Encryption Transit Rest Protocols Threat Mitigation

What encryption in transit and encryption at rest are:

• Encryption in transit: Cryptographic protection applied to data as it moves across networks between clients, Google Cloud services, or distributed infrastructure. In Google Cloud, communication over API endpoints and web traffic uses Transport Layer Security (TLS/HTTPS).
• Encryption at rest: Cryptographic protection applied to data when persisted onto storage systems (such as disks, solid-state drives, or backup storage). Google Cloud automatically encrypts persisted data using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) or AES-128 before writing it to physical media.

How it meets the security requirements:

• Mitigates network eavesdropping (✓): TLS/HTTPS encrypts the communication channel between the user and Google Cloud APIs. This protects data packets against man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, packet sniffing, and network interception while moving across public or private connections.
• Mitigates physical media compromise (✓): AES-256 encrypts chunks of data before they are written to disk. If an attacker gains unauthorized physical access to storage hardware or attempts to inspect decommissioned drives, the raw bits on the media remain unreadable without the managed cryptographic keys.

Key capabilities of Google Cloud default encryption:

• Automatic and transparent: Encryption at rest operates by default at the storage layer without requiring application modifications or user configuration.
• Strong cryptographic algorithms: Industry-standard AES-256 is used by services like Secret Manager and Cloud Storage for server-side encryption.
• Standard transport protocols: Secure communication is enforced by default across API endpoints using HTTPS/TLS.
• Defense-in-depth: Combining both transport-level and storage-level encryption ensures continuous protection across every phase of the data lifecycle.

Why this is optimal:

Securing cloud workloads requires mapping the correct cryptographic controls to the specific environment where data resides. Using TLS for network paths prevents interception during transmission, while using AES-256 ensures that data persisted in multi-tenant cloud storage infrastructure is completely protected from unauthorized physical inspection.