How to Secure Your Company's Google Workspace

Google Workspace has become the operational backbone for businesses that rely on Gmail, Google Drive, Google Meet, and the full suite of productivity tools for daily work. For many organizations, every client communication, financial document, and strategic plan lives inside Google Workspace. That concentration of sensitive data makes your Google Workspace tenant one of the most valuable targets an attacker can pursue. A single compromised account can expose years of email history, shared drives full of confidential documents, and the access needed to impersonate employees in ongoing business conversations. Despite this risk, most businesses run Google Workspace with configurations that prioritize convenience over security.

Why Default Configurations Create Risk

Google provides a solid security foundation out of the box, but the default settings for a new Google Workspace tenant are designed to minimize friction during onboarding rather than maximize protection. External file sharing is typically open, allowing employees to share Google Drive files with anyone outside the organization. Third-party app access may be unrestricted, letting any employee grant OAuth permissions to unknown applications that can read their email and files. Two-step verification is available but not always enforced, leaving accounts protected by passwords alone.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has published specific guidance on securing cloud environments, noting that misconfigured cloud tenants are among the most commonly exploited entry points in both targeted and opportunistic attacks. Treating Google Workspace security as a configuration project rather than an assumption is essential for any business that handles sensitive client or employee data.

Enforce Two-Step Verification for Every Account

Two-step verification is the most impactful security control available in Google Workspace. Google has reported that accounts protected by two-step verification are significantly less likely to be compromised, even when passwords are exposed in data breaches. Yet many organizations have not enforced two-step verification universally, leaving gaps in coverage for service accounts, shared mailboxes, or recently onboarded employees.

Enforce two-step verification at the organizational unit level in the Google Admin console to ensure that every user must enroll. Where possible, require phishing-resistant methods such as hardware security keys or Google passkeys rather than SMS codes, which are vulnerable to SIM-swapping attacks. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has deprecated SMS as an authentication factor for sensitive systems, recommending authenticator apps and hardware tokens as stronger alternatives. For administrative accounts, hardware security keys should be mandatory without exception.

Configure Email Authentication to Stop Spoofing

Email impersonation is the starting point for the majority of business email compromise attacks, and Google Workspace provides the tools to prevent it. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are three complementary email authentication standards that together verify whether an incoming message was actually sent by an authorized server for the claimed domain.

SPF defines which servers may send email on behalf of your domain. DKIM attaches a cryptographic signature to outbound messages so receiving servers can confirm they were not altered in transit. DMARC ties these together with a policy that instructs receiving servers how to handle messages that fail authentication. Configure SPF and DKIM in your Google Admin console and DNS settings, then publish a DMARC record starting with a monitoring policy before progressing to enforcement. Google also offers built-in protections against inbound spoofing, phishing, and malware in Gmail’s advanced security settings, including pre-delivery message scanning and external sender warnings that should be enabled for all organizational units.

Restrict Third-Party App Access

One of the most overlooked risks in Google Workspace is the OAuth permissions that employees grant to third-party applications. When a user connects a productivity tool, CRM integration, or browser extension to their Google account, they may be granting that application ongoing access to read their email, view their calendar, or browse their Drive files. These permissions persist until explicitly revoked, and many users grant them without understanding the scope of access they are providing.

In the Google Admin console, configure API access controls to restrict which third-party apps can access Google Workspace data. Maintain an allowlist of approved applications and block all others by default. Review the currently authorized apps across your organization using the security investigation tool to identify any applications with broad access that were not explicitly approved. The Federal Trade Commission emphasizes the importance of controlling which third parties can access personal and business information, a principle that applies directly to OAuth app governance.

Implement Data Loss Prevention Rules

Google Workspace includes built-in data loss prevention capabilities that can scan outbound email and Drive files for sensitive content and automatically block or flag policy violations. DLP is particularly critical for businesses in regulated industries where the accidental exposure of client financial data, health records, or personally identifiable information can trigger regulatory penalties and reputational damage.

