What Is docs.google.com, and Is It Safe?

Docs.google.com is the URL associated with Google Docs, an online Google office suite found within the Google Drive service. The Google Docs Editors office suite includes many Google services including Google Docs, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Keep, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Sites, Google Slides, and Google Keep. You don’t have to open a Google office suite to use all of those services; Google Keep for instance has its own site URL here: keep.google.com. Some of them such as Google Forms don’t have their own URLs and can only be opened via the office suite.

Is docs.google.com Safe?

I analyzed docs.google.com for malware and malicious content to check if it was legit or a scam. Here are the results:

I checked docs.google.com on Sucuri, and it returned with no issues. Results: Sucuri scan for the site docs.google.com.

Sucuri says there was a 404 Not Found site issue when it attempted to scan the site docs.google.com for the following URL:

https://accounts.google.com/signin/usernamerecovery?continue=https://docs.google.com/&ifkv=AWnogHeQXFZLWRO5TmEVdbn03E5N2EyAq19RUVoVrldeFuOmDcxcJGddOpX2IiYJdey8Oq_EbpC9Rg&hl=en

Security hardening flaws:

• Missing security header for ClickJacking Protection. Affected pages:
  https://accounts.google.com/signin/v2/’ _.C(_.Uv(h).replace(/;/g,
  https://policies.google.com/privacy?gl=US&hl=en
  https://policies.google.com/terms?gl=US&hl=en
• Missing Strict-Transport-Security security header. Affected pages:
  https://accounts.google.com/signin/v2/’ _.C(_.Uv(h).replace(/;/g,
  https://docs.google.com/404javascript.js
  https://docs.google.com/404testpage4525d2fdc
  https://policies.google.com/privacy?gl=US&hl=en
  https://policies.google.com/terms?gl=US&hl=en
• Missing Content-Security-Policy directive. Affected pages:
  https://accounts.google.com/signin/v2/’ _.C(_.Uv(h).replace(/;/g,
  https://accounts.google.com/signup/v2/nojs?continue=https://docs.google.com/
  https://policies.google.com/privacy?gl=US&hl=en
  https://policies.google.com/terms?gl=US&hl=en

I then ran a parasite scan with Unmask Parasites on docs.google.com, and it is suspicious. Results: Unmask Parasites scan for the site docs.google.com.

Unmask Parasites cites 3 suspicious inline scripts found:

//# sourceMappingURL=data:application/json;charset=utf-8;base64,eyJ2ZXJzaW9uIjogMywic291cmNlcyI6WyIiXSwic291cmNlc0NvbnRlb...

window.wiz_progress&&window.wiz_progress();window.wiz_tick&&window.wiz_tick('ZdRp7e');

(function(){/*
Copyright The Closure Library Authors.
SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
*/
'use strict';var a=function(...

I also checked docs.google.com on VirusTotal, and it is clean. Results: VirusTotal scan for the site docs.google.com.

In conclusion, the site docs.google.com is a low security risk according to Sucuri and doesn’t have any malware. Moreover, no security vendor associated with Sucuri has blacklisted the domain. One security vendor associated with VirusTotal has flagged the site docs.google.com as malicious but 1 out of 88 often points to a false positive rather than a domain being malicious. OVERALL GRADE: Relatively Safe.

Links and Profiles

Website: docs.google.com

References

1. SimilarWeb – docs.google.com

2. Wayback Machine – docs.google.com