Fast-growing companies often have no shortage of security recommendations for protecting Google Workspace. The harder question is determining which controls will actually make the greatest difference when security teams have limited time and resources.

On September 23, 2026, BleepingComputer will host a live webinar titled “Breach autopsy: How fast-growing companies are breached through Google Workspace” with Material Security.

The webinar will feature Rajan Kapoor, Vice President of Security at Material Security, and Rick Fitzgerald, President of Fireside Consulting LLC, examining real, publicly documented Google Workspace breaches and what organizations can learn from them.

Rather than working through another lengthy security checklist, the speakers will use real breaches to discuss which Google Workspace security controls matter most, which may be overrated, and what they would prioritize if they were designing a security program for a fast-growing company from scratch.

The discussion will include two attacks that combined social engineering with malicious OAuth applications to gain access to Google Workspace environments.

These incidents provide an opportunity to look beyond theoretical risks and examine where defenses broke down, which overlooked weaknesses left users and data exposed, and what organizations could have done differently.

The webinar will also examine what happened during the critical first hours after the breaches were discovered and which response decisions helped limit—or potentially worsen—the impact.

For lean security teams, the goal isn’t to implement every possible security control. It’s understanding where the greatest risks exist and prioritizing improvements based on the effort required and the potential impact they can have.

Attendees will leave with a practical view of the controls and response measures that matter most when protecting Google Workspace environments.

Building Google Workspace security around real-world risks

Security guidance can quickly turn into long lists of settings, products, policies, and recommended controls.

But fast-growing organizations rarely have unlimited resources to implement and continuously manage every possible defense.

By examining how real Google Workspace breaches unfolded, security teams can better understand where attackers are finding opportunities and which defenses deserve the most attention.

The speakers will also discuss what they would build differently if they were designing a Google Workspace security program from scratch, giving attendees a practical framework for evaluating their own security priorities.

The upcoming webinar will cover:

• Which security controls provide the greatest value for fast-growing companies with limited security resources
• Which Google Workspace security measures may receive more attention than their real-world impact warrants
• How social engineering and malicious OAuth applications can lead to Google Workspace breaches
• Commonly overlooked weaknesses that can leave users, data, and connected applications exposed
• Practical security improvements organizations can implement quickly, ranked by effort and potential impact

Join us to learn which Google Workspace security controls deserve the most attention and how lessons from real-world breaches can help organizations decide where to focus their limited security resources.

➡ Register now to secure your spot!

Automattic has a new interim chief financial officer: Jeremy Klaperman, the CFO of the company’s WordPress VIP Enterprise business unit. The news, shared internally on Friday, follows last week’s attempted ouster of Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg, which ultimately resulted in the departure of the board members who voted him out and other executives, including then-CFO Mark Davies. Davies was briefly interim CEO before Mullenweg retook the position.

In a Slack post, Mullenweg shared that Klaperman had previously acted as Automattic CFO when Davies had been on sabbatical. He noted that the board — whose new members have yet to be announced — will still need to evaluate internal and external candidates for the position before a final decision is made.

In addition, Mullenweg said in the post that a candidate to become the company’s chief legal officer had also just verbally accepted the position, replacing Chief Legal Officer Andy Missan, who has also since left the company alongside Davies. TechCrunch recently reported that Davies and Missan had signed reciprocal severance deals during Mullenweg’s 33-hour leave of absence before he returned as CEO.

“I have 100% confidence in our cash and financial position,” Mullenweg’s post concluded, adding “There is still work to do, but everything is within our control and depends only on Automattic’s ability to execute.”

In subsequent updates, Mullenweg also said to “stay tuned” for board announcements, and noted that special advisor and creator of Wolfram|Alpha, Stephen Wolfram, will continue in his position. The company’s next board meeting is scheduled for September 23.

Dario Amodei’s plans to put third-party safety evaluators inside AI labs are taking shape: Anthropic said that staff from technology consulting giant Accenture will begin working inside the company to scrutinize its models and staff.

