Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Improved attachment compliance in Gmail

As a G Suite administrator, one of your most important jobs is to keep your organization’s data from falling into the wrong hands. Gmail Data Loss Prevention (DLP) helps you do just that, by allowing you to scan and systematically take action on your users’ inbound and outbound email traffic. With this launch, we’re improving that capability, specifically in the area of attachment compliance.

Previously, when you specified a custom* file type to search for in Gmail attachments, we only scanned the message’s MIME header for the attachment’s filename extension. This meant that if a sender renamed their attachment’s extension, it might not be flagged. Now, if you check the “Also match files based on file format (supported types)” box, we’ll also scan the contents of the attachment to determine its file type (provide it’s one of several supported types).


This will improve attachment compliance and further prevent data loss in your organization. To learn more about setting up rules for attachment compliance, check out the Help Center.

*Note that this launch only applies to searches for custom file types; we already scan the content of an attachment to detect other file types (like Office documents, videos, and images).

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Set up rules for attachment compliance


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