‘Security’ has to be one of the biggest buzz words around at the moment. With a constant influx of stories coming down the wire of breaches-of-security and data loss, it is not surprising that security has rose to become a selling feature. With Google knowing more and more about us individually (and collectively) on a daily basis, it is also not surprising that Google is becoming more preoccupied with our safety too. It now seems ‘Google for Work’ is the latest Google service to receive a security overhaul. Although this is a business suite primarily, the newly added features are equally as relevant to us as individuals and especially if you have multiple devices linked to your Google account.
The first enhancement comes in the form of a revamping of the Devices and Activity dashboard. Before today, the Devices and Activity dashboard was a lot more basic and simply listed information on activities on your Google account. However, now after the revamp there is significantly more focus on devices connected to your Google account. Firstly, the dashboard now shows all devices that have connected to your Google account over the last 28 days. In addition, the dashboard highlights the location of currently connected devices. If an unknown or suspicious device is noted as connected, the user is now prompted to take the appropriate measures to secure the account and change the password.
In conjunction with the new dashboard the second additional feature which has now gone live is the new Security Wizard. According to Google, this feature is designed to offer an easy and quick solution to make sure all aspects of your account are safe and secure. The wizard includes the ability to turn on and adjust security features like account recovery contact details, recent account activity and account permissions. In short this feature is more designed at making sure all your information is up-to-date. Google is probably aware that a lot of us don’t bother updating such details as often as we should. With that in mind the Wizard simply seems to be an easier method to get all the information up as quickly as possible. So what do you think of the new (and updated) features? Will you be using them? Google is trying to make sure you are safe and know what’s going on with your account. So with that in mind its not a bad new addition to the Google ecosystem.