G Suite Security: The Essential Checklist for Admins

6.85 million accounts getting hacked each day or 158 every second. Maintaining the security of the account is not only essential but also unavoidable.

Hacking can be troublesome for individuals or businesses, hackers can manipulate the data according to their desire, or can tarnish the privacy of the company. It can also affect the goodwill of the company to a major extent.

The business accounts have a major threat and should show concern as this fact demands their attention.

Business accounts have much sensitive information that shall not be disclosed, or it should be passed in hands of unauthorized accounts.

Therefore to overcome the threat of hacking, it is mandatory to focus on G-Suite Security. G-Suite Security can be best maintained by Admins.

To make G-Suite Admin work easy and maintain security easily, we have made google apps security checklist.

With the help of the google account security checklist; it becomes easy to overcome the fear of hacking.

Let’s quickly have a glance at the Checklist for G-Suite Security Best Practices.

G Suite Security Checklist

Password Strength:

For G-Suite data protection, the first and best step is to set up a strong password. Not only, Admin, but the entire team should also pick up strong passwords individually.

Never opt for only numeric or alphabetical passwords; always try to set up combinations of unique characters and make up some unusual passwords.

Passwords have to be private, hence avoid sharing passwords with anyone.

While setting up a password, it is important to keep in mind the minimum and maximum length of the password.

Also, there is an automated indicator that signifies the strength of the password so set your password accordingly.

The critical part is a lot of G-Suite Admins are unaware of the feature which helps them to monitor the strength of passwords of all the employees.

From the Admin console, you can check all the passwords. It gives you a graph showing how strong each users’ password is. You can also change the weak passwords immediately.

Step Verification:

We have come across these terms very often, especially while using social media applications.

Many of us prefer using 2 step verifications for their communication applications but somehow they don’t set up 2 step verification security for their G-Mail.

It is a great option to set up double verification for your mailbox and the important mails.

It makes your account even more secure, every time you sign in; you will be provided with an extra layer of security.

Underestimating 2 Step Verification call be a wrong call.

Instead, you can sit back and relax. Even if your password gets leaked, nobody else will be able to sign in to your account. Your account will still be safe.

Make sure everyone in the organization has opted for 2 Step Verification.

You must take note that while using two-step verification if the person forgets the password; he will automatically sign out from his mailbox.

App Security:

While working online; we access a lot of sites and applications that seek permission from us.

In a hurry sometimes we just give permission and don’t check what information we are sharing with them.

As you allow those applications to access the data, you are simply risking your privacy and putting important data in a negotiable place.

But, here’s a hack.

With the help of G- suite enterprise security features, you can immediately block unwanted applications or restrict the authority of such applications.

It will help you to save vital information without worrying much about security checks.

You can do it with 2 simple steps;

Security > Basic settings > Less secure apps

Click Disable access to less secure apps for all users

Even if a hacker is trying to hack the accounts with a less secure application, you can still save your account by applying these settings.

In many companies, employees may not be able to gel up with all these steps. So a G-Suite Admin has to take care of all these factors for them.

As a G-Suite Admin, you can monitor the applications used by employees, and check the permission given by them.

You can check the Account Activity Reports, you can immediately get details about the low secured applications.

Based on that you can inform the employees and guide them about the same.

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3rd Party Authentication:

3rd Party Authentication is more often overlooked; especially when safety measures are concerned.

Many times we receive requests for editing some documents or viewing certain docs and we completely forget about the authorizing security.

The email was sent from a non-Google app and you’ve just whitelisted a malicious program.

As a Gmail admin, you’d not want sensitive information leaking out from your users’ Drive and Gmail.

The apps will still need the users’ permission to access their data, hence the data will remain secured and you can still work on the document without worrying much.

Once you’ve added that app to your organization’s whitelist, users can choose to grant or decline access to their data.

There is no way a malicious app can trick your users into permitting them to access your data.

Phishing Detection:

We have heard this term many times, but are we aware of how dangerous this could be?

Phishing is too harmful to be taken lightly.

Hackers make major use of emails i.e. phishing via emails to hack the accounts or access the information.

Phishing generally is done by sending an email, which has a link that redirects to some unsecured confidential website.

Google apps Email Security feature shall help you to stay protected from such tactics of hacking.

