Microsoft has recently announced that SharePoint Online, One Drive, and Teams can now receive modern threat protection from the Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection service. Plans for the threat protection service to be extended to these applications have already been mentioned at the Ignite conference held earlier in September.
Although the Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection software had already been introduced sometime in 2015, the service can now be used in production environments due to it reaching the stage where it is available more generally.
According to Microsoft, the Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection applies the signals from the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph threat feeds for spotting threats and malware, while also helping to detect unusual behaviour. The threat protection service provides anti-phishing protection too, providing the necessary level of security involving attachments and links.
The threat protection works by scanning the files housed in within libraries using “smart heuristics”, then proceeds to mark the files deemed to be malicious. Users will still be able to view the files, although they will not be allowed to open them.
Microsoft applies the Security Development Lifecycle in order to maintain the effective threat protection service, while also throttling traffic to prevent, detect, and mitigate any potential threats. For instance, the service will detect activities such as company wide explicit sharing and all activities carried out by guest users. Other feeds being leveraged are such as known email malware or any malicious activities in SharePoint and Windows Defender/Defender ATP. Another example of a red alert includes potentially risky login attempts.
Following the general availability of the Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection software, which maintains security at a complaint level, companies will be able to enjoy some peace of mind in terms of security when migrating over to the cloud system. This goes hand in hand with the effort of Microsoft to get more organisations to use their cloud system. The technology giant is also known to be one of the major leaders of the cloud-based future.
According to Microsoft’s recent announcement, users of Office 365 Enterprise E5 or Education A5 will be able to access the threat protection service. Otherwise, the service can be included as a bolt-in extra to a range of other Office 365 subscriptions. However, those customers who are using “premises-based” apps will not be able to access the service, for example, those using the SharePoint server within their own data centres will miss out on the service.
Microsoft has attained a positive reputation in the technology world by not only producing state-of-the-art products, but also providing advanced security services to protect users and organisations in today’s malicious cyber world. By addressing the issue of security, the company is able to gain trust of users who remain tentative over the safety of the cloud-based working environment.
Contact us at WM Reply today for some advice on how Microsoft’s advanced services could benefit the growth, productivity, and security of your organisation.