Material Security

NYC folks: Do you like security trivia, bingo, prizes and the movie WarGames? Material Security is hosting another Security Theater with all of the above on November 12th at the Roxy Theater. Join us and bring your friends! RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/gUBaKPZB

Google gives you the bricks and mortar to secure your org's Workspace. They don't give you the architectural blueprints. 🔍 Securing large Google Workspace environments overtime, I've learned the biggest risks aren't at the perimeter. They're in the blind spots: - Over-privileged service accounts with leaked API keys - Orphaned files accessible to external parties indefinitely - Third-party apps with OAuth tokens that persist even after uninstall - Employees inadvertently creating gaps while just trying to get work done. MFA and DLP are table stakes, but they can't protect you from what they can't see. I teamed up with Material Security yet again to write a field guide on where to focus your attention beyond the defaults. If you're responsible for securing a Google Workspace environment, this one's for you. Nate Abbott Abhishek Agrawal appreciate the opportunity. 😊 Link to the blog: https://lnkd.in/gEgVCn-r

“Mo’ Tools, Mo’ Problems.” Biggie was right. And in security, tool sprawl is killing us. 45+ platforms ≠ more safety. It’s more noise, more blind spots, more risk. Attackers don’t care how many logos are on your slide. They care about the gaps between them. Stop collecting. Start consolidating. 👉 More Tools, More Problems: https://lnkd.in/e7RmYd8M

Google: Use our AI to auto-label files in Drive! Also Google: But first… create a custom model, ask your users to manually label files for a while, and wait for it to train 😅 That’s…not super practical. We thought this feature had a ton of potential—but needed a way better on-ramp. So now Material Security can automatically label files in Google Drive based on real detections, like: → Files with certain data types that are also shared externally → Files in certain locations or created by certain people These labels can be used for auto-remediation policies—and bonus: they now also help train Google’s AI labeling models without needing manual effort from users. More information here: https://lnkd.in/gjveNGza

A couple times now, I’ve described what we’re building to a security leader and they’ve said: "So...kind of how AV moved to EDR?" I’ll admit I didn't get the analogy immediately: I didn’t really have a good understanding of how the EDR market came to be. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it's actually a perfect analogy. Legacy AV was binary: block known-bad files, allow everything else. Hope for the best. Eventually the industry matured and admitted a harsh truth: 100% detection is a myth. EDR was born, not to fully replace AV, but to surround it with other capabilities for visibility, threat hunting, incident response and even DLP. It was an acknowledgement that protecting the endpoint was equal parts detection/prevention and resilience. I think email security is at a similar inflection point. There are diminishing returns from investing in a better catch rate. What we need now are controls that either limit the impact of successful intrusions or address the gaps that enabled the intrusion in the first place. Some of these controls will fall outside “email security” (eg hardening identity, process improvements around accounts payable, etc). But some are definitely within the realm of email: modern retention policies, granular permissions for highly sensitive messages, email-based app signups etc. Like the endpoint, email is a critical pivot point that allows further access (especially if you consider it in the context of the rest of Google Workspace or M365, which are critical pieces of SaaS). It makes sense for email security to go through a similar transformation as AV did. At Material Security, we’ve discovered this by moving inside-out. We *started* with post-breach protections, added preventative detection later on, and recently thinking about similar capabilities for the rest of the office suite, which is just as gnarly as email. Ultimately, we think the days of stand-alone email security are numbered.

A customer today: “Material should be rebranded as Magic.” ✨ They came to us for email security. Now they use the same platform to fix risky Google Drive sharing — adjusting permissions, removing external access, and even notifying doc owners before the change. One platform. Email + Files + Accounts. Still magic. A little late to change the name 😅 — but we’ll take the compliment!!