Configure DLP rules in the Google Admin console to detect sensitive information patterns such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and tax identification numbers. Create custom content detectors for business-specific sensitive data like client account numbers or internal classification labels. DLP rules can be set to warn users before sharing, block the action entirely, or quarantine the content for administrative review. Apply DLP policies to both Gmail and Google Drive to cover the two primary channels through which sensitive data leaves your organization.

Google Drive and Shared Drives make collaboration seamless, but permissive sharing settings can expose confidential documents to unintended recipients. By default, users may be able to share files with anyone who has a link, including people outside your organization who do not even need a Google account to access the content. Files shared externally may remain accessible indefinitely unless your organization has configured expiration policies.

Restrict external sharing at the organizational unit level based on business need. Consider requiring that external sharing be limited to specific allowlisted domains for your most sensitive departments, such as legal and finance. Disable link sharing to anyone outside the organization and require that all external collaborators be explicitly invited by email address. Configure automatic access expiration for externally shared files. For Shared Drives, set organizational policies that control who can create them, who can add external members, and whether content can be moved outside the organization. These controls preserve collaboration while ensuring that every shared file has an identifiable recipient and an audit trail.

Secure Administrative Accounts and Privileges

Super administrator accounts in Google Workspace have unrestricted access to every setting, user, and piece of data in your tenant. A compromised super admin account is a worst-case scenario that gives an attacker the ability to modify security settings, access any mailbox, reset passwords, and exfiltrate data at scale. These accounts require the highest level of protection your organization can provide.

Maintain dedicated super administrator accounts that are separate from daily-use accounts. Require hardware security keys for all administrative sign-ins. Limit the number of super administrators to the minimum needed for operational continuity, typically two to three for redundancy. Use delegated administrator roles to grant specific administrative capabilities, such as user management or group management, without providing full tenant access. The Google Workspace Admin Help documentation provides detailed guidance on assigning administrator roles following the principle of least privilege. Review administrative role assignments quarterly to ensure that former employees or role changes have not left unnecessary privileges in place.

Enable and Monitor Audit Logs

Google Workspace generates comprehensive audit logs that record user activity, administrative changes, login events, and data access across the platform. These logs are essential for investigating security incidents, detecting anomalous behavior, and demonstrating compliance with regulatory requirements. However, logs are only valuable if they are being actively reviewed and retained for an appropriate duration.

Enable the security investigation tool in the Admin console to query audit logs across Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Admin events. Configure custom alerts for high-risk activities including mail forwarding rule creation, bulk file downloads, external sharing spikes, and administrative privilege changes. Google Workspace retains most audit logs for six months by default, which may not satisfy compliance requirements for industries governed by frameworks like SOC 2 or HIPAA. For longer retention, export logs to Google Cloud Logging, a SIEM platform, or a dedicated log management solution that meets your regulatory retention obligations.

Establish a Recurring Security Review

Securing Google Workspace is an ongoing discipline, not a one-time configuration project. Google regularly introduces new security features, changes default behaviors, and updates its threat detection capabilities. Your organization’s usage patterns also evolve as you add employees, adopt new Google Workspace features, and integrate additional third-party services.

Conduct a quarterly review of your Google Workspace security posture using the Security Health page in the Admin console, which highlights configuration weaknesses and provides actionable recommendations. Review two-step verification enrollment to ensure new employees have completed setup. Audit OAuth app authorizations for any newly connected applications. Check external sharing activity for unusual patterns. Verify that DLP rules are triggering as expected and that alert thresholds remain appropriate. This recurring review cadence is what separates organizations with genuinely hardened environments from those that configured security settings once and never revisited them.

Google Workspace likely holds your most sensitive business communications and documents. Contact We Solve Problems to audit your tenant configuration, enforce security best practices, and ensure your cloud environment is protected against today’s most common attack vectors.