Microsoft outlines new Office 365 security capabilities

It’s a sad state of affairs when business apps need security measures, but that’s what it has come to these days. Microsoft has added some new features to Office 365 designed to add intelligence to catch suspicious behavior and mitigate risk, which it outlined in a recent blog post. 

Office 365 also needs these security measures because it is cloud based. That means its users are connecting outside their firewall, which adds all kinds of risk, both from intrusion and accidental data loss. 

There are three new security features: Office 365 Secure Score, Office 365 Threat Intelligence Private Preview, and Office 365 Advanced Data Governance Preview. 

Office 365 Secure Score

Secure Score is just what the name implies. It’s a security analytics tool that gives you a score based on the security measures and configurations you have implemented. It’s designed to give you better visibility into your Office 365 security configuration and the security features available. 

Admins usually settle on a certain Office 365 security configuration based on the security features available to them. With the new Office 365 Secure Score, admins can now understand their current Office 365 security configuration. The feature also shows them how implementing additional controls can further enhance their overall security setup. 

Office 365 Threat Intelligence

Office 365 Threat Intelligence service makes use of the data from Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph to provide actionable insights. Intelligent Security Graph has billions of data points from global datacenters, Office clients, email, user authentications and other incidents that impact the Office 365 ecosystem, all designed to to provide actionable insights to global attack trends. 

Office 365 Threat Intelligence is integrated with other Office 365 security features, such as Exchange Online Protection and Advanced Threat Protection, so you’ll be able to see analysis, including the top targeted users, malware frequency and security recommendations related to your business. It is currently in preview and is expected to ship this quarter to Office 365 Enterprise E5 plan customers. 

Office 365 Advanced Data Governance

Office 365 Advanced Data Governance is a new service that will help customers determine which data they should retain and which data they no longer need, such as employee files on employees no longer with the company. 

This service uses machine learning to offer policy recommendations; classify data based on automatic analysis of factors like the type of data, its age and the users who have interacted with it; and take action, such as preservation or deletion. 

Office 365 Advanced Data Governance is also in preview and is expected to be available this quarter.