As a G-Suite Admin, you can simply add a strong layer of security for your entire team with the help of ‘Early Phishing Detection

After turning it on, Google will scan all the emails you receive. If it finds anything suspicious it will pop up a message, or notify or directly move the mail to the spam folder.

This step is extremely important, it is one of the prominent steps of the Google App Security Checklist but not many people are aware of it.

Information Sharing:

Information sharing can be done in many ways and we practice it regularly. Did you ever think it will ever raise a difficulty for you?

Information sharing is part of our routine, and looking at its significance it feels that we can not eliminate this step even if it is risky.

For example, we share our Google Calendar with many people to let them know about our schedule and it can help them pick a slot for planning a meeting with us.

Along with the calendar you also share all those links associated with your calendar; though it happens unknowingly still it is a threat.

People might just take the irrational benefits of those links.

Some people in the organization must be aware of such data leakage but others may not know about it so here G-suite admin has to set security standards.

As a G-Suite admin, you can restrict access to the calendar. You can set it for internal usage only. Therefore anyone outside the organization will not be able to access it.

This way the problem of hacking or data leakage can be taken care of.

But, what if sharing internally can also put the vital information and links in the wrong hands?

If an employee is found doing misconduct, or if someone is serving notice period; it is not reliable to share all the information with them.

In such cases, you can just give the individual access to employees.

These are ways to maintain the G-suite enterprise security or security for the company. However, it is not so that following all these 6 checklist points will assure cent per cent security because everyday hackers are finding new ways to trouble the companies.

Thus every day we have to keep looking for better and advanced security options, we can not just make a static list and follow it without any upgradation.

Apart from this, we have set a quick list for security; that can help you have a glance at security parameters daily.

Check G-Suite Security Center:

G-Suite provides an inbuilt security centre and it will help you to get insights into safety immediately. It has a security dashboard, has a health check-up centre and therefore it is the easiest way to get transparency about the security standards.

You can get details on external file sharing. You get more visibility into spam and malware targeting people inside your organization.

G-Suite Enterprise Security features can help you a lot in terms of maintaining security.

Folder Protection:

On average, only 5% of a company’s folders are properly protected. In spite of knowing, many companies don't keep password protection for vital folders.

You can individually set passwords for important folders, without fail you should do it.

This way you can reduce the chances of data getting hacked, also it will keep the access of that folder limited. As only the person who knows the password can open the folder.

Mobile Security:

Employees have their Gmail account synchronized in their phone as well. In this case, while using a phone or downloading some new application they unknowingly use their company's mail account and then it causes trouble.

While downloading the application, certain applications ask for permission to access data and when you allow the permissions without reading about it in detail - you also opt for data sharing.

Statistics on hacking show 1 in 36 mobile phones had high-risk apps in 2018. It is important to keep a check on the employee's phone and explain to them all these parameters.

Data Breaching Policy:

For G-Suite security concern, the companies should form a data breach policy. As soon as a new person joins the company he should be made aware of it.

So that he keeps in mind that even the slightest adulteration in data or leaking the vital information will cost legal problems to him.

It should be made clear that the company takes a huge stand on data regulation policy and everyone will be treated on the same line for the rules.

Take employees' signatures on data regulation policy and data breach policy to make things clear for them.

Training Department:

Set up a training and counseling department, wherein from the beginning employees will be taught about the basic security standard, provide them knowledge about how to deal with hacking in real life.

What to do when you feel your account is hacked, whom they should contact and how to handle the situation also make them understand the signs that suggest that their account is hacked.

Every employee should be provided knowledge about it and it shall help them to deal with the situation calmly and understand about the threat in a better and simpler way.

Bottom Line:

It is not possible to completely eradicate the threat of hacking, but it is possible to follow safety measures. Everyone has hectic schedules and to match their goals they are in some kind of hurry, but this process of completing goals can not be at the cost of safety.

We get so busy at work that we forget to check safety measures, we just randomly click on any links, we don't check the authenticity of websites, download stuff from unauthorized URLs, share a password and many other mistakes we make on a regular basis.

Our small act of carelessness can put the entire company, data and us in a vulnerable position.

Even if we are overburdened with work, we shall never compromise with the safety standards. Hacking is a serious crime but being careless will not help out.

Let's keep safety measures like G-Suite data protection, G-Suite alter suspicious login, blocked sign in attempts and other factors in mind and practice.

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