3 Security Features That Make Office 365 Stand Out

3 Security Features That Make Office 365 Stand Out

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As more IT support providers like Complete Technology embrace cloud solutions, fewer small business owners fret over information security. Cloud vendors like Microsoft and Google have always provided adequate security features — they just require a technician’s touch.

Office 365 is one of the most widely accepted form of cloud services from Microsoft, and is used by millions of individuals every day. Major and minor consumers depend on Office 365 as their primary tool for communications, collaboration and email, and it’s never been more important that they use it carefully. Cyberattacks are reaching record levels, but thankfully Microsoft is keeping up with hi-tech security features.

When you make the switch to Office 365 and the cloud, it’s normal to be concerned about potential privacy and security issues. While most breaches occur internally, business owners are understandably anxious about what happens to their data when it is in the cloud and not in their servers.

What can Office 365 offer your company in terms of privacy, data protection, and security? The following features will prove why its security is like no other:

Privileged Identity Management

As a business owner, you’re responsible for minimizing the number of users who have administrative privileges to your business system. These accounts have almost unlimited authority to view, edit, and delete files.. Although there are times when your employee will only need admin privileges to complete one task, it’s rarely worth the risk.

This is where Privileged Identity Management is most useful. It lets you turn regular users into temporary admins. These users can request admin privileges when necessary, and you can control how long they will stay as admins. This feature can be found in Microsoft Cloud Apps and Office 365.

Data Loss Prevention and Encrypted Email

The Complete Technology team provides data backup and recovery services, as do many businesses that deal with confidential information like health records, social security numbers, and credit card details. To prevent this information from landing in the wrong hands, Office 365 boasts AI-powered Encrypted Email and Data Loss Prevention functionality.

Encrypted email makes sure that only authorized people will be able to open and read the messages you send. This is normally required by businesses that must be HIPAA-compliant.

DLP (Data Loss Prevention) will make certain that sensitive information cannot be leaked accidentally or intentionally. This does not apply only to email, but also to apps like Word, Excel, OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online. DLP will watch out for confidential data and keep users from distributing any information to anyone outside your office.

Azure Identity Protection

Sometimes, you might not know that your account was compromised until it is too late. By then, the hacker is already in your system, causing all kinds of chaos in it. Office 365 includes Azure Identity Protection (AIP), which will help stop the hacker before any damage is done to the system by using machine learning techniques to study how you do your work, and flag activities it deems unusual.

For instance, AIP will understand when and where you normally log in to the system. If Azure sees that you logged in from an unknown location, it will flag it down. AIP can also check multiple logins from various areas at the same time, as hackers may be logging in from another country while you log in from your workstation.

When illegal activity is detected, you can force users to authenticate the login, or simply stop the login process right there.

This article covers the most important security features, but there are many more. Microsoft has put its resources and effort to make sure that Office 365 is a secure package for collaboration, communication and business productivity.

Do you have questions on how Complete Technology can proactively maintain and manage your valuable IT assets? Give us a call today!