[Action Advised] Review Google Cloud credential security best practices

February 09, 2026

Mandatory Service Announcement from Google Cloud

MY CONSOLE

We’re writing to provide you with security best practices regarding the management of service account keys and API keys within your Google Cloud environment.

Recent security trends indicate that long-lived credentials without proper security best practices remain a top security risk for unauthorized access. To ensure your environment remains secure, and to modernize your authentication strategy, we strongly advise implementing the unified security framework outlined below.

What you need to do

Action advised:

Secure the credential lifecycle: Apply standard security hygiene by following these best practices:

Zero-Code Storage: Never commit keys to source code or version control. Use Secret Manager to inject credentials at runtime.
Disable Dormant Keys: Audit your active keys and decommission any that show no activity over the last 30 days.
Enforce API Restrictions: Never leave an API key unrestricted. Limit keys to specific APIs (e.g., Maps Java Script only) and apply environmental restrictions (IP addresses, HTTP referrers, or bundle IDs).
Apply Least Privilege: Never give full permissions to a service account. Use the IAM recommender to prune unused permissions for service accounts, ensuring only the absolute minimum access required for their function.
Mandatory Rotation: Implement the iam.serviceAccountKeyExpiryHours policy to enforce a maximum lifespan for all user-managed service account keys. If service account keys are not needed, implement iam.managed.disableServiceAccountKeyCreation to disable the creation of new service account keys.

Improve operational safeguards: Ensure a rapid response to security incidents by completing the following:

Set Essential Contacts: Verify that your Essential Contacts are up to date to ensure critical security notifications reach the right people during an incident.
Set Billing Anomaly and Budget Alerts: Ensure billing anomaly and budget alerts notifications are acted on. A sudden spike in consumption is often the first indicator of a compromised credential.