Microsoft 365 Security and Backup Services

Microsoft 365 Security and Backup Services

Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based productivity software that offers many tools and services. It includes a wide variety of applications specifically designed to help businesses complete tasks relating to collaboration, communication, document creation, and more. Microsoft offers different security solutions to meet specific company goals, such as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Although they sound similar, each has its own distinct features to give organizations diverse solutions for protecting systems. 

Security Features and Benefits of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

• Endpoint Protection: Defender for endpoint helps guard against cyber threats such as malware, spyware, and ransomware. It discovers security vulnerabilities and possible threats by using machine learning and behavioral analytics to identify any discrepancies within an organization. 
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Microsoft Defender for Endpoint scans thousands of logs daily highlighting any incidents that need to be addressed. It will provide the user with an abundance of information relating to the severity of the incident to the details of the incident. This saves security professionals a great amount of time as it highlights infected devices, IP addresses, dates/times, etc. 
• Security Dashboard: The dashboard feature Defender offers provides users with a centralized location to explore suspicious activities within an organization. It can monitor devices that could be at risk, any active alerts, and automated investigations that Microsoft Defender did to alerts. The well-designed dashboard provides professionals with easy readability to know what is currently happening to devices or networks. 

Security Features and Benefits of Microsoft Defender for Office 365

• Safe Attachments/Links: Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a cloud-based email filtering system service. It is designed to protect employees from clicking malicious links and entering credentials to fraudulent sites. The safe attachment and safe link feature constantly scans malicious email attachments and links to detect unwanted malicious software associated with them. Additionally, Defender for Office 365 will generate a report to alert IT administrators indicating if a user has received high volumes of malicious emails. This feature can be very beneficial for organizations currently not investing in security awareness training such as KnowBe4.
• Anti-phishing Protection: Similar to Defender for Endpoint, Office 365 also uses machine learning to prevent phishing attacks from reaching the end user. Defender for Office 365 uses real-time threat intelligence and machine learning to detect and block malicious attempts. It will automatically flag the email and report it as junk preventing the user from opening suspicious emails within their inboxes. 

Microsoft 365 Backup and Archive Services

Implementing a form of backup or archive services is crucial for the protection of sensitive company information. Microsoft offers “Microsoft 365 backup” which is designed to recover short-term data while “Microsoft Archive” focuses more on long-term solutions to keep data secure. 
Combining these services will give companies a comprehensive data protection plan. If a security incident were to happen to an organization not utilizing a data backup plan, they could face serious threats. Facing a cyber threat is already detrimental to the success and growth of a business, data loss due to unreliable backup services can place an additional excessive amount of weight on an organization, making it quite hard to recover. 
Microsoft 365 backup and archive services are meant to provide additional protection to company data and assets while offering users peace of mind that their information is secure in full.

5 reasons why backing up Microsoft 365 with The Scarlett Group may be critical to your organization:

• Legal & Compliance Requirements: You may need to unexpectedly retrieve emails, files, or other types of data pending legal action. Microsoft 365 does have several safety nets with litigation hold, but it may not be robust enough to keep your organization out of legal trouble. If you accidentally delete a user, their on-hold mailbox, personal SharePoint site, and OneDrive accounts are also deleted. Depending on legal and compliance requirements (which vary between industries and governments), this can lead to fines, penalties, and lengthy legal disputes.
• Accidental Deletion: There are two types of deletions with the Microsoft 365 platform: a soft delete and a hard delete. A soft delete is recoverable, but a hard delete is not. Information lost during a hard delete is irretrievable.
• Retention Policy Gaps: Microsoft 365 has limited backup and retention policies that can help with some situational data losses; however, it is not intended to be a full backup solution. A point-in-time restoration of mailbox items is not offered by Microsoft 365.
• Internal Security Threats: When we think of cybersecurity threats, we generally think of hackers and viruses. However, more organizations are experiencing threats from the inside:
  • The threat of a terminated employee deleting critical company data before they depart.
  • The threat of a user unknowingly downloading infected files or accidentally leaking usernames or passwords.
  • Evidence tampering. Consider the possibility of an employee deliberately deleting incriminating emails or files, keeping information beyond the reach of legal or compliance departments.
• External Security Threats: Malware and viruses like ransomware do serious damage. Often Microsoft 365 backup/recovery functions are inadequate to handle serious attacks. Regular backups outside of Microsoft 365 ensure that you have a separate, uninfected copy of your data and that you can recover quickly.

The Scarlett Group is an enterprise partner with Microsoft Modern Work Solutions. Providing customers with access to exclusive benefits and support from Microsoft. 

The Challenge: Your Microsoft 365 data might be vulnerable.
The Solution: Talk to The Scarlett Group about Microsoft 365 Backup Services.