A GCP IAM and public asset exposure assessment helps organizations identify cloud security gaps across identity permissions, service accounts, storage buckets, firewall rules, public assets, logging, detection and compliance evidence.
The highest-priority checks are to remove broad Owner or Editor roles, review service account permissions, enable uniform bucket-level access, enforce Public Access Prevention, scan for allUsers and allAuthenticatedUsers, review internet-exposed firewall rules, enable Security Command Center and prefer Workload Identity Federation over long-lived service account keys.
Executive Summary
Google Cloud gives teams flexibility to build quickly, but that flexibility can create risk when IAM permissions, storage exposure, firewall rules and service accounts are not reviewed continuously.
Many GCP exposure risks are caused by customer-side configuration drift: broad project-level roles, forgotten public buckets, internet-exposed firewall rules, long-lived service account keys and incomplete detection coverage.
A GCP security assessment should focus first on IAM, storage, network exposure, detection and workload identity. These areas determine who can access resources, whether sensitive data is exposed, whether activity is visible during an incident and whether cloud security evidence is audit-ready.
For regulated organizations, GCP exposure evidence can support ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR, DPDP and internal audit readiness. ServQual helps organizations assess Google Cloud security posture, while SUSAN can support continuous cloud security validation, risk visibility, remediation tracking and audit-ready evidence.
The Problem: GCP Exposure Builds Quietly
A bucket gets created for a quick file exchange and public access is never removed. A CI/CD service account gets the broad Owner role because it was the fastest way to get a deploy working. A firewall rule opens a port for one troubleshooting session and never closes again.
None of these require a sophisticated attacker. They just need to be found, and automated scanners are built to look for exactly this kind of exposure.
Why GCP IAM and Public Asset Exposure Matters
Excessive IAM permissions and public resources are among the most common and high-impact sources of cloud security risk. A service account with Owner is effectively a master key. A public bucket does not require an attack at all, it is already open the moment it is discovered.
Cloud environments change fast: new projects, new service accounts, new firewall rules. Without a repeatable review process, this drift compounds quietly over time.
Google Cloud Shared Responsibility and Customer-Side Risk
Google secures the underlying infrastructure, but IAM bindings, storage configuration, network rules and service account permissions remain the customer’s responsibility to configure and review. Most GCP assessment findings sit squarely on that side of the line.
GCP Security Assessment Checklist: Five Areas to Review First
A GCP review consistently focuses on five areas: identity, storage, network exposure, detection, and workload identity.
IAM Security: Roles, Service Accounts and Least Privilege
Avoid granting the broad primitive roles, Owner, Editor, Viewer, at the project or organization level. Use predefined or custom roles scoped tightly to what a principal actually needs. Run IAM Recommender regularly to catch over-provisioned permissions based on actual usage, paying particular attention to service accounts, since they are frequently targeted to establish a foothold.
Storage Security: Public Buckets and Data Exposure
Enforce uniform bucket-level access on every Cloud Storage bucket to eliminate legacy object-level ACLs that can expose individual files even when the bucket policy looks fine. Use Public Access Prevention to make it structurally difficult for a bucket to become public by mistake, and scan buckets for the allUsers and allAuthenticatedUsers principals, which create genuine public exposure.
Network Exposure: Firewall Rules and Public Access Paths
Review firewall rules for the classic exposure pattern: ports like SSH (22) or RDP (3389) opened to 0.0.0.0/0. Use VPC Service Controls to build a perimeter around sensitive services such as BigQuery or Cloud Storage, and reduce reliance on public IP addresses through Private Google Access and Cloud NAT where appropriate.
Detection and Prioritization: Security Command Center and Logs
Security Command Center can help identify common GCP security findings, such as public buckets and open firewall rules, while advanced capabilities and licensing should be validated against current Google Cloud guidance. Premium tiers can add vulnerability scanning and an Attack Exposure Score to help prioritize remediation based on actual reachability.
Workload Identity and Long-Lived Key Risk
Long-lived, downloadable service account keys are a common source of leaked credentials. Prefer Workload Identity Federation where your CI/CD platform supports it, and where keys are still required, rotate them regularly and restrict them with IAM conditions such as source IP range or time window.
Organization Policy Constraints: Enterprise Guardrails
IAM and bucket-level fixes address individual resources, but enterprise environments also need guardrails that apply automatically across every project, regardless of what an individual team configures. Organization Policy constraints provide exactly that layer, enforced centrally at the organization or folder level rather than relying on every project owner to get it right independently.
Constraints worth enabling widely include disabling service account key creation to force Workload Identity Federation adoption, restricting VM external IP access so instances cannot be assigned public IPs by default, restricting which domains can be added as IAM members to prevent accidental sharing outside the organization, and restricting resource locations to keep data within approved regions for data residency requirements. Because these constraints apply at the organization level, they continue to hold even when a new project is created by a team that has never seen the security checklist.
