Chrome browsers log events

Supported editions for this feature: Enterprise Plus, Education Plus. Compare your edition

As an administrator, you can use the security investigation tool to view and investigate live-state data about Chrome browsers in your organization.

For example:

• Investigate if a browser update has reached all devices in your organization.
• Inspect the details of browser devices where phishing events often occur. The report can help identify if a bad extension is responsible for the unsafe events. 
• View which devices have a specific user signed in, and assess the potential damage made to different devices and browsers.

Run a search for Chrome browser data

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 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. 

1. Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.

   If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.

2. Go to Menu  Security > Security center > Investigation tool.

   Requires having the Security center administrator privilege.

3. Click Data source and select Chrome browsers.
4. 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.
5. Click Attributeselect an option.
   For a complete list of attributes, go to the Attribute descriptions section (later on this page).
6. Select an operator.
7. Enter a value or select a value from the list.
8. (Optional) To add more search conditions, repeat steps 4–7.
9. Click Search.
   You can review the search results from the investigation tool in a table at the bottom of the page.
10. (Optional) To save your investigation, click Save enter a title and descriptionclick 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 [e-mail] to [e-mail], you will not see results for events related to [e-mail].

Attribute descriptions

For this data source, you can use the following attributes when searching log event data:

Attribute	Description
Browser ID	ID of the Chrome browser
Chrome version	Number assigned to the version of Chrome browser, such as 69.0.3497.23
Device ID	ID for the device/computer—for example the Hardware UUID on a Mac computer
Device name	Name of the device
Device OS version	Version number for the device's operating system
Device type	Type of device—for example, Linux, Mac, or Windows
Machine user	Email address of the device user
Registration time	Time of registration of the browser. Enter a date and time, and an operator Before or After.

Take action based on search results

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 about actions in the security investigation tool, go to Take action based on search results.

Manage your investigations

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View your list of investigations

To 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.

Configure settings for your 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.

Manage columns in your search results

You can control which data columns appear in your search results. 

1. At the top-right of the search results table, click Manage columns .
2. (Optional) To remove current columns, click Remove item .
3. (Optional) To add columns, next to Add new column, click the Down arrow  and select the data column.
   Repeat as needed.
4. (Optional) To change the order of the columns, drag the column name.
5. Click Save.

Export data from search results

You can export search results in the security investigation tool to Google Sheets or to a CSV file. For instructions, see Export search results.

Share, delete, and duplicate 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.

When and how long is data available?

For more information about data sources, go to Data retention and lag times.

Related topics for security center

• Start an investigation based on a dashboard chart
• Create a custom chart based on an investigation
• Start an investigation from the alert center
• Investigate reports of malicious emails
• Investigate file sharing
• Investigate a user across data sources