Rule log events

Security investigation tool

Supported editions for the Rule log events data source in the investigation tool:
Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, Cloud Identity Premium, Enterprise Standard, Education Standard

As your organization's administrator, you can use the security investigation tool to run searches related to Rule log events, and take action based on search results. From the investigation tool, you can view a record of actions to track your user’s attempts to share sensitive data. For example, you can review events triggered by data loss prevention (DLP) rule violation events. Entries usually appear within an hour of the user action.

Rule log events data also list data types for BeyondCorp Threat and Data Protection.

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 Rule log events

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 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 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
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, see Filtering results by Google Group. To add a group to your filtering groups allowlist: Select Actor group name. Click Filtering groups. The Filtering groups page displays. Click Add Groups. Search for a group by entering the first few characters of its name or email address. When you see the group you want, select it. (Optional) To add another group, search for and select the group. When you finish selecting groups, click Add. (Optional) To remove a group, click Remove group . Click Save.
Actor organizational unit	Organizational unit of the actor
Blocked recipients	The recipients who are blocked by the triggered 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 BeyondCorp Threat and Data Protection.
Device type	Type of device referred to by the Device ID. This data type applies to BeyondCorp Threat and Data Protection.
Event	The logged event action. For DLP rules, the value is Action complete. When a Drive label changes, the value is Label applied, Field value changed, or Label removed. When the trust rules block sharing Drive files, the value is Sharing blocked. When the trust rules block viewing Drive files, the value is User view blocked.
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: For entries pertaining to Google Drive, click the Resource ID to view the Drive document that was modified. For entries pertaining to Google Chat, click the Resource ID to see details on a Chat conversation. Note that some Chat data can expire, so not all details will always be available.
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: Drive continuous scan (occurring when a rule changes) Online scan (occurring as a document is changing) Chat scan content before send (occurring when a Chat message is sent)
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

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.

Export data from search results

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

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.

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.