GCP VM Serial Port Access Enabled
The serial console is reachable outside your network controls, giving a way in that firewall rules do not cover.
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Google Cloud
Found, explained, handed over.
Where the estate departs from your policies, frameworks and tagging rules.
Detect
ZopNight checks this automatically across Google Cloud, with read-only access to the account.
Explain
Every finding says exactly what to change: Disable serial port access on the VM.
Fix
The finding opens with the fix already written out, step by step, so it is one ticket, not an investigation.
- Applies to
- Compute Engine on Google Cloud
- The fix, by hand
- Confirm no operational runbook still relies on the interactive serial console for this VM.
- Disable per-VM: gcloud compute instances add-metadata ‹name› --zone=‹zone› --metadata=serial-port-enable=FALSE.
- Enforce org-wide: set Organization Policy constraints/compute.disableSerialPortAccess = enforced (Cloud Console → IAM and Admin → Organization Policies).
- For break-glass debugging, prefer gcloud compute ssh + OS Login over re-enabling the serial port.
- Audit Cloud Logging compute.googleapis.com → serial_port for unexpected reads before enforcing org-wide.
These are the steps the finding carries in the product.
- Category
- Compliance. Configuration drift from best practice: public access, missing MFA, unencrypted storage, deprecated runtimes.
- Where it appears
- The Compliance tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
- Rule ID
RC-1204- Full reference
Related checks
See the compliance findings in your account.
Connect a read-only role and the first pass runs on your own estate. This check, and the rest of the catalogue, with it.
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- $30M+annualised cloud spend under management
- 550K+resources tracked since launch
- 20-60%off the bill in the first month
- SOC 2Type II report, plus ISO 27001
Figures published on zop.dev.