Privileged Access with IAM: Challenge Lab

Overview

In a challenge lab you’re given a scenario and a set of tasks. Instead of following step-by-step instructions, you will use the skills learned from the labs in the course to figure out how to complete the tasks on your own! An automated scoring system (shown on this page) will provide feedback on whether you have completed your tasks correctly.

When you take a challenge lab, you will not be taught new Google Cloud concepts. You are expected to extend your learned skills, like changing default values and reading and researching error messages to fix your own mistakes.

To score 100% you must successfully complete all tasks within the time period!

This lab is recommended for students who have enrolled in the <> course. Are you ready for the challenge?

Topics tested

This lab challenges you to demonstrate your ability to do the following:

Enable Privileged Access Manager (PAM) and complete the initial setup.
Create an entitlement, update its configuration, and delete it when no longer needed.
Manage grants by requesting, approving, and revoking access.

Setup and requirements

Before you click the Start Lab button

Read these instructions. Labs are timed and you cannot pause them. The timer, which starts when you click Start Lab, shows how long Google Cloud resources are made available to you.

This hands-on lab lets you do the lab activities in a real cloud environment, not in a simulation or demo environment. It does so by giving you new, temporary credentials you use to sign in and access Google Cloud for the duration of the lab.

To complete this lab, you need:

Access to a standard internet browser (Chrome browser recommended).

Note: Use an Incognito (recommended) or private browser window to run this lab. This prevents conflicts between your personal account and the student account, which may cause extra charges incurred to your personal account.

Time to complete the lab—remember, once you start, you cannot pause a lab.

Note: Use only the student account for this lab. If you use a different Google Cloud account, you may incur charges to that account.

Click the Start Lab button. If you need to pay for the lab, a dialog opens for you to select your payment method. On the right is the Lab setup and access panel with the following:
- The Open Google Cloud console button
- The temporary credentials (username and password) that you must use for this lab
- Other information, if needed, to step through this lab
Note that the lab timer is located near the top of the page, showing the remaining time.
Click Open Google Cloud console (or right-click and select Open Link in Incognito Window if you are running the Chrome browser).

The lab spins up resources, and then opens another tab that shows the Sign in page.

Tip: Arrange the tabs in separate windows, side-by-side.

Note: If you see the Choose an account dialog, click Use Another Account.
If necessary, copy the Username below and paste it into the Sign in dialog.
You can also find the Username in the Lab setup and access panel.
Click Next.
Copy the Password below and paste it into the Welcome dialog.
You can also find the Password in the Lab setup and access panel.
Click Next.

Important: You must use the credentials the lab provides you. Do not use your Google Cloud account credentials.

Note: Using your own Google Cloud account for this lab may incur extra charges.
Click through the subsequent pages:
- Accept the terms and conditions.
- Do not add recovery options or two-factor authentication (because this is a temporary account).
- Do not sign up for free trials.

After a few moments, the Google Cloud console opens in this tab.

Note: To access Google Cloud products and services, click the Navigation menu or type the service or product name in the Search field.

Challenge scenario

Here is a company overview of Cymbal Group:

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Cymbal currently employs 775,000 people across the world and reported 192 billion US dollars in revenue in 2026.

Cymbal has always been strongly committed to innovation, uncovering meaningful ways to transform industries and deliver better experiences for its customers. Cymbal’s branded businesses span multiple sectors including manufacturing, financial services, media, healthcare, retail, aviation, and education.

Cymbal Group has been rapidly making the transition to a cloud-first operating model. Cymbal Bank, Superstore, and other Cymbal Group assets have all been adopting Google Cloud as part of their technology strategy.

As a cloud administrator at Cymbal Group, you are responsible for enforcing the principle of least privilege by eliminating standing high-level administrative permissions. To do this, you are setting up Privileged Access Manager (PAM) to control temporary, just-in-time privilege elevation for your operations team.

In this challenge, you will play the role of the administrator setting up the system, but you will also simulate the full request and approval workflow. You will be working with two user personas to test this workflow:

Cymbal Systems Admin (primary_user): This is your primary account. You will use it to enable PAM, create the initial entitlements, and simulate an engineer requesting temporary elevation to Compute Admin to perform a task.
Cymbal Security Lead (secondary_user): This is your team's security lead. You will sign in as this user in a separate private window to review, approve, and eventually revoke the access grant request, demonstrating dual-control compliance.

Your challenge

Your challenge is to configure PAM secure access control, manage entitlements, and handle just-in-time privilege elevation. You must successfully request, approve, and revoke access grants, ensuring compliance and clean audit trails before cleaning up the environment.

Task 1. Enable Privileged Access Manager

In this task, you must enable Privileged Access Manager and grant the necessary permissions to the service agent.

Enable the Privileged Access Manager API in your project.
Locate the Google-managed Privileged Access Manager service agent (created automatically upon activation) and grant it the Privileged Access Manager Service Agent role.