Workflow Security

Office 365 provides a number of collaboration and communications tools, offering an all-in-one solution for corporate data communication, collaboration, and storage. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Office 365 has been aggressively adding security features to help protect end users against cyberattacks.

With the ever-present risk of being a victim of phishing attacks, malware delivery, and the possibilities of vital customer information being compromised, it is imperative to be proactive about security measures that not only ensure you stay in business but also give your customers the peace of mind to continue doing business with you.

There are steps you can take to set up your Office 365 to protect yourself using best practices to level up your security. Things like two-factor authentication, geofencing, monitoring user activity and behavior, blocking certain types of information being shared on that solution, or coming up with SOPs on how to use your email infrastructure. There are also email protection solutions that you can build on top of email archiving solutions.

Talking about cybersecurity or security in general as it relates to IT often revolves around a specific product like Email (Office 365 or Google Workspace), a cloud solution like BOX/Drop Box/SharePoint, or a service like Payroll or VPN. Rarely is the conversation about a holistic approach – how the various systems should be put together in such a way as to make everything more secure from a workflow perspective.

Workflow security is something that will become more important as time goes on in this new hybrid work environment. IT departments will have to think about all the different systems and how an employee/end user will need to work with them to remain secure. Employees will need to be empowered to work across devices, safely use cloud apps, and connect to multiple networks.

Endpoint Security

Individual user’s machines and environment will have to be properly setup, configured, and secured to ensure compliance with standard cybersecurity practices. DNS filtering software, antivirus/anti-malware programs, MFA, etc., must be provided as individual or combined protections. In Office 365, email protection can be layered on top in addition to geofencing, user activity, user behavior, and other tools to ensure the system is protected from threats.

As part of endpoint security, patching of apps installed on the user’s machine is another important strategy, ensuring that they’re being updated aggressively and periodically to prevent cyberattacks. This is because hackers are checking apps for vulnerabilities all the time.  

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)/Backups (Messaging)

Most users are unaware of the “Shared Responsibility Model.” This is used by most of the large cloud providers when asked about their responsibilities to keep your data backed up and secure. If you delete or lose a file, they have no responsibility to get you that file back. You’ll need to consistently back up your email or document management system or even your CRM like Salesforce.

If Office 365 went down and you lost your data, would you have a business tomorrow? Think About It!

Takeaway:

We can come in and audit whatever email solution you’re using, whether it’s Office 365 or Google workspace, and determine whether it was set up appropriately to maximize protection.

We’ll crawl through your solution and put something in place. You’d only have to check it once a quarter or once a year, depending on how aggressive you are from a security perspective, and how aggressive you want to be to make sure things are just buttoned up as much as they can.

At VIP-IT, we help organizations to strengthen their control and protection of highly sensitive company information shared within and outside the organization, and employ personalized data loss prevention policies to monitor, discover, and secure sensitive data found on Office 365 products.