Super admins control access to all business and employee data in the organization, hence it's especially important for their accounts to be protected.
Require 2-Step Verification for admin accounts
If someone manages to get the admin password, 2-Step Verification (2SV) helps protect the account from unauthorized access. It’s especially important for super admins to use 2SV because their accounts control access to all business and employee data in the organization.
Don't share administrator accounts among users
Give each administrator their own identifiable admin account. Otherwise, if multiple people use the same administrator account to sign in to the Admin console, such as admin@example.com, you can’t tell which administrator is responsible for specific activities in the audit log.
Set up multiple super admin accounts
Your organization should have more than one super administrator account, each managed by a separate individual (avoid sharing an admin account). If one account is lost or compromised, another super admin can perform critical tasks while the other account is recovered.
Don’t use a super admin account for daily activities
Give each super administrator 2 accounts: Their own super admin account and a separate account for daily activities. Users should only sign in to a super admin account to perform super admin tasks, such as setting up 2-Step Verification (2SV), managing billing and user licenses, or helping another admin recover their account.
Super administrators should use a separate, non-admin account for day-to-day activities.
Set up admin email alerts
Monitor admin activity and track potential security risks by setting up admin email alerts for certain events, such as suspicious sign-in attempts, compromised mobile devices, or changes by another admin.
Add recovery options to admin accounts
Admins should add recovery options to their admin account.
Require 2-Step Verification for users
2-Step Verification helps protect a user account from unauthorized access should someone manage to obtain their password.
Help prevent password reuse with Password Alert
Use Password Alert to make sure users don't use their corporate passwords on other sites.
Use unique passwords
A good password is the first line of defense to protect user and admin accounts. Unique passwords aren’t easily guessed. Also discourage password reuse across different accounts, such as email and online banking.
Regularly review activity reports and alerts
Review activity reports for account status, admin status, and 2-Step Verification enrollment details.
Set up admin email alerts
Set up email alerts for potentially risky events, such as suspicious sign-in attempts, compromised mobile devices, or setting changes by another admin.
Add user login challenges
Set up login challenges for suspicious login attempts. Users must enter a verification code that Google sends to their recovery phone number or recovery email address, or they must answer a challenge that only the account owner can solve.
Identify and secure compromised accounts
If you suspect an account may be compromised, suspend the account, investigate for malicious activity, and take action if necessary.
Review mobile devices associated with the account
Use the Email log search to review delivery logs for your domains
Use the Security report to evaluate the exposure of the domain to data security risks.
Verify if any malicious settings were created
Turn off Google data download as needed
If an account is compromised or the user leaves the company, prevent that user from downloading all their Google data with Google Takeout.
Prevent unauthorized access after an employee leaves
To prevent data leaks, revoke a user’s access to your organization’s data when they leave.
Review third-party app access to core services
Know and approve which third-party apps can access Google Workspace core services such as Gmail and Drive.
Block access to less secure apps
Less secure apps don’t use modern security standards, such as OAuth, and increase the risk of accounts or devices being compromised.
Create a list of trusted apps
Create an allowlist that specifies which third-party apps can access core Google Workspace services.
Control access to Google core services
You can allow or block access to Google apps such as Gmail, Drive, and Calendar based on a device’s IP address, geographic origin, security policies, or OS. For example, you can allow Drive for desktop only on company-owned devices in specific countries/regions.
Add another layer of encryption to users' apps data
If your organization works with sensitive intellectual property or operates in a highly regulated industry, you can add client-side encryption to Gmail, Google Drive, Google Meet, and Google Calendar.
Limit external calendar sharing
Restrict external calendar sharing to free/busy information only. This reduces the risk of data leaks.
Warn users when they invite external guests
By default, Calendar warns users when they invite external guests. This reduces the risk of data leaks. Make sure this warning is on for all users.
Limit who can chat externally
Allow only the users with a specific need to send messages or create rooms with users outside your organization. This prevents external users from seeing previous internal discussions and reduces the risk of data leaks.
