5 Things You Must Know About the Security of Google App

1. Sharing Permissions are in the Hands of the User The Google Docs model delegates control and responsibility to the users themselves. It’s up to end- users, rather than IT, to determine with whom data is shared, so information can potentially be made available to the wrong people or groups within a company, external people outside the domain, or the public Internet.

2. Data Location In Google Apps, information is created by users and resides in their individual accounts (as opposed to a central location). Furthermore, if an account is deleted, so is all of that user’s data. There is no notion of a central shared file server that is run by IT. Companies using Google Docs need to understand what data users have and own before making any account deletions.

3. Access Privileges Companies using Google Docs need to identify and report on who has access to sensitive data. This is needed not only to keep data secure in a collaborative environment but to adhere to auditing and compliance requirements. Keeping track of who is accessing and using information with an audit trail becomes a critical component in protecting data against misuse by both end users and admins.

4. Data Leakage Companies using Google Docs must be able to inspect their data and be alerted when action is needed. For example, let’s say that a company has a top-secret project called “Project Monkeyfeet” that they only want approved personnel to know about. They should be alerted any time the term is used in a Google Doc and change access permissions as necessary. This helps protect data from both internal and external threats. Google Apps do not currently have this function baked in.

5. Data Loss In addition to protecting their data, companies need to be able to retain records, migrate data and back it up without losing anything. Since control is in the hands of the users, businesses need to protect themselves and users from erroneous and malicious deletions caused by human error. There is a much higher risk that an employee will unknowingly delete a document or an admin will delete a user — along with all the data they own — than of a Google Docs system disruption or failure.

Source : www.mashable.com/2011/06/29/google-apps-security/