Use customer-managed encryption keys

By default, Cloud Tasks encrypts customer content at rest. Cloud Tasks handles encryption for you without any additional actions on your part. This option is called Google default encryption.

If you want to control your encryption keys, then you can use customer-managed encryption keys (CMEKs) in Cloud KMS with CMEK-integrated services including Cloud Tasks. Using Cloud KMS keys gives you control over their protection level, location, rotation schedule, usage and access permissions, and cryptographic boundaries. Using Cloud KMS also lets you view audit logs and control key life cycles. Instead of Google owning and managing the symmetric key encryption keys (KEKs) that protect your data, you control and manage these keys in Cloud KMS.

After you set up your resources with CMEKs, the experience of accessing your Cloud Tasks resources is similar to using Google default encryption. For more information about your encryption options, see Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK).

What is protected with CMEK

When you enable CMEK in Cloud Tasks, you enable it for a region. When enabled, the body and header of tasks created in that region are protected with your key when at rest. If a task was created while CMEK was enabled, and the key is later made inactive (by disabling or deleting the key, or by disabling CMEK) the task is encrypted with your key but cannot be executed.

Tasks are not protected with CMEK in the following cases:

• Task was created before enabling CMEK
• Task is not in the region for which CMEK is enabled
• Task is affected by a compatibility limitation

Compatibility limitations

The Cloud Tasks integration with CMEK does not support the following:

• google-gax versions below 4.0.0: The NPM package google-gax for Node.js has limited support at versions earlier than 4.0.0. For these versions, CMEK is only supported in the region us-central1. Even if you only have tasks in that region, it is recommended that you upgrade to version 4.0.0 or later.

• App Engine built-in Taskqueue service: Tasks created using the App Engine built-in Taskqueue service are not protected by CMEK, even if they are in a region for which it is enabled. Enabling CMEK does not prevent the creation or operation (for example, execution or deletion) of these tasks.

• Pull queues: If you enable CMEK, you can create and execute tasks on pull queues, but these tasks are not protected by CMEK. Pull queues are uncommon. To check if your queue is a pull queue, run the following gcloud CLI command in your terminal:

  gcloud tasks queues describe QUEUE_NAME
  

  Replace QUEUE_NAME with the name of your queue.

  If the type listed is pull, your queue is a pull queue. If the type listed is push, this limitation does not affect tasks on your queue.

• Queue-level routing: When CMEK is enabled, you cannot apply queue-level routing. And if queue-level routing is enabled, you cannot enable CMEK. To check if you have queue-level routing enabled, do the following:

  1. Run the following gcloud CLI command in your terminal:

     gcloud tasks queues describe QUEUE_NAME

     Replace QUEUE_NAME with the name of your queue.

  2. In the output, look for the field httpTarget and check if the uriOverride has been set. If a host is specified, your queue has queue-level routing enabled and is not compatible with CMEK. To remove queue-level routing, see Update or remove queue-level routing. If the output does not show uriOverride with a host specified, your queue does not use queue-level routing.

• Task TTL: When CMEK is enabled, you cannot set task_ttl to greater than 60 days. And if you have a task_ttl set to greater than 60 days, you cannot enable CMEK.

Before you begin

Before using CMEK in Cloud Tasks, complete the following steps:

1. Enable the APIs.

   Console

   1. Enable the Cloud KMS and Cloud Tasks APIs.

      Enable the APIs

   gcloud

   1. In the Google Cloud console, activate Cloud Shell.

      Activate Cloud Shell

      At the bottom of the Google Cloud console, a Cloud Shell session starts and displays a command-line prompt. Cloud Shell is a shell environment with the Google Cloud CLI already installed and with values already set for your current project. It can take a few seconds for the session to initialize.

   2. Set your default project. This should be the project that contains the Cloud Tasks resources that you want to protect with CMEK. If you need to run a command in a different project, such as the project containing your Cloud KMS resources, this page will include the --project flag in the gcloud CLI command and tell you which project to specify.

      gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID
      

      Replace PROJECT_ID with the ID of the project that contains your Cloud Tasks resources.

   3. Update gcloud components.

      gcloud components update
      

   4. Enable the Cloud KMS and Cloud Tasks APIs for the project that will store your encryption keys.

      gcloud services enable cloudkms.googleapis.com cloudtasks.googleapis.com 
      
      --project=PROJECT_ID
      

      Replace PROJECT_ID with the ID of the project that will store your encryption keys. This could be the same project as your Cloud Tasks resources, but to limit access to your Cloud KMS keys, consider Setting up Cloud KMS in a separate project.

2. Cloud KMS produces Cloud Audit Logs when keys are enabled, disabled, or used by Cloud Tasks resources to encrypt and decrypt data. Make sure that logging is enabled for the Cloud KMS API in your project, and that you have decided which logging-specific permissions and roles apply to your use case. For more information, see Cloud KMS audit logging information.

3. Get Identity and Access Management roles.

   To get the permissions that you need to use CMEK with Cloud Tasks, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles on your project:

   • Enable or disable CMEK: roles/cloudtasks.admin
   • View the key in use: roles/cloudtasks.viewer

   For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

   You might also be able to get the required permissions through custom roles or other predefined roles.

