fbpx

4 Office 365 Security Features You Didn’t Know You Needed

With the sophistication of technology and the shift away from traditional office setups, industries that handle sensitive customer data need to be proactive in keeping that information secure. If your organization is already using Office 365, we want to share with you four security features you can utilize to secure both your company’s and your customer’s data.

The potential impact of leaking company or customer information is too significant not to take steps to avoid it. 60% of SMBs go out of business within six months of falling victim to a data breach or cyber attack. Don’t be the next victim- arm yourself with knowledge and take action to prevent an attack. These are just small measures to help improve your security- we encourage you to reach out to us to secure your data further.

Office 365 Security Features

1. Outbound Email Encryption 
If you are emailing sensitive information, encrypt it. When you encrypt an email, Outlook will convert the text into a scrambled cipher. Only your recipients who you send the email to will receive the decipherable text. Outlook provides a couple of options for encrypting your email. For example, you can stop it from being forwarded to other people or keep it within your organization by only allowing them to decrypt the information.
If you would like to learn more about setting up email encryption in Outlook, you can check out Microsoft’s support article 
2. Data Loss Protection 
Office 365’s Security & Compliance Center allows you to upload or create a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policy. Once configured, Office 365 can recognize sensitive information and alert you to any suspicious behavior around sharing it. For example, if an employee tried to email a client’s credit card number, a supervisor would be alerted and would have to approve that email to be sent. Make sure your DLP is correctly configured and encompassing- check out how to create a DLP here.
3. External Email Warning Alerts
Email spoofing is one of the newer phishing techniques. A cybercriminal will set. Up an email account to look like it is coming from your boss or co-worker and request sensitive information. A precaution against this is setting up a warning alert that the email is coming from outside your organization. The flag will allow your employees to pause, encourage them to look further at the email address, and discern that the sender is a fraud.
4. Archive Feature 
When you have employee turnover, you should remove any terminated employee access to the company’s information. An important information source is their email account. Often employers are hesitant to delete and email outright because there may be needed information in it. Outlook 365 allows you to archive an inbox, keeping the data stored in it, while making it inactive and only accessible to system administrators.