Microsoft Office 365 is widely popular work office suite, among the SMBs. Hence, no doubt that it has become one of the favourite targets of cyber criminals for viruses, ransomware scams and phishing attacks. Last year we encountered some vicious ransomwares, like Wannacry and NotPetya, which had wreaked havoc across the globe affecting millions of computers and networks. In order to combat such cyber attacks, Microsoft Office 365 has announced some additional features and protection tools.
Microsoft already provides robust security for Office services, including link checking and attachment scanning for known viruses and phishing threats, encryption in transit and at rest, as well as powerful antivirus protection with Windows Defender. Recently, they announced introduction of new advanced protection capabilities coming in-built to Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal subscribers to help further protect individuals and families from online threats.
The new protection includes following features:
Files Restore
With this feature in your business or personal OneDrive you can restore your entire Drive to a previos point within the last 30 days. It would come handy to recover from an accidental mass delete, file corruption, ransomware or any other catastrophic event.
Ransomware detection & recovery
Office 365 is now designed to detect ransomware attacks. If an attack is detected, you will be alerted through an email, mobile, or desktop notification and guided through a recovery process where you’ll find the date and time of attack preselected in Files Restore, making the process simple and easy to use. As these threats evolve, we are continuously improving detection capabilities to help keep you safe from the most advanced ransomware.
New Tools for increasing data security:
Password protected sharing links
Microsoft’s adding an additional security option for links you share in OneDrive. You will now be able to set and require a password to access a shared file or folder. This prevents others from accessing your files if your intended recipient accidentally forwards or shares the link.
Email encryption
Email encryption in Outlook.com offers an added layer of protection and ensures end-to-end encryption of your email. Unlike Outlook.com, some email providers don’t encrypt their connection, making it easy for hackers to intercept and read your communication. When you use Outlook.com email encryption, your email remains encrypted over a secure connection—minimizing the threat of your information being intercepted or leaked to cybercriminals.
Prevent forwarding
You can now restrict your email recipients from forwarding or copying emails you send from Outlook.com. Additionally, Microsoft Office documents you attach to these emails are encrypted even after downloading, so if the recipient shares or forwards your attachment, the recipient of the forwarded email will not be able to open the attachment. Emails sent with the prevent forwarding option are also encrypted.