Warn users when chatting outside their domain (classic Hangouts only)
Show users a warning when they chat with people outside their domain. When enabled, group chat conversations are split when the first person from outside the domain is added to the discussion. This prevents external users from seeing previous internal discussions and reduces the risk of data leaks.
In Chat, external users and rooms are always marked "External."
Set a chat invitation policy
Determine which users can automatically accept chat invitations based on your organization’s policy on collaboration.
Keep Chrome browser and Chrome OS updated
To ensure your users have the latest security patches, allow updates. For Chrome browser, always allow updates. By default, Chrome OS devices update to the latest version of Chrome when it’s available. Make sure auto-updates are turned on for all your Chrome OS device users.
Force a relaunch to apply updates
Set Chrome browser and Chrome OS devices to notify users that they need to relaunch their browsers or restart their devices for the update to apply, and force a relaunch after a set time if the user doesn’t take action.
Set basic Chrome OS device and Chrome browser policies
Set the following policies in your Google Admin console:
Allow password manager (Allowed by default).
Set Safe Browsing to Always enable.
Prevent users from proceeding to malicious sites (don't allow users to bypass Safe Browsing warnings.
Set advanced Chrome browser policies
Prevent unauthorized access, dangerous downloads, and data leaks between sites by setting the following advanced policies:
AllowedDomainsForApps—Allow access to your organization's Google services and tools only for accounts from the domains you specify.
DownloadRestrictions—Block malicious downloads.
SitePerProcess—Enable so that each site in Chrome browser runs as a separate process. With this option, even if a site bypasses the same-origin policy, the extra security will help stop the site from stealing users’ data from another website.
Set a Windows desktop browser policy
If your organization wants to use Chrome Browser but your users still need to access older websites and apps that require Internet Explorer, the Chrome Legacy Browser Support extension lets users switch automatically between Chrome and another browser. Use Legacy Browser Support to support applications that require a legacy browser.
Turn off automatic creation of Currents profiles
Disable automatic creation of public Currents profiles for users in your organization.
Limit how users share and view external Currents content
For example, you might want to prevent users from creating or interacting with external content.
You can protect user accounts and their work data on mobile devices, tablets, laptops, and computers with Google endpoint management.
Limit sharing and collaboration outside your domain
Confine file sharing within the boundary of your domains by turning off sharing options or by creating trust rules (which give you more precise control over sharing). This reduces data leak and data exfiltration risks. If sharing is required outside of your organization because of business needs, you can define how sharing is done for organizational units, or you can designate domains on your allowlist.
Warn users when they share a file outside your domain
If you allow users to share files outside your domain, turn on a warning when a user does so. This allows users to confirm whether this action is the intended one, and reduces the risk of data leaks.
Prevent users from publishing on the web
If you allow users to share files outside your domain, turn on a warning when a user does so. This allows users to confirm whether this action is the intended one, and reduces the risk of data leaks.
Prevent users from publishing on the web
Disable file publishing on the web. This reduces the risk of data leaks.
Set general access options for file sharing
Set the default access option for file sharing to Restricted. Only the file owner should have access until they share the file. Optionally, create custom sharing groups (target audiences) for users in different departments.
Limit file access to recipients only
When a user shares a file via a Google product other than Docs or Drive (for example, by pasting a link in Gmail), Access Checker can check that the recipients can access the file. Set up Access Checker for Recipients only. This gives you control over the accessibility of links shared by your users, and reduces the risk of data leaks.
Prevent or limit the risk that external users can discover your organization’s group memberships
To prevent users at another organization that uses Google Workspace from discovering your organization's group memberships, don't allow external organizations to share files with your users. Or, to limit this type of risk, allow external sharing only with allowlisted domains.
If you use Google Drive sharing settings: For each organizational unit you want to protect from this risk, do one of the following:
To prevent this risk, turn off external sharing and uncheck the option to allow your users to receive files from external users.
To limit this risk, allow external sharing only with allowlisted domains.
If you use trust rules for Drive sharing: To limit this risk, first create a trust rule with the following settings:
Scope—Organizational units or groups you want to protect from this risk
Trigger—Drive > Receiving files
Conditions—Allowlisted domains or external organizations that you trust
Action—Allow
Next, deactivate the default rule named [Default] Users in my organization can share with a warning and receive from anyone.
