GCP Customer Data Exposure Remediation

Learn how to fix customer data exposure in GCP environments. Follow step-by-step guidance for GDPR compliance and automated remediation.

data exposure

GDPR

gcp

Why It Matters

The core goal is to systematically remediate exposed customer data across your GCP environment, ensuring proper access controls and encryption are in place. Fixing customer data exposure in GCP is critical for organizations subject to GDPR, as it helps you demonstrate that you've taken immediate action to protect personal data and prevent unauthorized access or breaches.

Primary Risk: Data exposure leading to regulatory violations

Relevant Regulation: GDPR General Data Protection Regulation

Rapid remediation reduces exposure windows, ensures compliance with data protection regulations, and maintains customer trust through proactive security measures.

Prerequisites

Permissions & Roles

  • Project Owner or Security Admin role
  • Cloud Storage Admin, BigQuery Admin
  • IAM Admin for policy modifications

External Tools

  • Google Cloud SDK (gcloud CLI)
  • Cyera DSPM account
  • Cloud Asset Inventory API enabled

Prior Setup

  • GCP project with billing enabled
  • Cloud DLP API activated
  • Security Command Center configured
  • Audit logging enabled

Introducing Cyera

Cyera is a modern Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) platform that discovers, classifies, and continuously monitors your sensitive data across cloud services. By leveraging advanced AI and Named Entity Recognition (NER) models, Cyera automatically identifies customer data patterns in GCP resources and provides intelligent remediation workflows to fix exposures in real-time, ensuring GDPR compliance and reducing manual security overhead.

Step-by-Step Guide

1
Assess current exposure status

Use Cyera's dashboard to review all identified customer data exposures across Cloud Storage buckets, BigQuery datasets, and Compute Engine instances. Prioritize findings based on exposure severity and data sensitivity.

gcloud auth login && gcloud config set project [PROJECT-ID]

2
Implement immediate access controls

For publicly accessible resources containing customer data, immediately restrict access using IAM policies and bucket/dataset permissions. Remove public access and apply principle of least privilege.

3
Enable encryption and data protection

Configure Cloud KMS encryption for sensitive resources, enable Cloud DLP for ongoing monitoring, and set up data classification labels. Apply retention policies where appropriate.

4
Establish continuous monitoring

Configure Cyera's automated remediation workflows to handle future exposures. Set up alerts for new customer data discoveries and integrate with Security Command Center for centralized visibility.

Architecture & Workflow

Cloud Asset Inventory

Discovers and catalogs GCP resources

Cyera AI Engine

Classifies data using NER and ML models

Remediation Engine

Automates access control and encryption

Security Command Center

Centralized security findings and alerts

Remediation Flow Summary

Identify Exposure → Restrict Access → Apply Encryption → Monitor Compliance

Best Practices & Tips

Prioritization Strategy

  • Address publicly accessible data first
  • Focus on PII and financial customer data
  • Consider data volume and access frequency

Automation & Scaling

  • Use Cloud Functions for automated responses
  • Implement policy-as-code with Terraform
  • Set up Organization Policy constraints

Common Pitfalls

  • Over-restricting access breaking applications
  • Missing legacy resources in remote regions
  • Forgetting to update service account permissions

References & Further Reading

Next Steps

🛡️ Prevent: Set up proactive customer data protection 🔍 Detect: Implement ongoing customer data discovery