Professional Cloud Security Engineer by Google Cloud — Preparation Guide
- Certification Exam details:
Exam Format: 50–60 multiple choice and multiple select questions
Duration: 2 hours ( 120 mins)
Happy to share that I’ve successfully cleared the Professional Cloud Security Engineer Certification exam on Nov 2022.
In this article, I’ll be sharing my learning journey as well as the resources that helped me learn and prepare for the exam.
2. Experience:
It’s good to have a prior experience working as a cloud security engineer. I worked as a Google Cloud Security Engineer in banking domain from past 9 months before attempting for the certification exam.
However, even if you do not have any prior experience, you can still clear the exam by following the below mentioned resources and wearing your security hat.
3. Courses:
There are a plethora of courses out there on various sites. However, make sure the one you refer to covers all the topics as mentioned in the official exam guide — https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/cloud-security-engineer
I had referred to cloudskillsboost(being from a Google Partner Company) for training as well as hands-on. You can also signup for trial account with Google Cloud. Hands-on will help to gain deeper understanding of theory learnt through videos and eventually it helps during the exam.
As the saying goes — ~One doesn’t remember everything one reads or sees but one doesn’t forget anything one does!
You can take one out of the following courses:
- Google Cloud Certified Professional Security Engineer | Pluralsight for training
- cloudskillsboost for hands-on. They are the best lab exercises for your understanding.
- https://www.udemy.com/course/google-cloud-certification-associate-cloud-engineer/
4. GCP Security Cheat Sheet
There are a number of Google documentation links and articles I referred to while going through the video courses. The list is quite exhaustive as I’m already working in GCP Cloud security area and had to gain deeper understanding before I attempted for the certification.
Github link — https://github.com/jagdishwala-kapil/gcp_cloud_security/blob/main/security_detailed_links
I would also recommend going through Priyanka Vergadia’s Sketch Notes as well as her book Visualizing Google Cloud for deeper understanding of Google Cloud. ( Refer Chapter 8 — Page 206 onwards for Security)
5. Practice Exams
I purchased the following practice exam from Udemy — https://www.udemy.com/share/107CnO/ which had more than 150 questions to prepare and gain confidence for the exam.
There are multiple other practice exams available on learning sites which you can purchase. But as long as your prepare from one exam and gain confidence on how well you understand the concepts, you should be able to crack the final exam.
6. PIR — Post Exam Review
Following topics are of utmost important for the exam:
- Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
- Cloud KMS — Difference and usage of DEK, KEK, CMEK, CSEK, HSM.
- IAP
- Data Encryption
- VPC, Network Peering , Shared VPC
- Load Balancer types and it’s usages from security perspective.
- Cloud Security Scanner/DNSSEC/Cloud Armor
Thank you for going through this article and I hope this helps you along your journey to become a Certified Professional Cloud Security Engineer.
Good luck on your journey!
Please do not hesitate to reach me out on LinkedIn for further support.
Lastly, if you are into Cloud Security like me, you can even follow Security podcasts on Spotify from Google — https://open.spotify.com/show/12WPC7aW5kd0kKSyrpgnHI
I usually listen to it in the gym or while travelling. They share various security related expertise as well as case studies from different clients.
References:
- Cheat Sheet by Kapil Jagdishwala — https://github.com/jagdishwala-kapil/gcp_cloud_security/blob/main/security_detailed_links
- Sketch Notes & Visualizing Google Cloud book by Priyanka Vergadia
- Udemy Course — https://www.udemy.com/course/google-cloud-gcp-professional-cloud-security-engineer-certification/
- Practice Exam — https://www.udemy.com/share/107CnO/
- PluralSight course — https://www.pluralsight.com/paths/google-cloud-certified-professional-security-engineer
- Spotify Podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/12WPC7aW5kd0kKSyrpgnHI
