Client-side encryption (CSE) is now generally available for Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus and Education Standard customers. According to Google, Workspace currently encrypts data at rest and in transit via secure-by-design cryptographic libraries. CSE enhances that by ensuring customers have sole control over their encryption keys, and thus total control over access to their data.

CSE for Gmail on the web was launched in a beta in December for those Workspace plans, and Google is now expanding access to the security tool to help reduce the burden of compliance for enterprises and public sector organizations.

This allows users to send and receive emails or create meeting events with internal colleagues and external parties with the peace of mind knowing that their sensitive data–including inline images and attachments–has been encrypted before it reaches Google servers, the company says.

In an announcement blog, Ganesh Chilakapati, group product manager of Google Workspace, and Andy Wen, director of product management for Google Workspace Security, say this allows users to continue to collaborate across Workspace while giving IT and security teams peace of mind that sensitive data stays secure and compliant with regulations.

“As customers retain control over the encryption keys and the identity management service to access those keys, sensitive data is indecipherable to Google and other external entities,” the Workspace leaders write.

According to Google, the feature will be off by default, but IT admins can enable the security control at the domain, OU and Group levels.

End users will need to act to add CSE to any message by clicking the lock icon and selecting additional encryption before composing the message or adding attachments.

CSE is not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers.

The post Google Rolls Out Client-Side Encryption to Gmail, Calendar appeared first on My TechDecisions.

BlackByte ransomware group disables security products

Cybersecurity firm Sophos has released a new report that details how threat actors behind the BlackByte ransomware gang uses a sophisticated technique to bypass security products by abusing a known vulnerability in the legitimate vulnerable driver RTCore64.sys. This includes disabling over 1,000 drivers on which security products rely to provide protection.

The technique is growing in popularity, with at least two other known reports of threat actors using vulnerable drivers to kill antivirus and other software to bypass security products and deploy ransomware.

Read Sophos’ blog for more information.

Google to provide U.S. Army with Workspace

Google announced a new partnership with the U.S. Army that will see the company’s Public Sector division provide up to 250,000 personnel with the Google Workspace suite of productivity and collaboration solutions. This comes after the launch of Google Public Sector in June, which is focused on helping U.S. public sector entities in federal, state and local governments accelerate their digital transformations.

Read more about Google’s partnership with the U.S. Army and Google Public Sector here.

Infrastructure automation growth on the horizon

Gartner analysts predict that 85% of infrastructure and operations leaders currently without any full automation expect to become more automated within the next three years, and 70% of organizations will implement structured automation to deliver flexibility and efficiency by 2025.

The research and analysis firm’s survey found that automation is most used in application deployment, workload automation and end-user device deployment. However, just 22% are automating patching and vulnerability remediation despite 70% of those who are automating those functions find it impactful for the business.

Read more about Gartner’s survey of infrastructure and operations automation here.

These are the vulnerabilities Chinese hackers are exploiting

If your organization is at risk for targeted cyberattacks from Chinese-backed entities, you should review the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) list of top vulnerabilities being actively exploited by China state-sponsored hacking groups. The list of 20 vulnerabilities includes just bugs published from 2019 and on, and feature some of the most well-known bugs in recent memory.

The list includes the Log4j bug discovered at the end of last year, along with vulnerabilities from popular vendors such as Microsoft, Atlassian, VMware, Cisco and more.

Read CISA’s advisory for more information.

Google Cloud, HCLTech expand partnership to accelerate digital transformations

HCLTech and Google Cloud are expanding their partnership to scale HCLTech’s capacity to support digital transformation and deliver migration, system modernization and professional services for enterprise customers. The expanded relationship includes two new offerings: the new Google Cloud Global Migration and Modernization Factory ad the HCLTech Cloud Acceleration Team that both aim to help customers gain value from their cloud investments sooner.

Learn more about the Google Cloud, HCLTech partnership here.

The post This Week in IT: Sneaky Ransomware; Google, Army Partnership; Digital Transformation; Chinese Hackers appeared first on My TechDecisions.