Safeguarding Your Business with Office 365 Protection
Cloud service providers are becoming essential for modern businesses. These services bring forth tons of benefits, including enhanced productivity, collaboration, and, most importantly, business continuity. Few cloud-based services are better at that than Office 365. With Office 365, businesses gain access to applications and tools to transform their operations into the online world.
But as more businesses rely on these services, they become targets for malicious cyber activity. Therefore, they must also consider the dangers of the cyber world. In addition, with cyber threats looming large, they must consider Office 365 protection. Fortunately, Microsoft offers numerous tools and features to protect sensitive information and prevent data loss.
This short guide will explain the protection features and tools of Office 365 and the best practices businesses can use to protect sensitive data.
What is Office 365 Protection?
Office 365 protection is a suite of native Microsoft 365 tools designed to help businesses safeguard their most important data. Moreover, these tools include a wide range of features, including data loss prevention and data encryption features. The aim of Office 365 protection is the uninterrupted flow of business data for business continuity.
By using the industry’s best practices for protecting the Office 365 suite, you make it easier to secure user accounts against outsider and insider threats. So what are the so-called “best practices” for safeguarding business data in Office 365? Let’s find out.
Best Office 365 Protection Practices:
The practices we’ll mention are all available as part of the suite’s native features, apps, and tools. Therefore, any organization using the suite can implement them to enhance data protection. These practices should give you an idea of the importance of cybersecurity for the success of your business.
Use Multi-Factor Authentication
Few native features are better at preventing unauthorized access to the Office 365 suite than multi-factor authentication. With MFA, users secure applications by requesting several forms of identification whenever they need to log in to their accounts. While the process might become tiring, MFA enhances each tenant’s security capabilities to the point where data breaches from unauthorized access become a thing of the past.
Regularly Update and Patch Software
A practice that requires little to no effort but will significantly prevent security risks is to update Office 365 regularly. That’s because, as with any other cloud-based software, hackers will try and exploit potential security loopholes in Office 365. Therefore, keeping your Office 365 software updated is critical to your security.
Microsoft regularly dishes out updates for its various services, including Office 365. These updates can include security patches and fixes that address potential vulnerabilities in the software. Some of these updates might result in patching known exploit hackers use to compromise company data. The bottom line is always to queue software updates. You can even have your Office administrator automate the process.
Use Encryption
Encryption is a core security feature in Office 365. Most importantly, encryption should be a core component of your email communication. We can encrypt all kinds of sensitive data to prevent prying eyes from gaining access to it.
Encryption works by scrambling your data so it becomes unreadable to anyone who does not have the decryption key. You can specifically designate who can decrypt your messages, and they will be assigned a decryption key. Encryption is crucial for email information protection and to protect against data theft.
Implement a Strong Password Policy
Users might not think much of the password they’re using to access Office 365. However, using weak passwords can result in a potential security breach. Therefore, an industry best practice is to replace weak passwords with stronger ones.
Strong passwords are an essential part of your security strategy. The passwords your employees use must be at least eight characters long and include upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and even symbols. You must implement a strong password policy across your organization for enhanced protection. If your employees’ passwords aren’t up to the level, you must implement the policy and have them reset their passwords.
Train Your Employees
Your employees are the first line of defense against cyber attacks. Moreover, it’s no secret that the vast majority of data breaches result from human error. Hackers take creative approaches to trick employees into willingly handing over sensitive business information. They might even specifically target your employees to gain access to their Office 365 accounts and the data it contains.
Therefore, it becomes crucial to provide them with regular cybersecurity training and best practices education. The way to do that is through security awareness training. Security awareness training aims to educate your employees on the dangers of the cyber world and methods to detect and combat potential security incidents.
Security awareness training involves security topics your employees learn to become better at preventing data breaches. Many of the industry’s best practices we’ve mentioned in this guide will be included in these programs.
Conclusion
Office 365 protection is crucial for safeguarding your business against the growing threat of cyber attacks. Luckily, the suite is equipped with the necessary tools and features for the comprehensive protection of business data.
By following these best practices, you ensure your Office 365 environment is secure and your data is always protected. Moreover, you can enlist the assistance of services that specialize in Office 365 protection. These services will provide all the necessary assistance and tools to safeguard Office 365 tenants and their workdesks.