Is Your Google Workspace Environment Secure?

Everyday productivity applications can hold a significant amount of corporate data, creating risk for an organization—particularly with remote and hybrid workforces, where data could reside at the ‘edge’ of the organization in laptops, mobile phones and even unregistered devices.

IT teams are challenged with striking a balance between accessibility and functionality for employees, while keeping this hybrid work environment secure. There’s also growing concern over shadow IT, as employees continue to use a variety of office productivity and collaboration tools across their personal and business devices.

Thanks to an evolving hybrid work environment combined with the growth of shadow IT, data security plagues IT teams. While you can block certain unauthorized applications, this may not go over well with employees—and they may look for a workaround. That leaves many IT teams asking the same question: Is there a better way to do it?

Securing your data in Google Workspace

IT teams need to consider a wide spectrum of solutions for hybrid work, from VPNs to mobile device management, as well as the inherent security features in office productivity suites like Google Workspace. For example, you can create Data Loss Prevention (DLP) rules in Google Workspace that allow it to scan the contents of a PDF for credit card information and, once detected, block it in action.

You can also create granular access control policies across applications and attributes such as user identity location. This allows you to determine which devices should use which applications—or if certain devices can even be used outside of the network.

Google Workspace also has a detailed investigation tool, so you can triage and act against threats using comprehensive queries across devices and users, correlating the results for causation and deleting malicious email or web devices.

There are a couple of ongoing things organizations can do to ensure their productivity and collaboration applications are secure. First, perform an annual security assessment to verify that your security settings are up to date. And second, schedule a quarterly business review with a Google partner that specializes in security, privacy and risk management.

Take security up a notch with the right partner

Pythian can help you execute security, compliance and data governance in Google Workspace, especially if you don’t have the time or internal expertise to do so, or aren’t getting the help you need from your licensed reseller.

Pythian’s long-established Google Workspace practice encompasses a full range of services, from recommending the Google tools that best suit an organization’s needs, to training and support. There are also fixed-fee Google Workspace Security Assessments that include remediation, recommendations and implementation of Google Workspace’s configuration and security settings, ensuring all data is protected in accordance with your desired configuration.

The security audit has three distinct phases beginning with an evaluation of your organization’s current Google Workspace environment and security settings. Pythian’s Google Solution Experts then present their findings and make recommendations for improvements. The process includes two consulting sessions with guidance to implement any remediation and other updates.

Workspace is better with Pythian. We offer more comprehensive support for Google Workspace than typical resellers, and can help your business stay secure while unlocking more value. In an environment where security is an ever-increasing concern, it’s table stakes to have strategic guidance on how to best manage remote Workspace environments.

Learn more about how we can help, or schedule some time with a Pythian Google Workspace expert today!