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Is Your Google Workspace as Secure as You Think it is?. 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 the Google Admin console, go to: Security → Authentication → 2-Step Verification Even with perfect phishing detection, stolen credentials are inevitable. MFA makes them useless. Harden Admin Access Admin accounts are a prime target. In Admin Console → Directory → Roles, This ensures one compromised admin account doesn't mean total compromise. Secure Sharing Defaults Google's collaboration tools are powerful—but their default sharing settings can be dangerous. Under Apps → Google Workspace → Drive and Docs → Sharing Settings: Drive leaks rarely happen through malice—they happen through convenience. Tight defaults prevent accidental exposure. Control OAuth App Access Under Security → Access and Data Control → API Controls, Compromised or poorly coded apps can become silent backdoors to your data. 2. Fortify Against Email Threats Email remains the most targeted and exploited part of any organization's cloud environment. While Google's built-in phishing protection blocks a lot, it can't always stop socially engineered or internally originated attacks—especially those leveraging compromised accounts. To improve resilience: These three email authentication mechanisms ensure attackers can't impersonate your domain. Set them up under Apps → Google Workspace → Settings for Gmail → Authenticate Email. Phishing awareness helps, but human error is inevitable. Layer detection and response tools that can identify suspicious internal messages, lateral phishing attempts, or malicious attachments that bypass Google's filters. Email threats today move fast. Response speed—not just detection—is critical. 3. Detect and Contain Account Takeovers A compromised Google account can cascade quickly. Attackers can access shared Drives, steal OAuth tokens, and silently exfiltrate data. Proactive Monitoring In the Security Dashboard → Investigation Tool, monitor for: Automated Alerts Set up automated alerts for: Google's alerts are helpful but limited. They don't correlate across multiple accounts or detect subtle, slow-moving compromises. 4. Understand and Protect Your Data It's impossible to secure what you don't understand. Most organizations have years of unclassified, sensitive data buried in Drive and Gmail—financial models, customer data, source code, HR files. Data Discovery and DLP While Google offers Data Loss Prevention (DLP), it's rigid and often noisy. Under Security → Data Protection, you can: Smarter Access and Governance When sensitive files are inevitably over-shared, automation—not manual cleanup—should handle it. 5. Balance Collaboration and Control Google Workspace thrives because of its openness—but that openness can create silent exposure. To protect data without throttling productivity: Security shouldn't mean saying "no." It should mean enabling safe collaboration by default. From Foundation to Fortress: Filling the Native Gaps Even with every native control tuned, Google Workspace still has blind spots—because its tools were designed for collaboration first, and security second. The Gaps: This is where Material Security transforms Workspace from a secure platform into a truly resilient one. How Material Extends Google Workspace Security Material detects and neutralizes sophisticated phishing, internal impersonation, and BEC-style attacks that slip past Google's filters. Material monitors a rich set of behavioral signals—forwarding rule changes, credential resets, unusual data access—to detect compromised accounts early. Material continuously scans Gmail and Drive to identify sensitive data—PII, contracts, source code—and applies customizable, risk-based access controls. Instead of managing dozens of disjointed alerts, Material correlates identity, data, and email signals into a unified dashboard—providing context, prioritization, and automated enforcement. Final Thoughts Google Workspace offers a secure foundation, but it's only that—a foundation. As your company grows, your threat surface expands, and the native tools' limits start to show. Building on Google's strong base with solutions like Material Security gives teams the leverage to: Interested in seeing how Material secures your entire Google Workspace? Request a demo of Material Security