Module 1 · Google Cloud Platform Security

Manish Garg
Manish Garg Associate of (ISC)² · RingSafe
Apr 22, 2026
5 min read
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Last updated: April 29, 2026

Resource hierarchy, IAM, service accounts, network, GCS/SQL/GKE/KMS hardening, Security Command Center.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) has a different design philosophy from AWS or Azure: hierarchical resource management with projects as the primary isolation unit, IAM that’s simpler in some ways and more powerful in others, and tooling that reflects Google’s internal infrastructure heritage. This module covers GCP’s security model and the practical hardening checklist.

The resource hierarchy

ORGANIZATION (your company's GCP root)
  └─ FOLDER (e.g., "Production")
      └─ FOLDER (e.g., "App-Team-A")
          └─ PROJECT (e.g., "app-prod-12345")
              └─ RESOURCE (Compute Engine VM, GCS bucket, etc.)

Permissions inherit downward. Granting a role at Organization scope = role on every project in the org. Project is the primary isolation boundary — separate billing, separate API enablement, separate IAM policy.

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