The Pitfalls of Public Sharing in Google Workspace Security

Google Workspace has revolutionized how teams collaborate within the last 10 years. With tools like Docs, Sheets, and Drive, businesses can seamlessly share ideas, build documents in real-time, and maintain operational agility, especially in today’s hybrid and remote-first environments. 

For many organizations, Google Workspace is the digital heart of day-to-day operations.

But behind the ease of collaboration lies a growing and often underestimated threat: public sharing.

While Google’s sharing features are designed for flexibility, there’s a lot of misuse that turns dangerous: overpermissions, configuration mishaps, and poor visibility into who can access what can open the door to data leaks, insider threats, and compliance failures. 

In this article, we’ll break down the dangers of public sharing in Google Workspace, specific threats it could bring to your organization, and how security teams can regain control without stifling productivity.

Why is Public Sharing a Threat to Google Workspace Security?

What is Public Sharing in Google Workspace?

Public sharing in Google Workspace refers to the ability to share files (like Docs, Sheets, Slides, and even entire folders) with anyone who has a link, whether inside or outside your organization. This is commonly done via the “Anyone with the link can view/comment/edit” setting found in the file’s share menu.

For users, it’s a convenient way to bypass access requests, share resources quickly, or collaborate with external partners. But in doing so, they often unknowingly bypass security controls.

Why is Public Sharing so Risky?

Public sharing is a huge threat to your Google Workspace Security. What many don’t realize is that publicly shared links can be forwarded, shared, or even exposed to search engines, especially if the link ends up on a public webpage or in a compromised inbox.

Because public sharing doesn’t require authentication, it removes one of the most important layers of security: identity verification. Public sharing doesn’t need a login  (even if it did, there’d still be risks!) 

This means once a file is shared publicly, its safety depends only on how well the link is kept ‘secret’ or ‘internal’ - and that’s often not enough with today’s security risks.

The Hidden Security Risks of Public Sharing

Public sharing in Google Workspace might feel harmless–just a fast way to get a file into the right hands, right? But in the hands of a fast-moving team, negligent employees who mean well, or unaware contractors, it becomes a silent liability. Here’s how real, everyday actions can lead to significant risks right under your nose:

Unauthorized Access: When “Anyone with the Link” Becomes Everyone

Imagine a strategy analyst at a tech company drafting an internal presentation in Google Slides detailing a confidential acquisition target, complete with financials, legal risks, and cultural concerns. To get exec input quickly, they share the slides via link set to “anyone with the link can view” and drop it in a company Slack thread.

Someone from the finance team, unaware of the presentation's sensitivity, pastes the link into a shared team wiki indexed by Google. A week later, it showed up in a competitor’s investor deck.

The acquisition collapses. Your company loses a multi-million-dollar opportunity, faces a shareholder lawsuit, and gets publicly embarrassed in the press, all because one link got out!

This isn’t hypothetical; Google Drive files or links can get posted on public platforms like Google, Reddit, Twitter, or even Jira, and end up discoverable by anyone. Researchers and threat actors alike often scrape the web for these exposed assets.

Even when links aren’t widely shared, they’re vulnerable. Employees may forward them to personal emails, save them on unmanaged devices, or include them in messages that get compromised. Once that link leaves your controlled environment, you’ve effectively published your internal document to the world.

Insider Threats: The Quiet Leak You’ll Never Trace

Picture this: at a fintech startup, HR creates a spreadsheet outlining a sensitive document detailing end of year performance reviews – including names, roles, performance assessments, and severance packages to those being let go. A junior manager, upset by the decisions, shares the document using “anyone with the link can view” with a trusted peer.

That peer posts the content (anonymized) on an anonymous employee forum, thinking it's doing good. Within 24 hours, the spreadsheet is dissected by industry blogs.

Panic erupts. Employees quit. Top candidates rescind offers. Investors start asking questions. Meanwhile, there’s no forensic trail; no way to know who downloaded, shared, or leaked the doc. The breach may never be traceable, but its impact is painfully visible.

Even less malicious scenarios can carry major risk. Consider a sales rep who shares a pricing sheet with a prospective client using a public link. That client forwards the link to a competitor, who now has full visibility into your pricing structure, discounts, and margins.

Insider misuse isn’t always malicious, but it’s always dangerous.

Compliance Violations: The Audit You Didn’t Know You Failed

An account manager at a healthcare SaaS provider shares a client performance report with a freelance analyst using a public “can comment” link. The report contains patient engagement metrics tied to email addresses – technically protected health information (PHI) under HIPAA.

That link is then accessed from multiple international IPs after the analyst copies it into a shared Trello or Asana board for a contractor team. Weeks later, a regulator receives an anonymous tip, launches an inquiry, and finds the file publicly accessible with no access controls.

The company is hit with a formal investigation, a six-figure fine, mandatory third-party audits, and public notice to affected clients. The incident never showed up in internal access logs. So much for your compliance program.

These aren’t just horror stories and use cases – they’re everyday examples of how trusted employees, in pursuit of speed and convenience, unintentionally expose the business to security risks. 

The problem isn’t always malice. It’s lack of visibility, control, and governance.

How to Identify Public Sharing Risks in Google Workspace

Before you can fix public sharing issues, you need to find them, and that’s often harder than it sounds. Google Workspace doesn’t make it obvious when files are publicly exposed, especially at scale. Below are a few practical ways to surface risky sharing behavior and regain control.

1. Use the Google Admin Console to Audit Sharing Activity

The first line of defense is Google's built-in Admin Console. It provides visibility into Drive file activity, including sharing settings.

• Navigate to Reports > Audit > Drive to filter for files shared with "Anyone with the link."
• Review who owns these files, how long they’ve been shared, and what permission level was given (view, comment, edit).
• Export logs for periodic review by IT or security teams.

