Office 365 receives security upgrades

With the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks, businesses need even stronger security tools to defend their sensitive documents. Fortunately, Office 365 subscribers now have more advanced security tools to stay ahead of the ever-evolving threat landscape. If you are concerned about security and compliance, these new Office 365 features could help.

Threat Intelligence
Threat Intelligence for Office 365 gathers data from Microsoft security databases, Office clients, email, and other recorded security incidents to detect various cyberattacks. This feature gives users in-depth knowledge about prevalent malware strains and real-time breach information to analyze the severity of certain attacks.

What’s more, Threat Intelligence comes with customizable threat alert notifications and easy-to-use remediation options for dealing with suspicious content.

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) upgrades
In addition to Threat Intelligence, Office 365’s ATP service now has a revamped reporting dashboard that displays security insights across a company. This includes a security summary of what types of malware and spam were sent to your organization, and which ones were blocked. According to Microsoft, these reports will help you assess the effectiveness of your current security infrastructure.

ATP also has a new capability called “Safe Links” which defends against potentially malicious links in emails and embedded in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files. If suspicious links are discovered, the user will be redirected to a warning page to avoid an infection.

Advanced Data Governance
The newly released Advanced Data Governance feature is also a much needed enhancement for highly-regulated companies. It classifies files based on user interaction, age, and type, and recommends general data retention and deletion policy recommendations. If, for example, your business has retained credit card data for longer than necessary, Advanced Data Governance will alert you of the possible data governance risks.

Data loss prevention enhancements
Last but not least, the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center is also receiving data loss prevention upgrades. With it, you can easily access and customize app permissions and control device and content security policies. So if someone in your company attempts to leak sensitive customer information, Office 365 will notify your administrators immediately.

Although all these features are available only for Office 365 Enterprise E5 subscribers, security- and compliance-conscious companies definitely need these upgrades. Get the right Office 365 subscription by contacting us today.