Safety First: Announcing Few New G Suite Security Features

1.Support for the BIMI standard in Gmail:

While you have many defenses built into Gmail, you recognize that email functions in a large, complex, interconnected ecosystem. This is why Google is working not just to keep Gmail safe, but to help keep the entire ecosystem secure. 

Google usually does this in many ways: by making the technology available to others, as done with Safe Browsing and TensorFlow Extended (TFX); by collaborating for best practices in industry in working groups by helping create many of the standards that secure email today. 

Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI). The BIMI pilot will enable for organizations, who authenticate their emails using DMARC record, to validate ownership of their corporate logos and securely transmit them to Google. Once these authenticated emails pass all of the other anti-abuse checks, Gmail will start displaying the logo in existing slots in the Gmail UI.

BIMI provides advantage for the whole email chain system. By requiring strong authentication, users and email security systems can have increased confidence in the source of emails, and senders will be able to get advantage their brand trust as well as provide their customers with a more immersive experience.

“For organizations who want to create a trusted brand presence over email system BIMI is a great opportunity, incentivizing them to implement strong authentication, which in turn will lead to a safer, more trusted email chain system for everyone.

2.New controls for Meet   

Like Gmail, Google Meet securely connects people around the world. 

Nowadays during this pandemic Google meet demand very high for video and audio conferencing along with screen sharing feature. With people relying on Meet now more than ever, Google is working hard on new ways to keep video collaboration secure. In the coming weeks, Google will be rolling out new security controls to help ensure that only intended participants are let into a video meeting. In the initial rollout, these options will be available for consumer and G Suite for Education accounts.

First,  meeting hosts have increased control over who can “knock” and join their meetings. Enhanced meeting knocking builds on existing controls that require those not included on a meeting’s calendar invite to explicitly knock and ask to be admitted to a meeting. 

Once an attendee is forced out, they won't be able to attempt to join the same ongoing meeting again by knocking, unless the host re-invites them. 

If a knocking request from a user has been disallowed multiple times, the user will be automatically blocked from sending more requests to join the meeting.

This simply implies how secure the Environment is.

Second, Google gives hosts advanced safety locks so they can better protect meetings with a few simple clicks.

With the help of safety locks, meeting hosts can decide which methods of joining (via calendar invite or phone, for example) require users to obtain explicit approval to join. 

Engaging safety locks will block all anonymous users’ (users not logged into a Google account) attempts to join a meeting, and enforce the requirement that the host joins first, for example.

Specific safety locks enable the host to control the level of participant interactivity in the meeting. The chat lock and present lock will let hosts control which attendees can chat and present within the meeting.

Refer the below attached Snapshot.

3.New security features in Chat

Chat helps teams stay efficient, productive, and collaborative, whether they’re working from home, the office, or anywhere else. Google going to roll out new security features to make your Chat conversations even safer: 

It extends the strong phishing protections that have been built within Gmail and extended to Chat. If a link is sent to you via Chat, it will be checked against real-time data from Safe Browsing and flagged if it’s found to be malicious.

4. Additional security controls for admins 

The way we work looks very different now than before and admins are at the center of keeping their workforces online, productive, and secure. G Suite introduces several new features to help admins keep their organizations secure. First, we’re simplifying and enhancing device management.

G Suite redesigned the devices page in the G Suite admin console to include more intuitive navigation for device management and to quickly display the number of devices managed by each service.

Google is also launching the G Suite integration with Apple Business Manager (formerly DEP) to provide G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise Essentials, Cloud Identity Premium, and G Suite Enterprise for Education admins the ability to simply and securely distribute as well as manage company-owned Apple iOS devices.

Admins can now use automated information rights management (IRM) controls to prevent data exfiltration by blocking end users from downloading, printing, or copying Google Drive docs, sheets, and slides that contain sensitive content. 

These controls tie in with the Data Loss Prevention rules that have been set for the organization, and admins can run a full scan of all files within Google Drive and automatically enable these controls for all users. 

This features are now available in G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise Essentials, and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.

Lastly, G suite makes it very simple for admins to control app access. Admins can already decide which third-party apps can access users’ G Suite data with OAuth 2.0. Now, with the help App access control, they can save time by blocking apps from accessing G Suite services via API without creating an allow list for each app that requires access to G Suite data.