assigning the admin role does not prevent key deletion; it grants full control, including deletion.
✗
Enable key rotation on the Cloud KMS key
Why it's wrong here
Key rotation does not prevent deletion; it changes the key material over time.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the misconception that IAM roles alone can prevent key deletion, but the trap here is that destroy protection is a separate, overriding mechanism that must be explicitly enabled at the key ring level to block destruction regardless of IAM permissions.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Destroy protection is a key ring-level boolean flag that, when enabled, blocks the DestroyCryptoKeyVersion and DestroyCryptoKey methods for all keys in the key ring. To delete a key, an IAM principal must first disable destroy protection, which requires the cloudkms.admin role (or a custom role with cloudkms.keyRings.update permission), ensuring only authorized roles can proceed with deletion. In a real-world scenario, a financial institution might combine destroy protection with a separation of duties policy, where the security team holds the cloudkms.admin role to manage destroy protection, while other teams have limited permissions like cloudkms.cryptoKeyEncrypterDecrypter.
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 company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
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 destroy protection on the key ring — Option A is correct because enabling destroy protection on the key ring prevents any Cloud KMS key within that key ring from being destroyed, regardless of IAM permissions. This is a key ring-level setting that overrides IAM roles, ensuring that only a specific IAM role (e.g., cloudkms.admin) can disable destroy protection and then delete keys, meeting the requirement to restrict key deletion to a specific role.
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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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.
Question Discussion
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