SaaS Updates Summary: July 2 – July 6

Greetings. This week was a slow one due to the July 4th holiday, so there aren’t a ton of SaaS updates. Google announced that users may now be asked to verify their identity by providing their employee ID when they sign in to their G Suite account. Google also published a post defending Gmail’s privacy protections after the Wall Street Journal reported the service was allowing third-party companies to read personal emails. And finally, Microsoft and Slack published roundups of their latest product updates.

Read on for details.

Halfway Around in June
Several People Are Typing | As June draws to a close, the year is half complete. Here’s a roundup from Slack of everything they’ve done this year, from product updates to company updates and more.

New to Microsoft 365 in June—Streamlining Teamwork and Security
Microsoft 365 Blog | This month, Microsoft introduced several new capabilities that improve user experience, streamline the management of common tasks, and enhance identity-driven security measures.

Protect Your Users with the Latest G Suite Login Challenge: Employee ID
G Suite Updates | Google is always looking for new ways to keep your users’ accounts secure and your organization’s data safe. As part of that effort, users may now be asked to verify their identity by providing their employee ID when they sign in to their G Suite account. This will better protect your users from hijacking attempts, as employee IDs are more difficult to guess and phish than many types of identity challenges.

Ensuring Your Security and Privacy Within Gmail
The Keyword | “We make it possible for applications from other developers to integrate with Gmail—like email clients, trip planners and customer relationship management (CRM) systems—so that you have options around how you access and use your email. We continuously work to vet developers and their apps that integrate with Gmail before we open them for general access, and we give both enterprise admins and individual consumers transparency and control over how their data is used,” writes Suzanne Frey, Director of Security, Trust, & Privacy at Google Cloud. Here are details about the vetting process and user controls for both enterprise and consumer accounts.

For last week’s SaaS updates (and beyond), click here for our archive.