Paubox blog: HIPAA compliant email made easy

Why Paubox Email Suite Plus and Premium customers shouldn’t update their MX records to Google

Written by Chloe Bowen | October 20, 2020
Recently Google rebranded its suite of business products from G Suite to Google Workspace . Google Workspace provides a business email address and collaboration tools such as Gmail, Calendar, Meet, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, and more.  SEE ALSO: Why You Should Invest in a Professional Email Address for Your Healthcare Business Although Google Workspace can be HIPAA compliant , Gmail does not encrypt all email by default. Many of our customers use Google as their email provider and Paubox Email Suite as their HIPAA compliant email solution.  SEE ALSO: Google & HIPAA Compliance: The Ultimate Guide Therefore, we wanted to alert our customers to how this recent rebrand affects them.

New “finish admin setup prompt”

The next time you log into your Google Workspace admin panel, you may see a new message to “Finish setting up Admin Console.”  It instructs you to "Activate Gmail for (yourdomain.com)" to "route your emails to Gmail inboxes." If you click the “Activate” button, you will be prompted to update your mail exchange (MX) record to Google.  An MX record specifies the mail server responsible for accepting email messages on behalf of a domain.  

 

Why not to switch your MX record to Google

For our Paubox Email Suite Plus and Premium customers who rely on our inbound security solutions such as ExectProtect (to guard against domain name spoofing ), and DomainAge to protect against email phishing scams), Paubox accepts email messages on their behalf—not Google.   Although Google’s prompt to update an MX record to Google is helpful if Google is routing your email, it is not helpful for Paubox customers that rely on us to protect their inboxes from email threats. SEE ALSO: Global Surges in Ransomware Attacks in Q3 2020 In fact, if you update your MX record to point directly to Google, you’ll completely bypass Paubox’s inbound security tools.  Paubox can only keep you safe if you route your email through us.

 

The takeaway

Although Google’s use of the word “activate” in this prompt makes updating your MX record sound very urgent, it’s not.  In fact, if you are a Paubox Email Suite Plus or Premium customer, you shouldn’t do it at all.
 
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