Trust and Security with Google Cloud · Topic 1 of 5
Cyber Threats and Cloud Security Basics
Cyber threats and their business impact, cloud versus on-premises security, and control, compliance, confidentiality, integrity and availability in the cloud.
- 4 min
- Know each threat and its business impact, including LLM attacks such as prompt injection.
- Misconfiguration is one of the most common causes of cloud breaches.
- Cloud security is shared: the provider secures infrastructure, the customer secures data, access and configuration.
What it is
Security starts with knowing what can go wrong. The exam lists common cybersecurity threats and expects you to know their business implications. It also asks how cloud security differs from on-premises security, and why control, compliance, confidentiality, integrity and availability matter in a cloud security model.
How it works
The threats
| Threat | What it is | Business implication |
|---|---|---|
| DDoS (distributed denial of service) | Floods a service with traffic from many sources to knock it offline | Lost sales, unhappy customers |
| Ransomware | Malware that encrypts or steals data and demands payment | Operations stop; ransom, recovery and reputational cost |
| Cryptomining | Attackers use stolen compute resources to mine cryptocurrency | Large unexpected cloud bills; a sign of compromised accounts |
| Malware | Any malicious software designed to harm, spy or steal | Data theft, system damage |
| Viruses | Malware that attaches to files and spreads when they run | Spread across systems |
| Phishing | Fraudulent messages that trick people into revealing credentials or running malware | Stolen accounts, often the first step of a bigger attack |
| Misconfiguration | Settings left insecure, such as a storage bucket open to the public | Data exposure; one of the most common causes of cloud breaches |
| Unsecured third-party systems | A supplier or tool with weak security that has access to your systems | Attackers enter through the weakest partner |
| Physical damage | Fire, flood, power failure or hardware theft | Downtime and data loss without redundancy |
| LLM attacks | Attacks on large language models, such as prompt injection that makes a model ignore its instructions or leak data | Harmful outputs, data leakage from AI apps |
Cryptomining shows up as a sudden, unexplained increase in compute use and cost. Misconfiguration is the classic self-inflicted cloud risk.
Cloud security versus on-premises security
| On premises | Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Who secures what | The organization secures everything, from the building to the application | Shared responsibility: the provider secures the infrastructure; the customer secures its data, access and configurations |
| Physical security | Your own guards, locks and hardware | Provider's purpose-built data centers |
| Scale of expertise | Limited to the in-house team | Provider's large specialist security teams |
| Speed of updates | Patching depends on your team's schedule | Infrastructure patched by the provider |
| Spending model | Large upfront security investments | Security capabilities consumed as services |
| Perimeter | A defined network boundary | Access from anywhere, so identity becomes the main boundary |
The customer's responsibility never disappears. Most cloud breaches come from the customer side: weak passwords, too many permissions and misconfigured resources.
Control, compliance and the CIA triad
| Concept | Meaning | Cloud example |
|---|---|---|
| Control | The organization decides who accesses its data and how it is protected | Customer-managed encryption keys, IAM policies |
| Compliance | Meeting laws, regulations and industry standards | Proving data handling meets health or payment card rules |
| Confidentiality | Only authorized people can see the data | Encryption and access control |
| Integrity | Data is accurate and has not been changed without authorization | Audit logs, checksums, version history |
| Availability | Systems and data are there when needed | Multiple zones, backups, DDoS protection |
Confidentiality, integrity and availability are known as the CIA triad, the foundation of information security.
A worked scenario
An online pharmacy suffers a phishing attack: an employee's password is stolen and used to start large VMs for cryptomining, while an old storage bucket is found misconfigured and open to the public. The bucket exposure breaks confidentiality and compliance with health data rules. The pharmacy enforces multi-factor authentication, removes excessive permissions and fixes the bucket, because under shared responsibility these are its own duties.
How the exam asks about this
- A symptom is described and you name the threat (unexpected compute cost is cryptomining).
- "Who is responsible for configuring access to customer data?" The customer.
- A requirement is described and you choose confidentiality, integrity or availability.
What to remember for the exam
- Know each threat and its business impact, including LLM attacks such as prompt injection.
- Misconfiguration is one of the most common causes of cloud breaches.
- Cloud security is shared: the provider secures infrastructure, the customer secures data, access and configuration.
- CIA triad: confidentiality (who can see), integrity (unchanged and accurate), availability (accessible when needed).
- Control and compliance remain the customer's goals.
Moving to the cloud does not hand all security to the provider. Access and configuration remain the customer's job.
Common mistakes
Confusing integrity with confidentiality. Integrity is about data being correct and unaltered, not about who sees it.
Thinking DDoS steals data. It aims to make a service unavailable.
Assuming cloud is less secure than on premises. Providers often secure infrastructure better; customer misconfiguration is the bigger risk.
Check yourself
Which threat often appears as an unexpected rise in compute costs?
Cryptomining on compromised resources.
Which part of the CIA triad ensures data has not been changed without authorization?
Integrity.
In the cloud, who is responsible for access settings on customer data?
The customer.
Topic 1 of 5 in Trust and Security with Google Cloud
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