Require Google sign-in for external collaborators
Require external collaborators to sign in with a Google Account. If they don't have a Google Account, they can create one at no cost. This reduces the risk of data leaks.
Limit who can move content from shared drives
Allow only users in your organization to move files from their shared drives to a Drive location in a different organization.
Control content sharing in new shared drives
Restrict who can create shared drives, access content, or change the settings for new shared drives.
Disable access to offline docs
To reduce the risk of data leaks, consider disabling access to offline docs. When docs are accessible offline, a copy of the document is stored locally. If you have a business reason to enable access to offline docs, enable this feature per organizational unit to minimize risk.
Disable desktop access to Drive
Users can get desktop access to Drive with Google Drive for desktop. To reduce the risk of data leaks, consider disabling desktop access to Drive. If you decide to enable desktop access, enable it only for users with a critical business need.
Don't allow Google Docs add-ons
To reduce the risk of data leaks, consider not allowing users to install add-ons for Google Docs from the add-on store. To support a specific business need, you can deploy specific add-ons for Google Docs that are aligned with your organizational policy.
Block or warn on sharing files with sensitive data
To reduce the risk of data leaks, set up Data Loss Protection rules to scan files for sensitive data and take action when users try to share matching files externally. For example, you can block external sharing of documents that contain passport numbers and get an email alert.
Set up authentication and infrastructure
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC establish an email validation system that uses DNS settings to authenticate, digitally sign, and help prevent spoofing of your domain.
Attackers sometimes forge the "From" address on email messages so they seem to come from a user in your domain. To prevent this, you can set up SPF and DKIM on all outbound email streams.
Once SPF and DKIM are in place, you can set up a DMARC record to define how Google and other receivers should treat unauthenticated emails purporting to come from your domain.
Set up inbound email gateways to work with SPF
SPF helps prevent your outgoing messages from being sent to spam, but a gateway can impact how SPF works. If you use an email gateway to route incoming email, make sure it’s set up properly for Sender Policy Framework (SPF).
Enforce TLS with your partner domains
Set the TLS setting to require a secure connection for email to (or from) partner domains.
Require sender authentication for all approved senders
When you create an address list of approved senders who can bypass spam classification, require authentication. When sender authentication is turned off, Gmail can't verify the message was sent by the person it seems to come from. Requiring authentication reduces the risk of spoofing and phishing/whaling. Learn more about sender authentication.
Configure MX records for correct mail flow
Configure the MX records to point to Google’s mail servers as the highest priority record to ensure correct mail flow to your Google Workspace domain users. This reduces the risk of data deletion (through lost email) and malware threats.
Disable IMAP/POP access
IMAP and POP desktop clients let users access Gmail through third-party email clients. Disable POP and IMAP access for any users who don't explicitly need this access. This reduces data leak, data deletion, and data exfiltration risks. It also can reduce the threat of attacks because IMAP clients might not have similar protections to first-party clients.
Disable automatic forwarding
Comprehensive mail storage ensures that a copy of all sent and received mail in your domain—including mail sent or received by non-Gmail mailboxes—is stored in the associated users' Gmail mailboxes. Enable this setting to reduce the risk of data deletion and, if you use Google Vault, ensure mail is retained or held
Turn off Bypass spam filters for internal senders, because any external addresses added to groups are treated as internal addresses. By turning off this setting, you can make sure all user email is filtered for spam, including mail from internal senders. This reduces the risk of spoofing and phishing/whaling.
Add spam headers setting to all default routing rules
Spam headers help maximize the filtering capacity of downstream email servers and reduce the risks of spoofing and phishing/whaling. When you set up default routing rules, check the Add X-Gm-Spam and X-Gm-Phishy headers box so that Gmail adds these headers to indicate the spam and phishing status of the message.
For example, an administrator at a downstream server can use this information to set up rules that handle spam and phishing differently from clean mail.
Enable enhanced pre-delivery message scanning
When Gmail identifies that an email message may be phishing, this setting enables Gmail to perform additional checks on the message.
