Phishing attacks are one of the most common forms of malware we see today. They boil down to the simple act of trying to get you to click a link a false link and download an infected file to your device. On top of that simple end goal, scammers and attackers can add on layers of complexity, distraction, and deception, all to try and get you to click that link. In recent weeks we’ve seen these types of attacks flashing up as ads on major crypto websites and even malware hiding in false job offers. They are a big problem, which is why Google is moving to protect Google Chat users from this type of attack.
If you are a Gmail user, you will be familiar with the banner that displays on emails any time they are sent from suspicious recipients or recipients outside of your organization. You also see something similar in Google Drive when somebody shares a file with you from a personal account. This is to prevent you from downloading something from an outside source without thinking. Google is now adding this functionality to Google Chat too.
Google Chat is the text chat app that comes as a part of the Google Workspace ecosystem. This means that its primary function is to work as a chat app between colleagues in an organization, but like with email, it is also open to receiving messages from outsiders. That is why this is an important update from Google that should boost the data security of companies using Google Workspace.
Try to think of all the times you receive and download files from colleagues at work. Now think about if an infected file was sent by a malicious actor in a message that looked exactly the same as all those other messages you receive. Sure, you might catch most of them but the chances of one or two getting through are much higher than they would be if these types of messages were flagged. It makes perfect sense for Google to introduce these banner warnings to Google Chat.
These security updates to Google Workspace aren’t the only developments to come to the Google Workspace ecosystem in recent weeks. As Google attempts to lure Microsoft Office users over to its own productivity suite, it has recently upgraded Google Docs with some productivity-boosting features that are definitely worth checking out.
