It will start showing yellow warning banners for phishing and ransomware.
What you need to know
- Google has announced a new feature that can warn you about suspicious files on Drive.
- A yellow banner will appear at the top of documents that may contain malware.
- Previously, the same security measures were applied to documents, tables, slides and drawings.
Some Google Drive users may be familiar with the various forms of attacks distributed through the platform, including phishing lures and ransomware attacks. To help you stay on top of potentially malicious files, Google has introduced a new security feature to Drive.
Now Google Drive will start showing a warning banner when you want to download and open a potentially problematic document, image or any type of file. The new features will roll out across all Google Workspace, G Suite Basic and G Suite Business tiers.
After clicking the link, a yellow banner appears at the top of the attachments page. It should appear before the file is downloaded to your laptop, warning you that it looks suspicious and “may be used to steal your personal information”.
If you’ve been using Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings, you’ll recognize security alerts. At Google’s Cloud Next 2021, the search giant announced new measures to help protect users from malicious files. The alerts were rolled out to these file-syncing services late last year.
It can come in handy if you use Google Drive a lot, but like most other file hosting platforms, it’s not completely safe from abuse. In 2020, scammers were spotted using Drive to send emails and push notifications via Drive. At first glance, these messages appear legitimate, but they direct recipients to malicious websites.
Like any other phased rollout, the new Drive security alert won’t be available to everyone right away, but it should arrive within the next two weeks.
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