10 GCP IAM Best Practices

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a critical component of any cloud security strategy. IAM allows you to control who has access to your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) resources and what level of access they have.

In this article, we will discuss 10 best practices for using IAM in GCP. By following these best practices, you can help secure your GCP environment and prevent unauthorized access to your resources.

1. Use service accounts instead of user accounts

Service accounts are designed for use by applications, not humans. They have a limited set of permissions and can berevoked without affecting other users. User accounts, on the other hand, are meant for human users and have a much higher chance of being compromised.

If you’re using GCP IAM for anything other than human users, you should be using service accounts.

2. Grant least privilege access to users, groups and services

By only granting the bare minimum permissions necessary to perform their tasks, you can help prevent accidental or malicious misuse of resources.

To do this, start by identifying what actions each user, group or service needs to be able to perform. Then, map those actions to the specific GCP IAM roles that will allow them to perform those actions. Finally, make sure to regularly review and update these mappings as needed to ensure that least privilege access is always maintained.

3. Create a GCP organization hierarchy for your projects

Organizations help you manage your projects in a central place. You can use organizations to control access to your resources, enforce billing and resource quotas, and apply policies across multiple projects.

Creating a GCP organization hierarchy also helps you stay compliant with industry regulations like the GDPR. The GDPR requires companies to have a data protection officer (DPO), and one of the DPO’s responsibilities is to oversee the company’s compliance with the GDPR.

Creating a GCP organization hierarchy gives you a clear way to delegate responsibility for compliance to the DPO. The DPO can then easily see which projects are in scope for GDPR compliance and which ones are not.

Finally, creating a GCP organization hierarchy helps you keep your projects organized. When you have a large number of projects, it can be difficult to keep track of them all. Creating a hierarchy lets you group projects together so you can more easily find the ones you’re looking for.

4. Enable Cloud IAM audit logging

Cloud IAM audit logs provide a record of all the actions that have been taken on your GCP resources, including who took those actions and when. This information can be invaluable for investigating potential security incidents or policy violations.

To enable Cloud IAM audit logging, go to the Stackdriver Logging page in the GCP Console and select “Create sink.” Then, select “Cloud IAM” as the log type, choose a destination for the logs (such as BigQuery or Cloud Storage), and give the sink a name. Finally, click “Create.”

5. Restrict public IP addresses on your instances

If an attacker were to gain access to your instance, they would then have full access to all the resources within that project. By restricting public IP addresses, you can limit the attack surface and make it more difficult for an attacker to gain access to your instances.

To restrict public IP addresses on your instances, you can use either network tags or firewall rules. Network tags allow you to specify which instances can have public IP addresses, while firewall rules allow you to specify which IP addresses can have access to your instances.

Both network tags and firewall rules can be configured through the GCP Console or the gcloud command-line tool.

6. Encrypt data at rest and in transit

Data encryption is important for two reasons. Firstly, it helps to protect your data from being accessed by unauthorized individuals. Secondly, it can help to ensure that your data is not tampered with or corrupted in transit.

GCP provides a number of ways to encrypt data at rest and in transit. For data at rest, you can use GCP’s Cloud Storage Encryption feature. For data in transit, you can use SSL/TLS encryption.

It’s important to note that while data encryption is a very effective security measure, it is not foolproof. Data encryption only works if the keys used to encrypt and decrypt the data are properly managed and protected.

7. Configure VPC Service Controls

VPC Service Controls provide an additional layer of security by allowing you to restrict which services can be accessed from a given VPC. This means that even if an attacker were to gain access to a VM instance within your VPC, they would still be unable to access sensitive data stored in Cloud Storage or BigQuery unless you explicitly allowed it.

Configuring VPC Service Controls is a two-step process. First, you need to create a Service Perimeter. A Service Perimeter defines a set of GCP resources that are accessible from a given VPC. Second, you need to add one or more Access Contexts to the Service Perimeter. An Access Context defines a set of conditions that must be met in order for a user to be granted access to the resources within the Service Perimeter.

You can find more information on how to configure VPC Service Controls in the GCP documentation.

8. Use the principle of least privilege when granting roles

The principle of least privilege states that users should only have the permissions they need to do their job, and no more. This is important because it reduces the risk of accidental or malicious misuse of privileges.

For example, suppose you have a user who needs to be able to read and write to a certain GCP storage bucket. You could grant them the “Storage Object Admin” role, which would give them full control over the bucket. However, this would also give them the ability to delete objects, change ACLs, and so on.

Instead, it would be better to grant them the “Storage Object Viewer” role, which would allow them to read and write objects, but not delete them or change any other settings. This would minimize the risk of accidental or malicious misuse of privileges, and it would also make it easier to audit the user’s actions, since you would know exactly what they’re allowed to do.

9. Set up alerts for suspicious activity

If someone gains unauthorized access to your GCP account, they could do serious damage before you even realize what’s happening. By setting up alerts, you can be notified as soon as suspicious activity is detected, so you can take action quickly to limit the damage.

To set up alerts, go to the IAM & Admin section of the GCP Console and select “Activity Log.” Then, click on the “Create Alert” button. From there, you’ll be able to specify the conditions that will trigger an alert, such as a certain number of failed login attempts.

You can also specify who should be notified when an alert is triggered. Be sure to include people who are likely to take quick action, such as your GCP account administrator.

10. Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA)

With MFA in place, even if an attacker manages to steal a user’s password, they will still be unable to access the account unless they also have possession of the user’s physical device (e.g., their smartphone). This makes it much more difficult for attackers to gain unauthorized access to GCP accounts.

GCP provides a number of different MFA options, so you can choose the one that best meets your needs. For example, you can use Google Authenticator or a hardware token.

To enable MFA for a user, simply go to the IAM & Admin section of the GCP Console and select the user you want to enable MFA for. Then, click on the “Edit” button and select the “Enable” checkbox next to the “Multi-factor authentication” setting.