Ensure Cloud Storage buckets have versioning enabled
Description
Object versioning protects against accidental deletion and overwrites.
⚠️ Risk Impact
Without versioning, ransomware attacks can permanently destroy data. Accidental deletions are unrecoverable.
🔍 How EchelonGraph Detects This
EchelonGraph's Tier 1 Cloud Scanner automatically checks for this condition across all connected Google Cloud accounts. Violations are flagged as medium-severity findings with remediation guidance.
🖥️ Manual Verification
gsutil versioning get gs://BUCKET_NAME🔧 Remediation
Enable versioning: gsutil versioning set on gs://BUCKET_NAME
💀 Real-World Attack Scenario
A disgruntled employee with storage admin access deleted all objects in the production backup bucket during their last day. Without versioning, the backups were permanently lost. The company discovered the deletion 3 days later when a database restore was needed, resulting in permanent loss of 2 weeks of transaction data.
💰 Cost of Non-Compliance
Average cost of permanent data loss: $150K-$2M depending on data type. Ransomware attacks targeting unversioned storage succeed 95% of the time. Business interruption from data loss averages 14 days.
📋 Audit Questions
- 1.Which buckets have versioning disabled?
- 2.What is your lifecycle policy for versioned objects?
- 3.How do you protect against malicious deletion of version history?
🎯 MITRE ATT&CK Mapping
🏗️ Infrastructure as Code Fix
resource "google_storage_bucket" "versioned" {
name = "${var.project_id}-backups"
location = var.region
versioning {
enabled = true
}
lifecycle_rule {
condition { num_newer_versions = 5 }
action { type = "Delete" }
}
}⚡ Common Pitfalls
- ⛔Enabling versioning without lifecycle rules, leading to unbounded storage costs
- ⛔Not enabling Object Lock for compliance-critical data that needs WORM protection
- ⛔Assuming versioning protects against bucket-level deletion (it doesn't)
📈 Business Value
Versioning provides instant recovery from accidental deletion, ransomware, and insider threats. It's the cheapest insurance policy for your data.
⏱️ Effort Estimate
1 hour to enable versioning on all buckets
EchelonGraph monitors versioning status across all buckets continuously
🔗 Cross-Framework References
Automate CIS GCP 5.2 compliance
EchelonGraph continuously monitors this control across all your cloud accounts.
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