Enable external recipient warnings
Gmail detects if an external recipient in an email response is not someone a user interacts with regularly, or isn't present in a user’s Contacts. When you configure this setting, your users receive a warning and an option to dismiss.
Enable additional attachment protection
Gmail detects if an external recipient in an email response is not someone a user interacts with regularly, or isn't present in a user’s Contacts. When you configure this setting, your users receive a warning and an option to dismiss.
Enable additional attachment protection
Google scans incoming messages to protect against malware, even if the additional malicious attachment protections settings aren't enabled. Turning on additional attachment protection can catch email that previously wasn't identified as malicious.
Enable additional link and external content protection
Google scans incoming messages to protect against malware, even if the additional malicious link and content protections settings aren't enabled. Turning on additional links and external images protection can catch email that previously wasn't identified as phishing.
Enable additional spoofing protection
Google scans incoming messages to protect against spoofing even if additional spoofing protections settings aren't enabled. Turning on additional spoofing and authentication protection can, for example, reduce the risk of spoofing based on similar domain names or employee names.
Take care when overriding spam filters
To avoid an increase in spam, exercise thought and care if you override Gmail’s default spam filters.
If you add a domain or an email address to the approved senders list, require authentication. Otherwise, senders with no authentication can bypass Gmail’s spam filters.
Be cautious if you add IP addresses to the email allowlist, particularly if you add large ranges of IP addresses via CIDR notation.
If you forward messages to your Google Workspace domain through an inbound gateway, add the IP addresses of your inbound gateway to the inbound gateway settings and not the email allowlist.
Monitor and tune compliance rules to help prevent spam and phishing.
Don't include domains in the approved senders list
If you set up approved senders, and if you checked Bypass spam filters for messages received from addresses or domains within these approved senders lists, remove any domains from your approved sender list. Excluding domains from the approved senders list reduces the risk of spoofing and phishing/whaling.
Don't add IP addresses to your allowlist
In general, mail sent from IP addresses on your allowlist isn't marked as spam. To take full advantage of the Gmail spam filtering service and for best spam classification results, IP addresses of your mail servers and partner mail servers that are forwarding email to Gmail should be added to an Inbound mail gateway, and not an IP allowlist.
Scan and block emails with sensitive data
To reduce the risk of data leaks, scan outgoing emails with predefined Data Loss Protection detectors to take action when users receive or send messages with sensitive content. For example, you can block users from sending messages that contain credit card numbers and get an email alert.
Use groups designed for security
Ensure only select users can access sensitive apps and resources by managing them with security groups. This reduces the risk of data leaks.
Add security conditions to admin roles
Allow only certain admins to control security groups. Designate other admins that can only control nonsecurity groups. This reduces the risk of data leaks and malicious insider threats.
Set up private access to your groups
Select the Private setting to limit access to members of your domain. (Group members can still receive email from outside the domain.) This reduces the risk of data leaks.
Limit group creation to admins
Allow only admins to create groups. This reduces the risk of data leaks.
Customize your group access settings
Recommendations:
Allow or disable members and messages from outside your domain.
Set up message moderation.
Set visibility of groups.
Perform other actions, according to your company policies.
Disable some access settings for internal groups
The following settings allow anyone on the internet to join the group, send messages, and view the discussion archives. Disable these settings for internal groups:
Public access
Also grant this access to anyone on the internet
Also allow anyone on the internet to post messages
Enable spam moderation for your groups
You can have messages sent to the moderation queue with or without notifying moderators, immediately reject spam messages, or allow the messages to be posted without moderation.
Block sharing sites outside the domain
Block users from sharing sites outside the domain to reduce the risk of data leaks. To support a critical business need, you could enable sharing outside the domain. If you do so, display a warning when users share sites outside the domain.
Treat accounts with Vault privileges as sensitive
Protect accounts assigned to Vault administrator roles the same way you protect super admin accounts.
Regularly audit Vault activity
Users with Vault privileges can search and export other users’ data, as well as change retention rules that can purge data you need to keep. Monitor Vault activity to ensure that only approved data access and retention policies occur.