In a blog post, Anthropic said that Faculty, a company Accenture acquired in January to act as its AI division, will begin “evaluating and red-teaming models, conducting alignment assessments, and testing model safeguards.” Both companies expect to invest at least $1 billion in the project over the next five years.

The choice of Accenture surprised many AI watchers — and the markets, where the consultant company’s shares shot up 8% after hours. The discussion around embedded evaluators that sprang from Amodei’s blog post has focused on AI safety research organizations like METR, Redwood Research, and Apollo Research. That’s particularly true at Anthropic, which puts AI safety and alignment at the heart of its mission.

Anthropic said more evaluators will be announced in the weeks ahead and that it is in conversation with METR and other non-profit organizations about how to “pilot elements of embedded evaluation using their own funding.”

While Accenture is not known for its work on the bleeding edge of deep learning research, Anthropic pointed to the company’s practical experience deploying AI for large corporations and government agencies as key advantage. It is also, as a large public company that predates the AI revolution, more functionally independent of Anthropic and the let’s-say-complex ecosystem around the AI lab.

The lab noted that no standards yet exist for evaluators’ access or communications and that it expected its approach to evolve over time. While external evaluations are already a major part of the release of process for new large language models, recent incidents have raised the stakes: AI agents deployed by OpenAI and Anthropic have hacked into outside websites without raising alarms inside the labs.

Some critics calling for a more responsible approach to building artificial intelligence see Amodei’s scheme for self-policing the AI industry as a plan to evade accountability for the misbehavior of AI models. Anthropic insists that these evaluators “do not reduce our accountability, but help to make it more verifiable. The safety of our models remains our responsibility.”

Microsoft Teams will soon let administrators tweak the list of file extensions commonly associated with malware and security threats to meet their company’s security requirements.

This will come as an update to Weaponizable File Protection, a built-in Teams messaging safety feature that scans conversations and blocks chat or channel messages with dangerous, high-risk file attachments.

As detailed in a new Microsoft 365 roadmap entry, the feature is currently in development and will start rolling out in November 2026.

“Microsoft Teams is expanding admin controls for Weaponizable File Protection. Administrators will be able to customize which file types are blocked in Teams to align with their organization’s security requirements or continue using the Microsoft-recommended default list,” Microsoft says.

“This added flexibility helps organizations tailor file protection policies while maintaining a secure collaboration environment.” 

When it reaches general availability, it will be available across Android, desktop, iOS, macOS, and web platforms for standard multi-tenant cloud environments worldwide.

Right now, according to Microsoft’s support website, admins can’t change the list of blocked file types.

More Teams security improvements

Starting in December, admins can also block external users via the Defender portal to thwart cybercrime gangs(including ransomware groups) attempting to abuse Teams in social engineering attacks targeting victims’ employees.

Earlier this month, it said that Teams will get a new security feature designed to provide additional protection against phishing and fraud attempts by blurring QR codes sent by external senders.

This week, Microsoft also announced that, starting in November, it will let users report suspicious guest invitations directly from Teams to help their organization’s security teams identify and block phishing attempts and other attacks through guest invitations.

More recently, Microsoft has begun rolling out a new Teams meeting protection policy that lets admins automatically block all identified external bots from joining meetings.

Join Mikko Hyppönen and security leaders from the NFL, CHANEL, and Atlassian for a two-hour digital summit on what AI-speed attacks change, what defenders should stop doing, and how to validate, decide, fix, and re-validate at machine speed.

Save your seat

Transitioning from years of working in a senior technical or executive role to a leadership position is one of the most challenging phases of a STEM career. It requires moving away from making decisions on your own to mentoring others, making strategic decisions for the organization, and collaborating with coworkers from different generations.

The shift in mindset is known as “legacy leadership,” a philosophy whereby success is no longer measured by personal achievements but by how effectively a senior leader empowers others.

To help seasoned professionals and senior experts navigate the transition, the inaugural IEEE International Leadership Conference (ILC) will provide attendees practical advice on cultivating collaborations and guiding emerging talent.

