Chrome browsers

Security investigation tool: View live-state data about Chrome browsers

Supported editions for the Chrome browsers data source in the investigation tool:
Enterprise Plus, Education Plus

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.

Your access to the security investigation tool

Supported editions for the security investigation tool include Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, and Enterprise Essentials Plus.
Admins with Cloud Identity Premium, Frontline Standard, Enterprise Standard, and Education Standard can also use the investigation tool for a subset of data sources.
Your ability to run a search in the investigation tool depends on your Google edition, your administrative privileges, and the data source. If you're unable to run a search in the investigation tool for a specific data source, you can use the audit and investigation page instead.
Note: You can run a search in the investigation tool on all users, regardless of the Google edition they have.

Run a search for Chrome browser data

To run a search in the investigation tool, first choose a data source. You then need to choose one or more conditions for your search. For each condition, choose an attribute, an operator, and a value.

Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
On the left of the Admin console Home page, click SecuritySecurity centerInvestigation tool.
Click Data source and select Chrome browsers.
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 Attributeselect an option.
For a complete list of attributes, go to the Attribute descriptions section below.
Click Containsselect an operator.
Enter a value, or select a value from the drop-down list.
(Optional) To add more search conditions, repeat steps 4–7.
Click Search.
Search results in the investigation tool are displayed in a table at the bottom of the page.
(Optional) To save your investigation, click Saveenter 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 OldName@example.com to NewName@example.com, you will not see results for events related to OldName@example.com.

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 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 investigation tool to delete specific messages, send messages to quarantine, or send messages to users' inboxes. For more details about actions in the investigation tool, go to Take action based on search results.

Create activity rules & set up alerts

To help prevent, detect, and remediate security issues efficiently, you can automate actions in the 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, go to Create and manage activity rules.

Manage your investigations

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.

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