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The New Reality for Lean Security Teams If you’re the first security or IT hire at a fast-growing startup, you’ve likely inherited a mandate that’s both simple and maddeningly complex: secure the business without slowing it down. Most organizations using Google Workspace start with an environment built for collaboration, not resilience. Shared drives, permissive settings, and constant integrations make life easy for employees—and equally easy for attackers. The good news is that Google Workspace provides an excellent security foundation. The challenge lies in properly configuring it, maintaining visibility, and closing the blind spots that Google’s native controls leave open. This article breaks down the key practices every security team—especially small, lean ones—should follow to harden Google Workspace and defend against modern cloud threats. 1. Lock Down the Basics Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) MFA is the single most effective way to stop account compromise. In ...

Let’s be honest: if you're one of the first (or the first) security hires at a small or midsize business, chances are you're also the unofficial CISO, SOC, IT Help Desk, and whatever additional roles need filling. You’re not running a security department. You are THE security department. You're getting pinged about RFPs in one area, and reviewing phishing alerts in another, all while sifting through endless FP alerts across the board. The tools meant to help are often creating more work than they solve. Security teams end up choosing between letting things slip or becoming the "Department of No." Chances are you inherited your company's Google Workspace. Thankfully, Google handles the infrastructure, the uptime, and the spam filtering. But while Google takes care of a lot, it doesn’t cover everything, and it can be difficult for security teams to operationalize all of Google’s underlying capabilities without significant engineering work. It’s your job to se...

Google Workspace has quickly become the productivity backbone for businesses worldwide, offering an all-in-one suite with email, cloud storage and collaboration tools. This single-platform approach makes it easy for teams to connect and work efficiently, no matter where they are, enabling seamless digital transformation that’s both scalable and adaptable. As companies shift from traditional, on-premises setups focused on device security, to more user-centered, hybrid models, Google Workspace is perfectly positioned to support this evolution. Now, the user account itself is the central hub, allowing access from any device or location — a game changer in today’s remote and distributed work environments. However, with all this connectivity and flexibility comes a challenge. Google Workspace connects to countless apps and touches every user in the organization, making it an appealing target for cybercriminals. The platform’s internet accessibility opens up additional entry points, raisi...

It is good to be paranoid when it comes to cybersecurity. Google already provides various advanced features such as login alerts and two-factor authentication to keep your Google account secure. However, if you are extra paranoid, Google has just introduced its strongest ever security feature, called " Advanced Protection ," which makes it easier for users, who are usually at high risk of targeted online attacks, to lock down their Google accounts like never before. "We took this unusual step because there is an overlooked minority of our users that are at particularly high risk of targeted online attacks," the company said in a blog post announcing the program on Tuesday.  "For example, these might be campaign staffers preparing for an upcoming election, journalists who need to protect the confidentiality of their sources, or people in abusive relationships seeking safety." Even if a hacker somehow gets your password—using advanced phishing a...

In what has been described as an "extremely sophisticated phishing attack," threat actors have leveraged an uncommon approach that allowed bogus emails to be sent via Google's infrastructure and redirect message recipients to fraudulent sites that harvest their credentials. "The first thing to note is that this is a valid, signed email – it really was sent from no-reply@google.com," Nick Johnson, the lead developer of the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), said in a series of posts on X. "It passes the DKIM signature check, and Gmail displays it without any warnings – it even puts it in the same conversation as other, legitimate security alerts." The email message informs prospective targets of a subpoena from a law enforcement authority asking for unspecified content present in their Google Account and urges them to click on a sites.google[.]com URL in order to "examine the case materials or take measures to submit a protest." The Google Si...

The use of software as a service (SaaS) is experiencing rapid growth and shows no signs of slowing down. Its decentralized and easy-to-use nature is beneficial for increasing employee productivity, but it also poses many security and IT challenges. Keeping track of all the SaaS applications that have been granted access to an organization's data is a difficult task. Understanding the risks that SaaS applications pose is just as important, but it can be challenging to secure what cannot be seen. Many organizations have implemented access management solutions, but these are limited in visibility to only pre-approved applications. The average medium-sized organization has hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of SaaS applications that have been adopted by employees who needed a quick and easy solution or found a free version, completely bypassing IT and security. This leads to a significant risk as many of these applications do not have the necessary security and/or compliance standard...

