Gmail's New Scanning Feature to Prevent Leak of Confidential Data

After introducing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) service last year, Google last month launched Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for Gmail that can now even read the email attachments for better security. This will prevent employees to leak company's sensitive information to those who shouldn't have it. The feature is only for paid Google Apps for Work Unlimited customers.

While for email texts there is DLP, for attachments Google has introduced OCR. OCR can now analyse common image types and search for data such as social security numbers or passwords. The technology can now scan the document and match keywords (for instance a secret project's codename) to the admin's approved blacklist.

"Sensitive information can reside not just in text documents, but in scanned copies and images as well. With the new OCR enhancement, DLP policies can now analyse common image types, and extract text for policy evaluation," says Google in a blog post.

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/g...e-to-prevent-leak-of-confidential-data-808635

 

I was not aware about this feature. I am using a free version of Gmail,thus, I am not eligible to use this service. I am also worried about the attachments that come in my Gmail. I hear malwares and virus are also sent in attachment and I worry about opening the attachment from a stranger.