Project stopped due to "potential violation" - Google stopped responding to appeals / messages

[davedw]

Morning, 

I had a project running that very frequently scraped an API and returned results of new products / updated products to a discord channel. 

Google flagged it as potential crypto mining, I explained via the appeal it wasn't that, what it actually did and asked what I can do to avoid being flagged again (i.e. do I need to move to a certain tier etc.. as the amount of compute needed was fine in the free tier), but getting no response at all now, box is still stopped. 

Any thoughts or suggestions on what to do next? 

Thanks,
Dave.

[Manish_B]

Hello @davedw,

Thank you for contacting Google Cloud Community.

I understand that your project got suspended saying that you are mining cryptocurrency and you have submitted an appeal, but there was no response yet.

Please be aware that it would take 3-5 business days for the team to review your appeal and get back to you with the resolution steps, best practices and mitigation steps to avoid getting flagged in the future. If the appeal had been submitted a long time ago and there is no reply back to your appeal, please reach out to the Google Cloud Support. 

In addition to this, We recommend that you review this activity to determine if it is intended. Cryptocurrency mining is often an indication of the use of fraudulent accounts and payment instruments, and we require verification in order to mine cryptocurrency on our platform.

Therefore if you wish to continue engaging in cryptocurrency mining, and you haven't already applied for an Invoiced Billing Account [1], please do so. Additional information is available in the Cloud Security Help Center [1].

If you believe your project has been compromised, we recommend that you secure all your instances [2], which may require
uninstalling and then re-installing your project.

To better protect your organization from misconfiguration and access the best of Google's threat detection, you may consider enabling Security Command Center (SCC) for your organization. To learn more about SCC visit [3].

Also, to secure your instances on Google Cloud Platform, please follow these best practices:

1. Connect securely to your instance. For externally facing applications, it's a good idea to configure your firewalls properly and secure your ports.

2. Ensure the project firewall is not open to everyone on the internet. Leaving all firewall rules open to 0.0.0.0/0 will mean that any source on the internet can establish a connection to your instance. Unless you specifically want to make your instance publicly available, a general best practice is to allow access only to your application, and only on the ports your application needs access to.

3. Use a strong password. Passwords ensure that only authorized people have access to your instance. In addition, remember to secure the Gmail account that you use for accessing the Cloud Platform Console.

4. Ensure that all software is up to date. Make sure that the software you have installed is up to date and that there are no known vulnerabilities that could compromise your instance.

5. Monitor project usage closely via the monitoring API to identify abnormal project usage. Google Cloud Platform offers Stackdriver Logging. Stackdriver Logging enables you to collect and store logs from applications and services on the Google Cloud Platform. You can use logging to create log-based metrics for monitoring and alerting on unusual behavior. Investigate any suspicious usage to ensure that your instance is not being hijacked by malicious software. 

I hope the above information is helpful 🙂

Thanks & Regards,
Manish Bavireddy.

[1] support.google.com/cloud/contact/apply_for_invoiced_billing
[2] https://support.google.com/cloud/answer/6262505
[3] https://cloud.google.com/security-command-center.

[davedw]

Hi @Manish_B 

Thanks for responding. 

The problem is, it's not crypto mining, however the project makes very frequent requests to an API, so I'm guessing that's what causes it to be flagged up as such. 

Email response has been longer than 5 days. Just tried to create a case, I don't have permission to do that, I don't pay for support either, so don't think adding any role types would help? 

I don't need day-to-day support, just need to understand what I can do to avoid being blocked for this, do I need to be of a certain tier level etc.. ? 

I've spun up a new VM cloning the old image in the short term, I assume the same thing will happen to this one. 

Dave.

[Manish_B]

Hello @davedw,

Thank you for your response.

It is suggested that, to recover a suspended project fix the issue and follow the link in the notification email or contact Google Support. To contact Google support, log in to your Google account. See the Policy Violations FAQ for more information on appeal best practices in case of a Project resource suspension. 

Since you have appealed and didn't receive any response in the stipulated time, I suggest you create a support ticket with Google to proceed further with your appeal and to know the best practices that could  be followed to avoid this flagging in the future.

Thanks & Regards
Manish Bavireddy. 

[davedw]

Thanks again for replying @Manish_B - not sure if I'm being daft or not, but I believe you need to have either;

Standard Support, Enhanced Support, or Premium Support service to be able to log a ticket? 

When I try at the moment, it just tells me: You do not have permission to create support cases.

I gave myself Tech Support Editor just in case, but it doesn't seem to make any difference, so assuming it's because I don't pay for support? 

Thanks,
Dave.

[Manish_B]

Yes @davedw your understanding is correct. You will not be able to create a 1:1 technical support ticket with a free trail account. For more information, please refer to this document. 

Thanks & Regards,  
Manish Bavireddy.

[davedw]

OK, so basically I can't get support on this, the team I respond to either ignores the text I reply with and sends me a standard copy/paste reply about crypto mining and compromised accounts, or just ignores me altogether....... sounds good. 

Thank you for taking the time to respond, nice to speak to someone that at least takes time to read and respond to messages. Looks like once this instance gets shut down, I'll be moving provider to someone I can speak to, so my project can run uninterrupted.