Google launches new Gmail security features
Google announced a bundle of new security features or improvements for its Gmail email service that are being rolled out currently.
Three of the four new features are available exclusively to Google Suite customers, the fourth to all users of Gmail.
All Gmail users benefit from better protection against malicious attachments according to Google's announcement. This includes Google Suite customers who use Gmail, regular Google users who use Gmail on the Web or in one of the applications that support the email service.
Google describes the new protective features in the following way:
We now correlate spam signals with attachment and sender heuristics, to predict messages containing new and unseen malware variants
In addition, we block use of file types that carry a high potential for security risks including executable and JavaScript files.
The first draws links between signals that are associated with spam, and sender and attachment heuristics. Basically, what it does is try to predict whether an email attachment is malicious based on patterns, and not on signatures.
Gmail's list of blocked file type attachments includes JavaScript .js files now. In case you are curious, the following attachments are forbidden on Gmail:
.ADE, .ADP, .BAT, .CHM, .CMD, .COM, .CPL, .EXE, .HTA, .INS, .ISP, .JAR, .JS (NEW), .JSE, .LIB, .LNK, .MDE, .MSC, .MSI, .MSP, .MST, .NSH .PIF, .SCR, .SCT, .SHB, .SYS, .VB, .VBE, .VBS, .VXD, .WSC, .WSF, .WSH
These attachments are blocked outright, but also if they are included within archives, and password protected archives.
Gmail users who need to transfer blocked files using Gmail are asked to use Google Drive or other services instead. Basically, instead of sending the file as an attachment, a link that points to it is provided instead.
Google Suite Gmail security improvements
The following three security improvements were launched exclusively for Google Suite customers who use Gmail:
- Delayed delivery of email messages with suspicious content -- Google developed a new algorithm that "flags and delays potentially suspicious messages" on Gmail. Google runs additional checks on these messages prior to delivery, and checks it against the company's Safe Browsing feature on top of that.
- Unintended external reply warning -- This feature warns Google Suite Gmail users when they reply to messages from "outside of their domain" if the recipient is not in their contacts". The feature is designed to better protect against "forged email messages, impersonation, and common user-errors". Users may dismiss the warning.
- Anti-phishing checks in Gmail on Android -- The final security feature displays a warning prompt on Android if you activate a link that Google flagged as suspicious.
All features are enabled by default once they are rolled out in the next couple of days. You can turn two of them off in the following way (provided that you are a Google Suite administrator):
- Open the Google Admin console.
- Go to Apps > G Suite > Gmail > Advanced Settings.
- Select the "top-level organization".
- Locate the Enhanced pre-delivery message scanning setting on the page.
- Locate the Unintended external reply warning setting on the page.
You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!