Google has finally rolled out the latest version of its popular web browser, i.e. Chrome 42 for Windows, Mac, and Linux users that now lets websites send you alerts, no matter your browser is open or not. The release of the latest Chrome 42 version is a great deal as it costs Google more than $21,000. Yes, $21,000! The latest version of Chrome comes with fixes for 45 security vulnerabilities in the web browser, reported by different security researchers [listed below]. Let's know about the Major updates : Major updates and significant improvements for Chrome version 42 includes: Advanced Push API and Notifications API Disabled Oracle's Java plugin by default as well as other extensions that use NPAPI Patched 45 security bugs and paid out more than $21,000 Push API : Google includes Push API in its web browser for the first time. Push API, when combined with the new notifications API, allows websites to push notifications to you through y...

Google on Thursday announced that passkeys are being used by over 400 million Google accounts, authenticating users more than 1 billion times  over the past two years . "Passkeys are easy to use and phishing resistant, only relying on a fingerprint, face scan or a pin making them 50% faster than passwords," Heather Adkins, vice president of security engineering at Google,  said . The search giant notes that passkeys are already used for authentication on Google Accounts more often than legacy forms of two-factor authentication, such as SMS one-time passwords (OTPs) and app based OTPs combined. In addition, the company said it's expanding  Cross-Account Protection , which alerts of suspicious events with third-party apps and services connected to a user's Google Account, to include more apps and services. Google is also expected to support the use of passkeys for high-risk users as part of its Advanced Protection Progr...

Less than 24 hours after Google launched the new Phishing alert extension Password Alert , a security researcher was able to bypass the feature using deadly simple exploits. On Wednesday, the search engine giant launched a new Password Alert Chrome extension to alert its users whenever they accidentally enter their Google password on a carefully crafted phishing website that aimed at hijacking users’ account. However, security expert Paul Moore easily circumvented the technology using just seven lines of simple JavaScript code that kills phishing alerts as soon as they started to appear, defeating Google’s new Password Alert extension. Google shortly fixed the issue and released a new update to Password Alert extension that blocked the Moore’s exploit. However, Moore discovered another way to block the new version of Password Alert, as well. The first proof of concept exploit by Moore relied on a JavaScript that looks for instances of warning screen every five mil...

In today's digital-first business environment dominated by SaaS applications, organizations increasingly depend on third-party vendors for essential cloud services and software solutions. As more vendors and services are added to the mix, the complexity and potential vulnerabilities within the  SaaS supply chain  snowball quickly. That’s why effective vendor risk management (VRM) is a critical strategy in identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks to protect organizational assets and data integrity. Meanwhile, common approaches to vendor risk assessments are too slow and static for the modern world of SaaS. Most organizations have simply adapted their legacy evaluation techniques for on-premise software to apply to SaaS providers. This not only creates massive bottlenecks, but also causes organizations to inadvertently accept far too much risk. To effectively adapt to the realities of modern work, two major aspects need to change: the timeline of initial assessment must s...

As part of its active efforts to protect billions of online users, Google identified and warned over 12,000 of its users who were targeted by a government-backed hacking attempt in the third quarter of this year. According to a report published by Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), more than 90 percent of the targeted users were hit with " credential phishing emails " that tried to trick victims into handing over access to their Google account. Google's TAG tracks over 270 government-backed hacking groups from over 50 countries that are involved in intelligence collection, stealing intellectual property, destructive cyber attacks, targeting dissidents, journalists, and activists, or spreading coordinated disinformation. The alerts were sent to targeted users between July and September 2019, which is consistent within a +/-10 percent range of the number of phishing email warnings sent in the same period of 2018 and 2017, the company said. These warnings u...

Google unveiled a slew of new privacy, safety, and security features today at its annual developer conference, Google I/O. The tech giant's latest initiatives are aimed at protecting its users from cyber threats, including phishing attacks and malicious websites, while providing more control and transparency over their personal data. Here is a short list of the newly introduced features - Improved data control and transparency Gmail Dark Web Scan Report Effortlessly Delete Maps Search History AI-Powered Safe Browsing Content Safety API Expansion About this Image Spam View in Google Drive Among the newly introduced features, the first on the list is improved data control and transparency. Google has unveiled an update for its Android operating system that allows users to better control location sharing through apps installed on their devices. "Starting with location data, you will be informed in permission requests when an app shares your information with third-pa...