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GCP Databases Should Have SSL - Security Rule

More Info:​

Ensures SQL databases have SSL enabled. Enabling SSL ensures that the sensitive data being transferred from the database is encrypted.

Risk Level​

High

Address​

Security

Compliance Standards​

  • APRA CPS 234 (Australia)
  • BSI C5 (Germany)
  • Brazil LGPD
  • CCPA / CPRA (California)
  • CIS Critical Security Controls v8
  • CIS GCP
  • CIS GCP 2.0.0
  • CMMC 2.0
  • CSA Cloud Controls Matrix v4
  • Cloudanix Best Practice
  • DPDPA
  • Digital Operational Resilience Act (EU)
  • HITRUST CSF
  • ISO/IEC 27017
  • ISO/IEC 27018
  • ISO/IEC 27701
  • KSA PDPL
  • MAS Technology Risk Management (Singapore)
  • MITRE ATT&CK (Cloud)
  • NIS2 Directive
  • NIST CSF
  • NIST SP 800-171
  • NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500
  • PCI
  • SOC2
  • SWIFT Customer Security Controls Framework
  • Sarbanes-Oxley IT General Controls
  • UK NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework

Triage and Remediation​

Remediation​

Using Console

To remediate the misconfiguration "Databases should have SSL" for GCP using GCP console, follow the below steps:

  1. Open the GCP Console and navigate to the Cloud SQL Instances page.
  2. Select the instance that you want to configure SSL for.
  3. Click on the "Edit" button at the top of the page.
  4. Scroll down to the "SSL" section and click on the "Show Configuration Options" button.
  5. Select the option "Server-ca.pem" for "Server Certificate" and "Client-cert.pem" for "Client Certificate".
  6. Click on the "Save" button to apply the changes.

After following the above steps, SSL will be enabled for the selected instance in GCP.

Using CLI

To remediate the misconfiguration "Databases Should Have SSL" for GCP using GCP CLI, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Cloud Shell in the GCP Console.

  2. Run the following command to list all the Cloud SQL instances in your project:

gcloud sql instances list

  1. Identify the instance that needs to be remediated and note down its name.

  2. Run the following command to enable SSL for the Cloud SQL instance:

gcloud sql instances patch [INSTANCE_NAME] --require-ssl

Replace [INSTANCE_NAME] with the name of your Cloud SQL instance.

  1. Verify that SSL is enabled for the Cloud SQL instance by running the following command:
gcloud sql instances describe [INSTANCE_NAME] | grep requireSsl

Replace [INSTANCE_NAME] with the name of your Cloud SQL instance.

  1. If the output of the above command shows "requireSsl: true", then SSL has been successfully enabled for the Cloud SQL instance.

  2. Repeat the above steps for all the Cloud SQL instances in your project that need to have SSL enabled.

By following the above steps, you can remediate the misconfiguration "Databases Should Have SSL" for GCP using GCP CLI.

Using Python

To remediate the misconfiguration of databases not having SSL in GCP using Python, you can follow the below steps:

  1. First, connect to the Cloud SQL instance using the Cloud SQL Admin API and authenticate using the Google Application Default Credentials (ADC).
from google.oauth2 import service_account
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.errors import HttpError

# Authenticate using ADC
credentials = service_account.Credentials.from_service_account_file(
    '/path/to/adc.json')

# Connect to Cloud SQL Admin API
service = build('sqladmin', 'v1beta4', credentials=credentials)
  1. Next, retrieve the current instance settings using the instances().get() method.
# Get current instance settings
instance = service.instances().get(project='my-project', instance='my-instance').execute()
  1. Check if SSL is enabled for the instance. If not, enable it using the settings().update() method.
# Check if SSL is enabled
if not instance['settings']['ipConfiguration']['requireSsl']:
    # Enable SSL
    instance['settings']['ipConfiguration']['requireSsl'] = True
    request = service.instances().update(project='my-project', instance='my-instance', body=instance)
    response = request.execute()
  1. Finally, verify that SSL is enabled by checking the requireSsl property of the instance settings.
# Verify SSL is enabled
if instance['settings']['ipConfiguration']['requireSsl']:
    print('SSL is enabled for the instance.')
else:
    print('Failed to enable SSL for the instance.')

By following the above steps, you can remediate the misconfiguration of databases not having SSL in GCP using Python.

Using Terraform
resource "google_sql_database_instance" "PRIMARY_INSTANCE" {
  name             = "PRIMARY_INSTANCE_NAME"        # substitute: your instance name
  database_version = "MYSQL_8_0"                    # substitute: your engine/version
  region           = "PRIMARY_INSTANCE_REGION"      # substitute: the region

  settings {
    tier = "db-f1-micro"                            # substitute: machine tier

    ip_configuration {
      # This enforces SSL/TLS for all incoming connections
      require_ssl = true
    }
  }
}

Changing require_ssl from false to true is an in‑place update and does not force replacement of the instance, though existing non‑SSL clients will start failing to connect and must switch to SSL.

To verify, terraform plan should show an in‑place update on google_sql_database_instance.PRIMARY_INSTANCE with settings.0.ip_configuration.0.require_ssl changing from false (or null) to true.

Additional Reading:​