Group Product Manager, Gmail Security & Trust
Director, Product Management, Google Workspace
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With so many people working remotely, it's more important than ever that the tools we use to stay in touch and productive are safe and secure. That’s why today we’re announcing new updates that provide even stronger security in Gmail, Meet, and Chat. We’re also unveiling new ways to help IT admins easily manage and secure devices in the Admin Console.
While we have many defenses built into Gmail, we recognize that email functions in a large, complex, interconnected ecosystem. This is why we’re working not just to keep Gmail safe, but to help keep the entire ecosystem secure.
We do this in many ways: by making our technology available to others, as we’ve done with Safe Browsing and TensorFlow Extended (TFX); by collaborating and sharing best practices in industry working groups; and by helping create and shape many of the standards that secure email today.
Today, we’re excited to announce the pilot of another standard we’ve been working on: Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI). Our BIMI pilot will enable organizations, who authenticate their emails using DMARC, to validate ownership of their corporate logos and securely transmit them to Google. Once these authenticated emails pass all of our other anti-abuse checks, Gmail will start displaying the logo in existing avatar slots in the Gmail UI.
BIMI provides benefits to the whole email ecosystem. By requiring strong authentication, users and email security systems can have increased confidence in the source of emails, and senders will be able to leverage their brand trust and provide their customers with a more immersive experience.
“For organizations that want to create a trusted brand presence over email, BIMI is a great opportunity, incentivizing them to implement strong authentication, which in turn will lead to a safer, more trusted email ecosystem for everyone,” said Seth Blank, Chair of the AuthIndicators Working Group, and Vice President, Standards and Technologies, Valimail
We’ll be starting the BIMI pilot in the coming weeks with a limited number of senders, and with two Certification Authorities to validate logo ownership: Entrust Datacard and DigiCert. To prepare for the post-pilot launch of BIMI and to generally help secure the ecosystem, we encourage organizations to start adopting DMARC. We look forward to a successful pilot, and to making BIMI generally available in the coming months, at which point organizations can choose if they want to adopt this standard. To learn more about BIMI, visit the working group’s website.
Like Gmail, Google Meet securely connects people around the world. With people relying on Meet now more than ever, we're working hard on new ways to keep video collaboration secure. In the coming weeks, we’ll 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, we’re giving meeting hosts 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.
Second, we’re giving hosts advanced safety locks so they can better protect meetings with a few simple clicks.
These features add to the protections we’ve already put in place to prevent brute-force attacks, so even if an attacker guesses the meeting code, they wouldn’t be able to enter the meeting without the host’s permission. If the host mistakenly admits the attacker, the chat and present locks would help prevent the meetings from getting disrupted. Finally, if any abuse were to occur, users can report it directly within the meeting.
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Chat helps teams stay efficient, productive, and collaborative, whether they’re working from home, the office, or anywhere else. We’re rolling out new security features to make your Chat conversations even safer:
The way we work looks very different now than it did six months ago, and IT admins are at the center of keeping their workforces online, productive, and secure. We’re introducing several new features to help admins keep their organizations secure. First, we’re simplifying and enhancing device management.
Second, we’ve always prioritized keeping your sensitive data protected and private, and today we’re announcing another enhancement to our Data Loss Prevention feature that helps prevent unauthorized access to data.
Lastly, we’re making it simpler 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 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.
Safety and security are a priority for us at Google Cloud, and we hope these updates make it easier for IT admins to protect their organization while saving them time and effort.
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