While helpful, this method is manual and doesn’t scale well in large or fast-growing environments. This could take a long time to do, especially if you’re a company with 100+ employees. In this case, you probably have so much exposure that it’d be impossible to remediate it all.

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2. Conduct Department-Level File Ownership Reviews

Partner with team leads or department heads to review top-shared files. Run reviews every quarter and focus on:

• Files shared externally or with unknown domains.
• Files created by former employees.
• Documents labeled as “shared with anyone with the link.”

Again, this is one way to do it. This decentralized approach promotes shared responsibility and can catch issues IT teams might miss. However, it's manual, tiring, and takes a lot of resources. Plus, there's no way to do it effectively at scale. Even if you unshare and clean up all historical documents (which would take forever), there's no way to put in guardrails for the future or automate policies. 

3. Monitor Link Sharing Activity Through Drive Alerts

Set up custom alerts in the Admin Console to detect risky sharing behavior in real-time:

• Trigger alerts when files are shared outside the domain.
• Flag changes to sharing permissions on high-risk files (like those in a sensitive folder or with certain labels).
• Integrate with security operations workflows to ensure quick triage and response.

These alerts can help stop public links before they spread. This is a great option. The only pitfall is that native Google capabilities do have their limitations, and depending on data volume, company size, and a bunch of other factors, it may not be the best bet for your organization.

4. Use a Third-Party SaaS Security Platform  like DoControl

The three options above can help, but let’s be honest: they’re time-consuming, manual, and impossible to scale in fast-moving, cloud-native organizations. For companies with a large Google Workspace footprint, a modern SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) platform like DoControl is built for exactly this challenge.

With DoControl, you get:

• Continuous Monitoring: Always-on visibility into file sharing across your entire environment – public, external, internal, and everything in between. No more relying on spot-checks or periodic audits.
  
  
• Bulk Remediation at Scale: Instantly identify and revoke risky public links across thousands of files in one action. With DoControl, you can remediate up to 1 million assets with a single click. Whether it’s a single department or your entire domain, you can clean up exposures in minutes, not months.
  
  
• Custom Workflow Automation: Build guardrails that fit your business. Automatically expire public links after a set time, alert file owners of risky sharing, restrict certain file types or labels from being shared publicly, or block public sharing altogether. All of this happens in the background, without burdening your users or IT team.
  
  
• Behavioral Analytics: Detect unusual or high-risk sharing behaviors before they become incidents. Spot a spike in public links, sharing from sensitive folders, or cross-team access that doesn’t make sense. Then, take action with automated workflows or putting risky users on watchlists.

Unlike native tools that give you data but no clear action or automation, DoControl helps you enforce smart policies, respond instantly, and future-proof your SaaS security posture, so public link risks never become public scandals.

Best Practices to Minimize Public Sharing Risks

DoControl believes in one unified solution to control, monitor, and remediate all public sharing. However, we realize that not every company is there yet. Our hope is to educate on the pitfalls of public sharing in a way that is attainable for all organizations everywhere. 

Here’s a strategic mix of easy policy and process tips that you can implement TODAY. 

1. Disable “Anyone with the Link” by Default (Where Possible)

Use the Google Admin Console to set stricter default sharing permissions for your organization or specific OUs (organizational units). For example:

• Default to “restricted” access for new files.
  
  
• Only allow public sharing for specific roles or trusted teams (ex: marketing, or HR). This won't catch everything, but it greatly reduces the chance of accidental public exposure at the source.
  

2. Run Monthly Public Link Audits and Cleanups

Create a recurring task to export a list of files shared with "anyone with the link" using the Drive Audit logs. Review for:

• High-sensitivity files (ex: financials, HR plans, strategy docs).
  
  
• Long-lived public links (shared for months without review).

Then manually unshare or update permissions for risky files. Time-consuming? Yes. But, essential without automation – which is a reality for many companies who can’t quite justify an investment in this yet.

3. Tag and Track Sensitive Files with Labels

Encourage teams to use Drive labels (ex: "confidential," "internal-only") and create custom alerts or reports based on label+sharing status.

While labels don’t enforce behavior by default, they help you prioritize the files that matter most during reviews and investigations.

DoControl believes in a “Just in Time” Approach to data classification, which means that you’re only classifying data as an event or activity with them is triggered. This saves time, money, and valuable resources – all while enforcing top security policies. 

4. Create a File Sharing “Owner Review” Workflow

Have department heads review their team’s top-shared files quarterly. Provide a simple checklist:

• Is this still shared externally?
  
  
• Does this person still need access?
  
  
• Should this file still exist?

Make this part of offboarding, quarterly IT reviews, or department meetings. You can’t scale this perfectly, but local accountability beats zero oversight.

5. Educate Employees with Real Examples

People don’t respond to vague policies, they respond to stories. Share anonymized examples (or real news headlines) of public link leaks and their impact. Offer short, clear guidance on:

• When not to use public links.
  
  
• How to share safely (ex: internal only, expiration dates, restricted access).
  
  
• Who to contact when unsure.

Make it a 10-minute training, not a 60-minute lecture. Repetition builds good habits.

Summary

Securing data in Google Workspace isn’t about shutting down collaboration, it’s about building a system where security and productivity go hand in hand. With the right policies, guardrails, and ongoing employee education, you can reduce the risks of public sharing without slowing your teams down.

Remember: most public sharing incidents aren’t the result of malice – they happen because people take the path of least resistance. If you make the secure path the easiest and simplest one for your org, your employees will follow it. It's that simple.

Learn more on Google Workspace Security:

Google Workspace Security in 2025: Best Practices to Safeguard Your Data

SaaS Data Protection for Google Workspace