Depending on your Google Workspace edition, you might have access to the security investigation tool, which has more advanced features. For example, super admins can identify, triage, and take action on security and privacy issues. Learn more
As your organization's administrator, you can run searches and take action on Rule log events. For example, you can view a record of actions to review your user’s attempts to share sensitive data. You can also review events triggered by data loss prevention (DLP) rule violation events. Entries usually appear within an hour of the user action.
The Rule log events also list data types for Chrome Enterprise Premium threat and data protection.
Forward log event data to Google Cloud
You can opt in to share log event data with Google Cloud. If you turn on sharing, data is forwarded to Cloud Logging where you can query and view your logs and control how you route and store your logs.
The type of log event data you can share with Google Cloud depends on your Google Workspace, Cloud Identity, or Essentials account.
Run a search for log events
Your ability to run a search depends on your Google edition, your administrative privileges, and the data source. You can run a search on all users, regardless of their Google Workspace edition.
To run a search for log events, first choose a data source. Then, choose one or more filters for your search.
-
Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
-
In the Admin console, go to Menu
Reporting
Audit and investigation
- Click Add a filter, and then select an attribute.
- In the pop-up window, select an operator
- (Optional) To create multiple filters for your search, repeat this step.
- (Optional) To add a search operator, above Add a filter, select AND or OR.
- Click Search.
Note: Using the Filter tab, you can include simple parameter and value pairs to filter the search results. You can also use the Condition builder tab, where the filters are represented as conditions with AND/OR operators.
To run a search in the security investigation tool, first choose a data source. Then, choose one or more conditions for your search. For each condition, choose an attribute, an operator, and a value.
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Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
-
In the Admin console, go to Menu
Security
- Click Data source and select Rule log events.
- Click Add Condition.
Tip: You can include one or more conditions in your search or customize your search with nested queries. For details, go to Customize your search with nested queries. - Click Attribute
For a complete list of attributes, go to the Attribute descriptions section (later on this page). - Select an operator.
- Enter a value or select a value from the list.
- (Optional) To add more search conditions, repeat steps 4–7.
- Click Search.
You can review the search results from the investigation tool in a table at the bottom of the page. - (Optional) To save your investigation, click Save
Notes
- In the Condition builder tab, filters are represented as conditions with AND/OR operators. You can also use the Filter tab to include simple parameter and value pairs to filter the search results.
- If you gave a user a new name, you will not see query results with the user's old name. For example, if you rename [email protected] to [email protected], you will not see results for events related to [email protected].
Attribute descriptions
For this data source, you can use the following attributes when searching log event data:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Access level | The access levels selected as this rule’s Context-Aware Access conditions. Access levels are applicable only to Chrome data. For details, see Create Context-Aware access levels. |
| Actor | Email address of the user who performed the action. The value can be Anonymous user if the events are the results of a rescan. |
| Actor group name |
Group name of the actor. For more information, go to Filtering results by Google Group. To add a group to your filtering groups allowlist:
|
| Actor organizational unit | Organizational unit of the actor |
| Blocked recipients | The recipients who are blocked by the triggered rule |
| Conditional action | A list of actions that could be triggered at user access time, depending on the context conditions configured for the rule. |
| Conference ID | Conference ID of the meeting that was acted on as part of this rule trigger |
| Container ID | ID of the parent container that the resource belongs to |
| Container type | Type of parent container that the resource belongs to—for example, Chat Space or Group Chat, for chat messages or chat attachments |
| Data source | The application originating the resource |
| Date | Date and time the event occurred |
| Detector ID | Identifier of a matched detector |
| Detector name | Name of a matched detector that admins defined |
| Device ID | The ID of the device on which the action was triggered. This data type applies to Chrome Enterprise Premium threat and data protection. |
| Device type | Type of device referred to by the Device ID. This data type applies to Chrome Enterprise Premium threat and data protection. |
| Event |
The logged event action. DriveThese DLP rules events are logged for Drive:
Drive notes:
GmailThese DLP rules events are logged for Gmail:
* The 'Action complete' portion of these event names will be deprecated. |
| Has sensitive content | For triggered DLP rules with sensitive content detected and logged, the value is True. |
| Recipient* | Those who received the shared resource |
| Recipient omitted count* | Number of resource recipients omitted due to exceeding the limit |
| Resource ID | The object modified. For DLP rules:
|
| Resource owner | User that owns the resource that was scanned and had an action applied to it |
| Resource title | The title of the resource that was modified. For DLP, a document title. |
| Resource type | For DLP, the resource is Document. For Chat DLP, the resource is Chat Message or Chat Attachment. |
| Rule ID | ID of the rule that triggered |
| Rule name | Rule name provided by the admin when they created the rule |
| Rule type | DLP is the value for DLP rules |
| Scan type |
Values are:
|
| Severity | The severity assigned to the rule when it was triggered |
| Suppressed action* | Actions configured on the rule, but suppressed. An action is suppressed if a higher priority action occurs at the same time and is triggered. |
| Trigger | Activity that led to a rule being triggered |
| Triggered action | Lists the action taken. This is blank if an audit-only rule was triggered. |
| Trigger client IP | IP address of the actor that triggered the action |
| Triggering user email* | Email address of actor that triggered the action |
| User action | The action the user was attempting that was blocked by a rule |
Note: If you gave a user a new name, you will not see query results with the user's old name. For example, if you rename [email protected] to [email protected], you will not see results for events related to [email protected].