“Early in our STEM careers, we measure success by what we have achieved,” says Jeewika Ranaweera, cochair of the IEEE ILC program committee. “Later, we should measure success by what we enable, how many people we mentor, how much knowledge we transfer, and how many doors we open for the next generation.”

The ILC is scheduled for 3 and 4 October in Budapest. Registration is open.

Letting go of the “expert” identity

For decades, seasoned technologists have been valued primarily for their technical expertise. Shifting from that identity can feel uncomfortable, but legacy leadership requires measuring success by different standards. They include a leader’s influence on the staff, the ability to uphold the company’s mission, and empowering others to lead and succeed.

The transition requires leaders to find purpose outside their corporate titles, shifting their focus to the long-term sustainability of their teams, their organization, and the broader technical community.

“A professional legacy is not measured only by what we have achieved but also by sharing our knowledge, experience, and opportunities with others,” says Sudhanshu S. Jamuar, another program committee cochair. “The real transition from expert to a legacy builder happens when we stop asking, ‘What more can I accomplish myself?’ and start asking, ‘How many others can I enable to accomplish more?’”

Neeli Rashmi Prasad, IEEE ILC treasurer and sponsorship cochair, adds that the transition transforms a lifetime of technical work into a platform for future innovation.

“The true value of experience is not in how much knowledge we accumulate but in how intentionally we transfer it,” Prasad says. “When we partner with, mentor, and create space for others to lead, our expertise becomes a foundation for progress far beyond our own careers.”

Moving beyond advice-giving

True knowledge transfer requires coaching rather than advising, and mastering the art of active listening. To build deep trust with early-career colleagues and ensure a seamless transfer of leadership to the next generation, senior leaders must avoid offering unsolicited or outdated anecdotes. Effective mentorship is a collaborative loop in which senior experts contribute hard-won industry wisdom while remaining curious and learning from the fresh, cutting-edge perspectives of talented coworkers.

“Knowledge transfer is most powerful when it is a two-way bridge: experience flows from one generation to the next, while new ideas and perspectives flow back,” says Sudeendra Koushik, president of the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society and an ILC keynote speaker. “This approach transforms mentorship from simply passing on information into one where the next generation can question, experiment, innovate, and ultimately surpass what came before them.”

Seasoned professionals should encourage independent, disruptive thinkers rather than carbon copies of themselves, Prasad says.

“Legacy leadership is about building continuity,” she says. “We should not simply prepare the next generation to follow the paths we created; we should give them the confidence, knowledge, and networks to challenge those paths, create new ones, and take technology further than we imagined.”

Designing your next chapter

Leadership does not need to stop when one’s job ends; it can evolve. Seasoned, retired professionals can continue contributing meaningful service through pathways that align with their personal passions. They include:

• Advisory boards: steering corporate, technical, or community organizations.
• Civic engagement: applying engineering methodologies to solve community challenges.
• Volunteerism: mentoring the next generation of grassroots innovators through professional networks including IEEE.

Those pathways offer experienced professionals an opportunity to redefine success, not in terms of position, authority, or personal achievement but in terms of sustained impact.

“Retirement from a job should never mean retirement from purpose,” Koushik says. “Our experience becomes even more valuable when we use it in service of the profession, society, and the generation that follows.”

At the same time, the collaborative continuum relies on a proactive younger generation. Emerging leaders need to take responsibility for building their professional connections, Prasad says, advising: “Be bold, stay curious, and build your network early!”

A space for continuity

The conference is designed to combine a drive to cultivate emerging innovators with a deep reservoir of industry stewardship and strategic perspective. Rather than a single classroom session, the conference will feature a dedicated career-readiness and mentorship track where attendees can explore practical frameworks for building strategic professional networks, connecting with peer advocates, and establishing reciprocal knowledge-sharing opportunities across generations.

By participating, seasoned professionals can ensure their decades of expertise continue to yield dividends for generations to come.

“Our professional legacy is not the technology we build, the titles we earn, or the awards we receive,” Ranaweera says. “It is the knowledge we share, the lives we influence, and the future we help others create.”

You can view the agenda, read speaker biographies, and secure your seat at the ILC online.