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Google Professional Security Operations Engineer Exam Syllabus

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Before starting your Professional Security Operations Engineer exam preparation, it is recommended to review the complete Google Professional Security Operations Engineer exam syllabus and carefully go through the exam objectives listed below. Once you understand the exam structure and objectives, you should practice using our free Professional Security Operations Engineer questions. We also provide premium Professional Security Operations Engineer practice test, fully updated according to the latest exam objectives, to help you accurately assess your preparedness for the actual exam.

Google Professional Security Operations Engineer Exam Objectives

Section Weight Objectives
Plaorm operations 14% 1.1 Enhancing detection and response. Considerations include:
? Prioritizing telemetry sources (e.g., Security Command Center [SCC], Google
Security Operations [SecOps], GTI, Cloud IDS) to detect incidents or
miscongurations within an enterprise environment
? Integrating multiple tools (e.g., SCC, Google SecOps, GTI, Cloud IDS,
downstream third-party system) in the security architecture to enhance
detection capabilities
? Justifying the use of tools with overlapping capabilities based on a set of
requirements
? Evaluating the eectiveness of existing tools to identify gaps in coverage and
mitigate potential threats
? Evaluating automation and cloud-based tools to enhance existing detection and
response processes
1.2 Conguring access. Considerations include:
? Conguring user and service account authentication to security tools (e.g., SCC,
Google SecOps)
? Conguring user and service account authorization for feature access using IAM
roles and permissions
Conguring user and service account authorization for data access using IAM
roles and permissions
? Conguring and analyzing audit logs (e.g., Cloud Audit Logs, data access logs)
for the solution
? Conguring API access for automations within security tools (e.g., service
accounts, API keys, SCC, Google SecOps, GTI)
? Provisioning identities using Workforce Identity Federation
Data management 14% 2.1 Ingesting logs for security tooling. Considerations include:
? Determining approaches for data ingestion within security tools (e.g., SCC,
Google SecOps)
? Conguring an ingestion tool or features within security tools (e.g., SCC, Google
SecOps)
? Assessing required logs for detection and response, including automated
sources, within security tools (e.g., SCC Event Threat Detection, Google SecOps)
? Evaluating parsers for data ingestion in Google SecOps
? Conguring parser modications or extensions in Google SecOps
? Evaluating data normalization techniques from log sources in Google SecOps
? Evaluating new labels for data ingestion
? Managing log and ingestion costs
2.2 Identifying a baseline of user, asset, and entity context. Considerations include:
? Identifying relevant threat intelligence information in the enterprise environment
? Dierentiating event and entity data log sources (e.g., Cloud Audit Logs, Active
Directory organizational context)
? Evaluating event and entity data matches for enrichment by using aliasing elds
Threat hunting 19% 3.1 Performing threat hunting across environments. Considerations include:
? Developing queries to search across environment logs to identify anomalous
activity
? Analyzing user behavior to identify anomalous activity
? Investigating the network, endpoints, and services to identify threat paerns or
indicators of compromise (IOCs) using Google Cloud tools (e.g., Logs Explorer,
Log Analytics, BigQuery, Google SecOps)
 Collaborating with the incident response team to identify active threats in the
environment
? Developing hypotheses based on behavior, threat intel, posture, and incident
data (e.g., SCC, GTI)
3.2 Leveraging threat intelligence for threat hunting. Considerations include:
? Searching for IOCs within historical logs
? Identifying new aack paerns and techniques in real time using threat
intelligence and risk assessments (e.g., GTI, detection rules, SCC toxic
combinations)
? Analyzing entity risk score to identify anomalous behavior
? Comparing and performing retrohunt of historical event data with newly
enriched logs (e.g., Google SecOps rules engine, BigQuery, Cloud Logging)
? Searching proactively for underlying threats using threat intelligence (e.g., GTI,
detection rules)
Detection engineering 22% 4.1 Developing and implementing mechanisms to detect risks and identify threats.
Considerations include:
? Reconciling threat intelligence with user and asset activity
? Analyzing logs and events to identify anomalous activity
? Assessing suspicious behavior paerns by using detection rules and searches
across various timelines
? Designing detection rules that use risk values (e.g., Google SecOps reference
lists) to identify threats matching risk proles
? Discovering anomalous behavior of assets or users, and assigning risk values to
the detections (e.g., Google SecOps Risk Analytics, curated detection rules)
? Designing detection rules to discover posture or risk prole changes within the
environment (e.g., SCC Security Health Analytics [SHA], SCC posture
management, Google SecOps)
? Identifying new or low prevalence processes, domains, and IP addresses that do
not appear in threat intelligence sources using various methods (e.g., writing
YARA-L rules, dashboards)
? Assessing how to use entity/context data within detection rules to improve their
accuracy (e.g., Google SecOps entity graph)
? Conguring SCC Event Threat Detection custom detectors for IOCs
4.2 Leveraging threat intelligence for detection. Considerations include:
3
? Scoring alerts based on the risk level of IOCs
? Using latest IOCs to search within ingested security telemetry
? Measuring the frequency of repetitive alerts to identify and reduce false
positives
Detection engineering 21% 5.1 Containing and investigating security incidents. Considerations include:
? Collecting evidence on the scope of the incident, including forensic images and
artifacts
? Observing and analyzing alerts related to the incident using security tooling
(e.g., SCC, Google SecOps)
? Analyzing the scope of the incident using security tooling (e.g., Logs Explorer,
Log Analytics, BigQuery, Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring)
? Collaborating with other engineering teams for detection and long-term
remediation eorts
? Isolating aected services and processes to prevent further damage and spread
of aack
Analyzing identied artifacts based on forensic analysis (e.g., Hash, IP, URL,
Binaries) (GTI)
? Performing root cause analysis using security tools (e.g., SCC, Google SecOps
SIEM)
5.2 Building, implementing, and using response playbooks. Considerations include:
? Determining the appropriate response steps for automation
? Prioritizing high-value enrichments based on threat proles
? Evaluating appropriate integrations to be leveraged by playbooks
? Designing new processes in response to newly identied aack paerns from
recent incidents
? Recommending new orchestrations and automation playbooks based on gaps in
the current implementation (e.g., Google SecOps SOAR)
? Implementing mechanisms to notify analysts and stakeholders of incidents
5.3 Implementing the case management lifecycle. Considerations include:
? Assigning cases into appropriate response stages
? Implementing ecient workows for case escalation
? Assessing the eectiveness of case handos
Observability 10% 6.1 Developing and maintaining dashboards and reports to provide insights. Considerations
include:
? Identifying key security analytics (e.g., metrics, KPIs, trends)
? Implementing dashboards to visualize security telemetry, ingestion metrics,
detections, alerts, and IOCs (e.g., Google SecOps SOAR, SIEM, Looker Studio)
? Generating and customizing reports (e.g., Google SecOps SOAR, SIEM)
6.2 Configuring health monitoring and alerting. Considerations include:
? Identifying important metrics for health monitoring and alerts
? Creating dashboards that centralize metrics
? Creating alerts with thresholds for specific metrics
? Configuring notifications using Google Cloud tools (e.g., Cloud Monitoring)
? Identifying health issues using Google Cloud tools (e.g., Cloud Logging)
? Conguring silent source detection
Official Information https://cloud.google.com/learn/certification/security-operations-engineer