Google I/O 2024: A more secure and productive ChromeOS and Chrome Enterprise

ChromeOS has gained the trust of countless businesses to power everything from shared workstations at hospitals to self-service kiosks at restaurants, not to mention the millions of workers using Chromebooks every single day. We don’t take this trust for granted, and we’re always making ChromeOS even more secure and more capable. We’re proud to share that as of this year, ChromeOS has never had a single reported ransomware attack ever ^[1], and a recent pen test published by Atredis deemed ChromeOS the most secure OS out of the box ^[2], when compared with Windows 11 and MacOS. If you’re building for enterprises on ChromeOS, you can rest easy knowing your apps are being used in a secure environment.

Businesses all around the world turn to ChromeOS for security, manageability, and intuitive features they can count on. Through continued partnership with our enterprise developer community, over the past year we’ve driven further advancements to enhance the employee experience, including adding leading cybersecurity providers to our Chrome Enterprise Connectors Framework, working with Cisco to develop the Cisco Security Client for ChromeOS, and improving video conferencing with Zoom.

Keeping enterprises secure with a more integrated ecosystem

Security is at the core of ChromeOS and Chrome Enterprise. Our secure-by-design approach allows us to protect enterprise users as they work in cloud-based and distributed work environments on the web. In the last few years, we’ve launched the Chrome Enterprise Connectors Framework⁠ to simplify how enterprise developers integrate their solutions with Chrome Browser and ChromeOS. These integrations provide more secure enterprise browsing for businesses by allowing them to add additional safety features on top of Chrome Enterprise’s already strong security attributes. We’ve partnered with industry-leading providers to bring you integrations across five areas: identity and access, endpoint management, security insights and reporting, data protection, and extended detection and response.

Since last year’s I/O, leading cybersecurity providers have integrated with the Chrome Enterprise Connectors Framework, empowering organizations to advance their security infrastructure to the next level, including:

• Data Loss Prevention Connector: The Google Chrome Content Analysis Connector provides an official mechanism allowing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) agents to more deeply integrate their services with Google Chrome. This connector enables enterprises to establish and enforce policies controlling how sensitive data is handled and shared within your company’s browser environment. We’ve partnered with Symantec by Broadcom⁠ and Trellix⁠ to further support customers with this connector.
• Device Trust Connector: This connector allows organizations to create authentication policies that leverage device signals, such as browser version and OS firewall status, from managed Chrome browsers on Windows, macOS, and ChromeOS, to gate access to protect enterprise resources. See the full list of available signals here.⁠ Our technology partners Okta⁠, Ping Identity⁠, and Cisco Duo⁠ have developed an integration for this connector to provide the best security for our users.

Learn more about Chrome Enterprise Connectors Framework⁠⁠.

Enhanced protection and performance for ChromeOS

Information security teams need to track user activity on the network for policy enforcement and detailed logging. Proactively blocking malicious websites and content is essential to prevent malware, data loss, and other security threats.

Third party solutions can now embed user identification information within DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) queries, allowing targeted content delivery based on user groups.

Cisco leveraged DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) with identifiers to develop the Cisco Security for Chromebook client⁠, a Chrome Browser extension that delivers both Cisco Umbrella DNS-layer security & secure web gateway (SWG) protection. DNS protection is provided by routing the Chromebook’s DNS traffic to Umbrella DoH resolvers.

Improved communication app experience on ChromeOS and Chrome Browser

Whether it's staying in touch with friends or collaborating with colleagues across the globe, reliable and efficient communication tools are essential in today’s constantly connected world. To meet this need, we’ve worked with our ecosystem partners to make important improvements to the virtual app experience on ChromeOS and introduced functionality to enhance the video conferencing experience for our users.

• Zoom Optimization for Citrix Workspace app: For businesses relying on ChromeOS, migrating a large number of legacy applications to a new platform can be a challenge, so many rely on virtual applications. This has historically come at a performance cost. Zoom and Citrix have delivered a substantial integration to enable optimized Zoom video calls within a Citrix virtualized environment on ChromeOS. Businesses can convert groups of managed devices to the new solution through a policy that will provision the VDI Plugin to all of their Chromebook users transparently. Learn more about configuring Zoom VDI for ChromeOS⁠.
• Picture-in-Picture: Picture-in-Picture (PiP) in ChromeOS enhances video conferencing by enabling multitasking without sacrificing engagement. The Document Picture-in-Picture API⁠ allows any HTML content to be displayed within an always-on-top pop-out window, like controls for an active video conference call, extending the currently available video-only Picture-in-Picture API. By leveraging the Document Picture-in-Picture API, Zoom has enhanced its web app's user experience on ChromeOS.

Be in the know

Our commitment to providing a delightful, secure, and modern experience for ChromeOS and Chrome Browser users everywhere is made possible through the invaluable collaboration with our enterprise developer community—thank you for your partnership!

For more information from Google I/O, read Google I/O 2024: What’s new in ChromeOS. We look forward to sharing more developments and launches in 2024 and beyond. Stay in the know by visiting our enterprise documentation, tuning into the Chrome Enterprise Technical Community Hour webinar series⁠, and signing up for our developer newsletter.