Compliance Impact: ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR and DPDP
These controls map to ISO 27001 Annex A clauses on access control and asset management, and to PCI DSS Requirements 1 and 7 on network segmentation and least privilege. Under GDPR or India’s DPDP Act, a public bucket containing personal data may require breach assessment, evidence review and potential notification depending on the facts, exposure and applicable obligations.
Example Use Case: Public Bucket and Over-Permissioned Service Account
During one assessment, a storage bucket used for application assets had public listing enabled, exposing over 40,000 files, including internal documents that had no reason to be public. The CI/CD service account deploying the application carried project-level Editor, far more than it needed. Both were addressed in under a day: a scoped custom role for the service account, and public listing disabled on the bucket.
GCP IAM and Public Asset Exposure Checklist
Organizations reviewing GCP exposure should validate these controls:
- Avoid broad primitive roles such as Owner or Editor at project, folder or organization level.
- Review IAM bindings for excessive permissions and unused access.
- Run IAM Recommender regularly and review recommendations for users, groups and service accounts.
- Review service accounts for excessive roles, stale permissions and unused access.
- Prefer Workload Identity Federation over long-lived service account keys where appropriate.
- Remove or rotate unnecessary service account keys.
- Enforce uniform bucket-level access for Cloud Storage.
- Enable Public Access Prevention for storage buckets where applicable.
- Scan buckets for allUsers and allAuthenticatedUsers principals.
- Review firewall rules for internet-wide exposure, especially SSH, RDP and administrative ports.
- Apply VPC Service Controls around sensitive data services where required.
- Enable and review Security Command Center findings according to the organization’s GCP scope and licensing.
- Centralize logs and retain audit evidence for IAM changes, bucket access, firewall changes and remediation actions.
- Map GCP findings to ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR, DPDP and internal GRC requirements.
- Enforce Organization Policy constraints to disable service account key creation where feasible.
- Restrict VM external IP access and allowed IAM member domains at the organization level.
- Restrict resource locations through Organization Policy where data residency requirements apply.
How ServQual and SUSAN Help
ServQual helps organizations assess Google Cloud security posture across IAM, storage, public asset exposure, network access, service accounts, logging, detection and compliance evidence.
A point-in-time GCP assessment helps identify what is exposed today. SUSAN helps extend that visibility into a continuous assurance model by connecting cloud security findings, risk visibility, remediation ownership, evidence status and audit readiness.
With ServQual and SUSAN, organizations can:
- Review GCP IAM and service account risk
- Identify public asset exposure
- Assess storage and network configuration gaps
- Connect findings to remediation ownership
- Map cloud security findings to compliance evidence
- Improve visibility across cloud, security and GRC teams
- Support audit-ready evidence for ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR and DPDP
- Move from periodic cloud reviews toward continuous assurance
Explore SUSAN Cloud Security Validation
Explore SUSAN Continuous Monitoring & Evidence
"A public cloud resource does not need to be hacked if it was accidentally made public."
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Lead Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing Engineer | ServQual
FAQ
Most frequent questions and answers
GCP public asset exposure occurs when cloud resources such as storage buckets, firewall rules, services or datasets are reachable by users or networks that should not have access.
Owner and Editor are broad primitive roles that can grant excessive permissions. If a user or service account with these roles is compromised, the attacker may gain wide access across the project.
IAM Recommender is a Google Cloud capability that helps identify overly broad permissions and suggests ways to reduce access based on observed usage.
Public Access Prevention helps prevent Cloud Storage buckets and objects from being made publicly accessible through IAM permissions.
allUsers means anyone on the internet can access the resource if the assigned permission allows it. This should be reviewed carefully, especially for storage buckets and public assets.
Long-lived service account keys can be copied, leaked or misused. Workload Identity Federation can reduce reliance on downloadable keys in many scenarios.
Security Command Center is Google Cloud’s security and risk management platform for identifying misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, threats and exposure risks depending on configuration and licensing.
Organization Policy constraints are centrally enforced guardrails applied at the organization or folder level, such as disabling service account key creation or restricting external IP assignment, that hold across every project regardless of individual configuration.
GCP exposure can affect compliance when cloud assets store personal data, regulated records, payment data or business-critical information. Evidence of IAM reviews, access controls, logging and remediation can support ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR, DPDP and audit readiness.
SUSAN can help connect GCP security findings with risk visibility, remediation ownership, compliance evidence and continuous assurance workflows.
Strengthen Google Cloud Security Before Exposure Becomes an Incident
GCP exposure risk builds quietly through broad IAM roles, forgotten public buckets, internet-facing firewall rules and service accounts that are never reviewed.
ServQual helps organizations assess Google Cloud security posture, identify public asset exposure, review IAM and service account risk, and align cloud controls with cybersecurity and compliance requirements. Explore SUSAN or contact ServQual to connect GCP findings, remediation ownership, compliance evidence and Continuous Assurance into one structured governance view.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, compliance or professional security advice. Product capabilities, licensing and features referenced may change over time and should be verified against current vendor documentation. Organizations should assess their own environment and consult qualified legal, compliance or security professionals before acting on this content.
