GCP PCI Data Exposure Prevention

Why It Matters

The core goal is to proactively secure every location where payment card data is stored within your Google Cloud Platform environment, preventing exposures before they occur. Implementing preventive controls for PCI data in GCP is critical for organizations subject to PCI-DSS, as it helps you maintain compliance by ensuring cardholder data is never inadvertently exposed to unauthorized parties—eliminating the risk of costly breaches and regulatory penalties.

Primary Risk: Unrestricted public access to payment card data

Relevant Regulation: PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)

A comprehensive prevention strategy delivers proactive protection, ensuring automated policy enforcement and continuous compliance monitoring.

Prerequisites

Permissions & Roles

GCP Organization Admin or Project Owner
Cloud Storage Admin, BigQuery Admin privileges
Ability to configure IAM policies and VPC firewall rules

External Tools

Google Cloud CLI (gcloud)
Cyera DSPM account
API credentials and service accounts

Prior Setup

GCP projects provisioned
Cloud Security Center enabled
VPC networks configured
Data residency requirements documented

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 machine learning algorithms, including Named Entity Recognition (NER) and pattern matching, Cyera automatically identifies PCI data in GCP environments and implements preventive controls to stop exposures before they happen, ensuring continuous PCI-DSS compliance.

Step-by-Step Guide

Configure data discovery and classification

Set up automated scanning across Cloud Storage buckets, BigQuery datasets, and Cloud SQL instances to identify and classify PCI data using AI-powered detection models.

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID --member="serviceAccount:cyera@PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com" --role="roles/storage.objectViewer"

Implement preventive access controls

In the Cyera portal, navigate to Policies → Prevention → Add Policy. Configure automatic IAM policy enforcement to prevent public access to buckets and datasets containing PCI data, including conditional access based on data classification.

Enable encryption and network security

Automatically enforce Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) for PCI data storage, configure VPC Service Controls to create security perimeters, and implement Private Google Access for secure data processing.

Set up continuous monitoring and alerting

Configure real-time alerts for policy violations, establish automated remediation workflows, and integrate with Cloud Security Command Center for centralized security monitoring and incident response.

Architecture & Workflow

GCP Data Services

Cloud Storage, BigQuery, Cloud SQL data sources

Cyera AI Engine

NER models and pattern matching for PCI detection

Policy Enforcement

Automated IAM and encryption policy application

Monitoring & Alerts

Real-time compliance monitoring and remediation

Prevention Flow Summary

Discover Assets → Classify PCI Data → Apply Controls → Monitor Compliance

Best Practices & Tips

Access Control Strategy

Implement least-privilege IAM policies
Use service accounts with minimal scopes
Enable VPC Service Controls for data perimeters

Encryption Management

Use CMEK for PCI data at rest
Enable encryption in transit with TLS 1.2+
Rotate encryption keys regularly

Common Pitfalls

Forgetting to secure temporary storage buckets
Over-permissive BigQuery dataset sharing
Neglecting to monitor legacy Cloud SQL instances

References & Further Reading

Next Steps

🔍 Detect: Identify existing PCI data exposures 🔧 Fix: Remediate discovered PCI data exposures