Will Google's AI Supercharge Google Workspace Security?

Hey, did you hear the latest Google buzz?

The Big Tech business is introducing AI magic to fortify Google Workspace security.

Let's dive into the juicy details and see what they're brewing!

Google has unveiled a series of AI-powered security automation throughout the Google Workspace, including Gmail and Drive. Google has plans to roll out these enhancements later this year and in early 2024, although they are currently in development or testing phases.

To begin, Google is working to improve the zero-trust paradigm it has pioneered. To better protect modern businesses, Google proposes a "zero-trust" cloud security paradigm that does away with "implied trust" and instead requires strong identity identification and authorization.

In a zero-trust environment, every user, device, and component, inside or outside the network, is seen as potentially malicious at all times.

Jeanette Manfra, Google's senior director of global risk and compliance, says the company is launching a pair of new features that merge zero trust and data loss prevention (DLP) as part of this strategy. “We’re bringing the two together and adding an ability to improve how you classify, using AI capabilities within Drive. And so what this does is it automatically and continuously classifies and labels sensitive data, and then applies appropriate risk-based controls,” Manfra stated last week at a press conference.

Additionally, she mentioned that Gmail would soon have improved DLP controls that will allow administrators to stop users from accidentally attaching sensitive material. “So, say a customer inadvertently sends sensitive data in a customer support email. This allows a Gmail customer to take the controls and sort of raise the bar on their security policies,” she said. For instance, admins could disable download or prevent copying and pasting those documents.
 

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However, that's not all!

More AI security measures have been added by Google.

Google is also adding additional context-aware restrictions in Drive so that managers can define conditions like a device location that must be met for users to share sensitive data, which is a major focus of these new capabilities.

Google is also employing AI to assist administrators in sifting through log data in search of data breaches, behavioral anomalies, etc. and to monitor Gmail for any unusual activity that may signal a hacker has obtained access to the account. This information was shared by Andy Wen, head of Product Management for Google Workspace.

Particularly problematic for businesses is the issue of "data sovereignty," the requirement to maintain ownership of proprietary data. Client-side encryption is now available on the desktop and the company has plans to roll it out to the mobile versions of Gmail, Calendar and Meet, as well as other Workspace products.

The fact that consumers own the encryption keys means that Google has no access to the data and cannot comply with a request from law authorities to turn over the keys. The company already gives users the option of where their data will be stored but now they'll also be able to select where it would be processed. Only the European Union or the United States will be involved initially.

“Keep in mind that the key benefit of client-side encryption is it protects your data where regionalization can be inadequate,” he said. “We do it by issuing an additional set of encryption keys that only the customer controls. This additional key encrypts the customer data — we call it from browser to browser — so that Google can never actually see the original content,” he said.

These and other enhancements are now in testing and will be made available in the near future. Google was vague on the pricing details but it seems that whether a feature is free or not depends on the type of account you have and the specific feature in question.
 
Will Google's AI-infused security upgrades for Google Workspace be a game-changer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!