Manage log event data
Manage search results column data
You can control which data columns appear in your search results.
- At the top-right of the search results table, click Manage columns
.
- (Optional) To remove current columns, click Remove
.
- (Optional) To add columns, next to Add new column, click the Down arrow
and select the data column.
Repeat as needed. - (Optional) To change the order of the columns, drag the data column names.
- Click Save.
Export search result data
You can export search results to Google Sheets or to a CSV file.
- At the top of the search results table, click Export all.
- Enter a name
The export displays below the search results table under Export action results. - To view the data, click the name of your export.
The export opens in Google Sheets.
Export limits vary:
- The total results of the export are limited to 100,000 rows (except for Gmail message searches, which are limited to 10,000 rows).
- Supported editions for this feature: Frontline Standard; Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus; Education Standard and Education Plus; Enterprise Essentials Plus; Cloud Identity Premium. Compare your edition
If you have the security investigation tool, the total results of the export are limited to 30 million rows (except for Gmail message searches, which are limited to 10,000 rows).
For more information, see Export search results.
When and how long is data available?
Take action based on search results
- You can set up alerts based on log event data using reporting rules. For instructions, see Create and manage reporting rules.
- Supported editions for this feature: Frontline Standard; Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus; Education Standard and Education Plus; Enterprise Essentials Plus; Cloud Identity Premium. Compare your edition
To help prevent, detect, and remediate security issues efficiently, you can automate actions in the security investigation tool and set up alerts by creating activity rules. To set up a rule, set up conditions for the rule, and then specify what actions to perform when the conditions are met. For details and instructions, see Create and manage activity rules.
Supported editions for this feature: Frontline Standard; Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus; Education Standard and Education Plus; Enterprise Essentials Plus; Cloud Identity Premium. Compare your edition
After you run a search in the security investigation tool, you can act on your search results. For example, you can run a search based on Gmail log events and then use the tool to delete specific messages, send messages to quarantine, or send messages to users' inboxes. For more details, go to Take action based on search results.
Manage your investigations
Supported editions for this feature: Frontline Standard; Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus; Education Standard and Education Plus; Enterprise Essentials Plus; Cloud Identity Premium. Compare your edition
View your list of investigationsTo view a list of the investigations that you own and that were shared with you, click View investigations . The investigation list includes the names, descriptions, and owners of the investigations, and the date last modified.
From this list, you can take action on any investigations that you own—for example, to delete an investigation. Check the box for an investigation and then click Actions.
Note: Directly above your list of investigations, under Quick access, you can view recently saved investigations.
As a super administrator, click Settings to:
- Change the time zone for your investigations. The time zone applies to search conditions and results.
- Turn on or off Require reviewer. For more details, go to Require reviewers for bulk actions.
- Turn on or off View content. This setting allows admins with the appropriate privileges to view content.
- Turn on or off Enable action justification.
For instructions and details, go to Configure settings for your investigations.
To save your search criteria or share it with others, you can create and save an investigation, and then share, duplicate, or delete it.
For details, go to Save, share, delete, and duplicate investigations.
Use Rule log events to investigate Chat messages
As an administrator, you can create a data protection rule for Chat to monitor and prevent sensitive content leaks. You can then use the security investigation tool to monitor Chat activity in your organization—including messages and files that are sent outside your domain. For details, see Investigate Chat messages to protect your organization's data.
Use Rule log events to investigate DLP rule violations
As an administrator, you can use data loss prevention (DLP) snippets to investigate whether a DLP rule violation is a real incident or a false positive. For details, go to View content that triggers DLP rules.
