Google Cloud Security: IAM, VPC Service Controls, and BeyondCorp

Part of the Cybersecurity Skills Guide — This article is one deep-dive in our complete guide series.

By HADESS Team | February 28, 2026 | Updated: February 28, 2026 | 5 min read

Google Cloud approaches security differently from AWS and Azure. Its IAM model uses organization-wide policies, its network security relies on VPC Service Controls, and its zero-trust model (BeyondCorp) is built into the platform. Here is what matters.

IAM and Resource Hierarchy

GCP IAM is hierarchical. Policies set at the organization level inherit down through folders, projects, and resources. This is powerful but dangerous — a broad role granted at the organization level applies everywhere.

Use predefined roles instead of primitive roles (Owner, Editor, Viewer). Primitive roles are far too broad. The Editor role grants write access to almost every service in the project. Use predefined roles like roles/storage.objectViewer or roles/compute.instanceAdmin that scope access to specific services.

Create custom roles when predefined roles are still too broad. Use IAM Recommender to identify unused permissions and generate tighter role suggestions based on actual usage.

Organization policies (different from IAM policies) set constraints across your GCP organization. Use them to:

• Restrict which regions resources can be created in
• Disable external IP addresses on VM instances
• Require OS Login for SSH access to Compute instances
• Restrict which services can be used

VPC Service Controls

VPC Service Controls create security perimeters around GCP services that restrict data movement. Think of them as a firewall for API-level access to services like BigQuery, Cloud Storage, and Cloud KMS.

Without VPC Service Controls, an authorized user can copy data from a BigQuery dataset to their personal project. With a service perimeter, that exfiltration is blocked even if IAM allows the operation.

Define service perimeters around projects with sensitive data. Configure access levels using Access Context Manager to restrict access by IP range, device trust, or identity attributes. Use ingress and egress rules for controlled exceptions.

Security Command Center

Security Command Center (SCC) is GCP’s security posture management tool. The Premium tier provides:

• Security Health Analytics: Automated scans for misconfigurations (public buckets, open firewall rules, unencrypted disks)
• Event Threat Detection: Real-time analysis of Cloud Audit Logs for suspicious activity
• Container Threat Detection: Runtime threat detection for GKE workloads
• Web Security Scanner: Automated vulnerability scanning for App Engine, Compute Engine, and GKE web applications

Activate SCC at the organization level to get coverage across all projects. Route findings to Pub/Sub for integration with your SIEM or notification systems.

BeyondCorp Enterprise

BeyondCorp is Google’s zero-trust access model. Instead of VPN-based access where network location determines trust, BeyondCorp evaluates every request based on user identity, device state, and context.

Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) implements BeyondCorp for web applications and VM access. Place IAP in front of your internal applications, and users authenticate through Google identity with device trust verification. No VPN needed, no network-level access required.

Configure access levels that combine identity, device encryption status, and OS version. A user on a managed, patched device gets access. The same user on an unmanaged device gets blocked or receives limited access.

Next Steps

• Evaluate your multi-cloud security skills with the assessment tool
• Browse GCP and multi-cloud topics in the skills library
• Use the coaching tool to build a study plan for Google Cloud security certifications
• Find cloud security roles with the job search tool

Related Guides in This Series

• Active Directory Security: Attack Paths and Hardening — HADESS | 2026
• AWS ALB Security: TLS, Authentication, and Access Controls — HADESS | 2026
• AWS CloudTrail: Log Analysis and Security Monitoring — HADESS | 2026

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