Detect transitive access to sensitive Google Cloud resources

Securing Google Cloud resources often involves checking direct IAM permissions, but a common vulnerability lies in transitive access through service accounts. Transitive access occurs when service accounts act as principals in IAM policies, allowing workloads authenticated as these accounts to access associated permissions. Human users may also have permissions to authenticate as a service account, potentially leading to unauthorized access. Google provides tools like the Policy Analyzer API to detect such access, though its use is limited to paying Security Command Center customers. Alternatively, Google APIs can be used to identify service accounts with access to resources and analyze the principals with permissions to authenticate as those service accounts. Best practices suggest minimizing the creation of service account keys to prevent direct authentication paths and employing tools like P0 to assess and secure IAM configurations by identifying and managing access risks effectively.