Your company uses Google Cloud and has publicly exposed network assets. You want to discover the assets and perform a security audit on these assets by using a software tool in the least amount of…

Running a platform security scanner on *all* instances (even private ones) would be inefficient and time-consuming, as the question specifically asks for auditing *publicly exposed* network assets.

Cloud Asset Inventory is designed to provide a centralized view of all Google Cloud assets across projects, folders, and the organization. You can query it to identify resources with public IP addresses or public-facing configurations. Once these external assets are identified, you can then efficiently target them with a network security scanner (e.g., a vulnerability scanner) to audit their security posture in the least amount of time by focusing only on the exposed attack surface.

Contacting a Google-approved security vendor is a valid approach for an audit, but it might not be the "least amount of time" solution for an internal team wanting to use a software tool.

Notifying Google is generally required for external penetration testing that simulates attacks, but for a security *audit* using a software tool to scan *your own* publicly exposed assets (especially if not aggressively malicious), this step is often not a prerequisite for internal teams.