Google Drive’s Warning Banner Now Alerts Users Of Suspicious File

Ransomware attacks, malware and phishing lures are various forms of attacks various Google Drive users have been victims to through the platform one way or the other and will soon be something of the past. In order to help users stay ahead of malicious files that continuously circulate, Google announces a new security feature to the Google Drive platform.

According to the post from Google, a warning banner will now start displaying when a potentially dubious document, image, or any type of file is about to be downloaded or opened by a user. The new feature is set to roll out across all Google Workspace, G Suite Basic and G Suite Business tiers. The new feature appears in the form of a yellow banner which pops up at the top of an attachment page after you click on a link. The yellow banner is a warning which is expected to appear before a file is downloaded to your device, the warning informs users when the file looks suspicious and “might be used to steal your personal information.”

If you are conversant with using Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings, you might recognize the security alert. Ideas for the new measure was announced at Google’s Cloud Next 2021, as a way to help safeguard users from malicious files. These alerts were rolled out to those file-syncing services late last year.

In 2020, Drives were being exploited by scammers, who found a way to send out emails and push notifications via Drive. This new feature comes in handy for frequent Google Drive users, which isn’t completely safe from abusive content, like every other file hosting platform. The messages appeared to be legitimate at first glance, but they directed recipients to malicious websites.

Just like any other phased rollout, which gets to users in batches, the new Drive security feature won’t be available to everyone just yet, the search giant says it should arrive over the next two weeks.