Google Workspace suggestion on the forum
Hi there, we are Financial Advisers in Leicestershire UK.
We are increasingly concerned about cyber security. We need to send documents to our clients and historically would have always just sent them as an attachment in an email. With cyber crime becoming so sophisticated we need to be doing everything that we can to stop cyber criminals getting access to our clients personal data. With this in mind we are currently reviewing the software that we use. We would like our default operating system for emails, calendars, file storage etc to be our Google Workspace but we have come across a problem when trying to share files with clients that makes it untenable for us.
When sharing a file or multiple files with our clients we currently send them an encrypted link through Dropbox. We will also password protect the link and let them know that the password is something memorable to them but we do not send the actual password to them as an email. We use their Date of Birth or National Insurance Number as an extra layer of authentication
When I compare how I send an encrypted link with a password with Google Workspace, the verification code gets sent to the clients email address, the same one that the link has been sent to. This causes me concern due to the fact that if the clients email account gets hacked for any reason and we are sending files or links that are verified with the same account then the hacker also has access to this.
When I spoke to Victor in the Support Centre (who tried his best and was very helpful) he said that there was a way to do it if our clients also had Gmail accounts, well this isn't possible as many of our clients are older and will not want the hassle of having another email account. The business clients that we have will also not want to have another set of emails. We therefore need to work around this.
As I mentioned to Victor, I cannot believe that other users of Google Workspace are not also wanting to share encrypted links whether that be with their clients or work colleagues, anything that makes its way into the ether is vulnerable and no matter what gmail, iCloud, hotmail etc etc account you have it is penetrable.
We need something that is easy to use but safe.
I am not technical in the slightest and so you may have a really simple answer for me however cyber crime is a real concern and we need to do everything we can to protect personal or sensitive information.
Sharing the verification link in the same account seems to me to be a bit dangerous, I think Google need to have other options available such as the password option.
We are therefore going to have to get more licences for Dropbox as their file sharing works for us and our reliance on Google Workspace will lessen. This isn't good news for Google as we would have preferred to have one system and not two.
I look forward to hearing what the Google Community think about my comments as well as the Workspace developers.
Thank you
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