Google Drive security for businesses: prevent data leaks

By the QuantumSec team

Google Drive is where your company's information lives: contracts, customer data, intellectual property. A misconfigured share can expose all of that to anyone with a link. This guide explains how to control sharing and reduce the risk of a data leak.

The risk of anyone-with-the-link files

When a file is shared as anyone-with-the-link, it's no longer protected by authentication: anyone who gets the URL can access it, and those links can end up indexed or forwarded. It's one of the most common sources of accidental exposure of sensitive data.

Control external sharing

From the admin console you can restrict external sharing to trusted domains, enable warnings when sharing outside the organization and disable the creation of public links by default. It's one of the settings that most reduces the risk of a leak.

Permissions, ownership and shared drives

Files in My Drive belong to the employee and can be lost when they leave; shared drives keep ownership in the company's hands. Periodically reviewing permissions and moving critical information to shared drives improves control and continuity.

DLP for sensitive data

Data loss prevention (DLP) rules detect and block the exit of sensitive information —personal data, card numbers, credentials— before it's shared improperly. It's an essential layer for GDPR compliance and for protecting intellectual property.

FAQ

How do I find publicly shared files?

With the investigation tool and the Drive reports in the admin console. In a Workspace audit we specifically review external sharing and public links containing sensitive data.

What happens to a departing employee's files?

If they're in My Drive, they can be lost or orphaned when the account is deleted. That's why it's advisable to use shared drives for company information and to transfer data ownership as part of offboarding.