Google Workspace, Google’s online office suite, will become even more secure. That’s the message behind Google’s announcement today of 11 new features.
Citing a 38% year-over-year increase in cybersecurity attacks in 2023, coupled with an average cost per data breach of $4.3 million, Google unveiled new IT security enhancements, some in preview, others to come later in the year.
It is not yet known which Workspace subscriptions will benefit from these new features. Google mentioned that some of them were aimed at its biggest customers, but it’s not yet clear if the rest of these improvements will apply to services aimed at SMBs.
With that, here is the full list of new features:
Zero Trust and DLP
The idea behind the principle of Zero Trust is that security extends beyond the first password login. Never trust. Always check. For example, if someone manages to break into your network, they still cannot access internal network resources.
DLP, or Data Loss Prevention, refers to services that prevent data theft from a network.
In this context, Google is introducing new Zero Trust controls and new DLP features for Workspace.
AI-Assisted Classification and Labeling for Google Drive
As in Gmail, tags can be applied to documents in Google Drive. With this new feature, some labels will be applied automatically, based on conditions specified by administrators. Auto-labeling configures documents for other controls in Workplace. This feature is now available in preview.
DLP: contextual controls in Drive
Let’s take an example: business rules for task lists can be configured to send pop-up notifications for specific tasks to specific locations. For example, if you have a task to complete to buy a product at the grocery store, the notification will trigger as soon as you enter the store.
Drive’s new contextual commands work the same way. Administrators can set different levels of security depending on the context. This can include device location, device type, security status, user role, and more. This feature will be available in preview later this year.
New DLP controls in Gmail
Although Google did not specify the exact nature of these controls, they are intended to prevent the sharing of sensitive information. These may be controls for forwarding messages or reading them in certain contexts. (For example, some messages can only be read at work.) This is speculation on my part, since Google hasn’t given any details about this feature. This feature will be available in preview later this year.
New Digital Sovereignty Controls
Digital sovereignty describes the idea of geographic location for data governance. For example, is your data located on servers in the United States or Europe? Where are the keys? This is important when it comes to complying with data security laws (like GDPR).
Google says it goes beyond data residency with digital sovereignty checks. Here are the four features introduced.
Improved client-side encryption
Client Side Encryption (CSE) is aptly named. Encryption is performed on the device, locally, before the data is sent to the server. The idea is that if data is encrypted before it reaches the network, it is secure.
Google is introducing a wide range of enhancements to the CSE, including support for mobile apps such as Calendar, Gmail, and Meet, setting CSE defaults based on organizational units, and more. As this is an exhaustive list of improvements, some are available now, while others will appear over time.
Specify location of encryption keys
New partnerships with Thales, Stormshield and FlowCrypt allow Workspace customers to choose the country whose servers host their encryption (and decryption) keys.
Choose the place of processing of your data
Currently, Google allows you to choose where your data is stored – in the EU or the US – when stored. Now Google says you’ll also be able to choose where to treatment of your data (i.e. where the processors that process your data are located). This possibility should be presented in preview later this year.
Choose the region that provides Google support technicians
Administrators can currently specify that access to Google Customer Support be limited to US-based personnel. Later this year, Google will preview a feature that allows customers to limit access to Google customer support to technicians based in the European Union.
Cyber Threat Prevention
Google is implementing a series of features intended to prevent cyber threats.
Mandatory two-step verification
Here’s a fascinating statistic from Google’s blog: Two-Step Verification Reduces Compromised Accounts by 50%. That’s a huge advantage for a relatively simple security tactic. In this series of announcements, Google said that “certain admin accounts” of resellers and large enterprises will need to add two-step verification to their accounts. This should start later this year.
Multiparty approval for sensitive admin actions
Google has realized that it’s probably not a good idea to entrust a single system administrator with divine and uncontrolled powers. This is why Google will add, later this year, the obligation for a second administrator to approve certain sensitive actions. This measure not only protects against errors, but also against the actions of a single administrator whose access may have been compromised.
Protection of sensitive actions in Gmail
Although Google is very reluctant to provide details at this time, the company said it is beginning to plan to use artificial intelligence-based defenses to block actions such as filtering or email forwarding. -mails. (Whether that will stop accountant George from sending “I’m hungry, I’m going to lunch” company-wide for the fifth time this month remains to be seen).
Export logs to Chronicle in just a few clicks
Chronicle is Google’s security suite. Google makes it easy to send logs from Workspace to Chronicle for further analysis. This feature is available in preview now.
Some Google Security Statistics
Google has also provided some statistics to present the advantages of its services:
This last statistic is interesting. If the report shows a savings of 50%, it is a savings of 50% compared to the lowest ranked alternatives. So there are other solutions that have insurance cost estimates similar to Google’s.
There you have it: Eleven new features from Google, available this year or next. They will be available for businesses, and possibly for small businesses. Better security is in sight, and it will come when it comes, but it will come.
Source: “ZDNet.com”