Create a Cloud KMS key ring and key

If you already have a key ring in the same region as your Cloud Tasks resources and you want to use that key and key ring, skip this section. If not, use these instructions to create your Cloud KMS key and key ring.

1. Create a key ring.

   • The key ring must be in the region that contains the Cloud Tasks resources that you want to protect. For more information, see Cloud KMS locations and Cloud Tasks locations.

   • The key ring and the CMEK-protected Cloud Tasks resources can be in the same project, but to limit access to your Cloud KMS keys, consider setting up Cloud KMS in a separate project.

2. Create a key for a specified key ring.

Retrieve the ID for a Cloud KMS key

The resource ID for a Cloud KMS key is required when you enable CMEK for Cloud Tasks.

Grant the Cloud Tasks service agent access to the key

You must grant the Cloud Tasks service agent the Cloud KMS CryptoKey Encrypter/Decrypter Identity and Access Management (IAM) role so that it can access the Cloud KMS key:

gcloud kms keys add-iam-policy-binding KEY_ID \
    --member=serviceAccount:service-PROJECT_NUMBER@gcp-sa-cloudtasks.iam.gserviceaccount.com \
    --role=roles/cloudkms.cryptoKeyEncrypterDecrypter

As long as the service agent has the roles/cloudkms.cryptoKeyEncrypterDecrypter role, a task in your CMEK-enabled region can encrypt and decrypt its data using the CMEK key. If you revoke this role, or if you disable or destroy the CMEK key, that data can't be accessed. In this document, see Disable CMEK for Cloud Tasks.

Enable CMEK for Cloud Tasks

You can enable CMEK using the API or the gcloud CLI. For Cloud Tasks, CMEK is enabled by region. It is not enabled by individual tasks. When CMEK is enabled for a given region in Cloud Tasks, all tasks in that region are protected by CMEK.

gcloud tasks cmek-config update --location=LOCATION --kms-key-name=KEY_ID

To verify that the key was enabled successfully, follow the instructions in the section Identify the key in use.

Enable for pre-existing tasks

CMEK does not protect tasks that were created prior to enabling CMEK for Cloud Tasks. To protect pre-existing tasks with CMEK:

1. Enable CMEK (see the section on enabling CMEK).

2. Replace the pre-existing tasks. There are two primary ways to do this. The best way to do it depends on what is important to you:

   • Continuous execution: To ensure continuous execution ("at least once" delivery), you can first recreate the task and then delete the pre-existing task after verifying that the new task works as expected. This can result in duplicate executions, because both the old and new task may execute before you delete the old task.

   • Duplicate prevention: To prevent duplicate executions ("at most once" delivery), you can first delete the old task and then recreate it. This can result in lost executions, because of the time elapsed between deleting the old task and creating the new one.

Identify the key in use

To identify the CMEK key in use for your Cloud Tasks resources, run the following gcloud CLI command in your terminal:

gcloud tasks cmek-config describe --location=LOCATION

Replace LOCATION with the region of your Cloud Tasks resources.

If there is no output, then CMEK is not configured for the location specified.

Disable CMEK for Cloud Tasks

You can disable CMEK using the API or the gcloud CLI. For Cloud Tasks, CMEK is disabled by region. It is not disabled by individual tasks. When CMEK is disabled for a given region in Cloud Tasks, tasks in that region are not protected by CMEK.

Disabling CMEK affects tasks created in the future, not tasks created in the past:

• New tasks: are not protected by CMEK

• Pre-existing tasks: tasks that were created while CMEK was enabled remain encrypted and continue to execute as long as the Cloud KMS key remains active.

gcloud tasks cmek-config update --location=LOCATION --clear-kms-key

Remove Cloud KMS

If you want to revoke data access to your tasks, you can remove Cloud KMS. There are three ways to do this:

• Disable the customer-managed encryption key. Disabling a CMEK key suspends access to all data protected by that key version while the key is disabled. You can't access or create tasks with a key that is disabled. Attempting to execute a CMEK-protected task while the key is disabled results in an UNKNOWN error in Cloud Logging. You can re-enable the key later if you want. When you disable a customer-managed encryption key, it can take up to 5 minutes for the change to apply.

• Destroy the customer-managed encryption key. Destroying a CMEK key permanently suspends access to all data protected by that key version. You can't access or create tasks with a key that has been destroyed. If a task was created while CMEK was enabled, and the key is later destroyed, the task is encrypted with your key but cannot be executed. If the task attempts to execute, Cloud Logging logs an UNKNOWN error. When you destroy a customer-managed encryption key, it can take up to 5 minutes for the change to apply.

• Revoke the cloudkms.cryptoKeyEncrypterDecrypterIAM role from the Cloud Tasks service agent. This affects all tasks in the Google Cloud project that support encryption using CMEK. You can't create new CMEK-integrated tasks, or view any CMEK-encrypted resources.

Although none of these operations guarantees instantaneous access revocation, IAM changes generally take effect faster. For more information, see Cloud KMS resource consistency and Access change propagation.

Pricing

This integration does not incur additional costs beyond the key operations, which are billed to your Google Cloud project. For current pricing information, see Cloud KMS pricing.