Google has introduced a new confidential Gmail mode that allows businesses to set expiration dates for emails containing sensitive information.

On 25 April, the Menlo Park tech giant announced a series of updates to its G Suite apps for its more than four million paying business users. Gmail confidential mode was among those newly introduced features.

David Thacker, VP of product management at G Suite, explained that Gmail confidential mode enables qualifying users to set expiration dates for email messages containing sensitive data. He noted that it also allows users to revoke previously sent messages and require recipients to authenticate themselves via text message if they wish to view an email.

As part of those protections, Google took even greater steps to limit the number of people who can access an email. Thacker elaborated on these measures in a blog post:

Built-in Information Rights Management (IRM) controls also allow you to remove the option to forward, copy, download or print messages. This helps reduce the risk of confidential information being accidentally shared with the wrong people.

Google revealed its intention to roll out the new confidential mode to consumer Gmail users and some G Suite users first before making the features more broadly available at a later date.

Additionally, the company unveiled that it had redesigned its email security warnings to do a better job of protecting employees against potentially risky emails.

These security updates followed one month after Google introduced a series of protections designed to defend users against phishing-related threats including business email compromise (BEC) scams. The tech giant crafted those measures to warn users of suspicious emails or send them automatically to the junk folder.

Users can protect themselves against BEC scams and other email-related threats by (Read more...)