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Troubleshoot to Microsoft Office 365 Security Issues and Concerns

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Written By Ashwani Tiwari
Anuraag Singh
Approved By Anuraag Singh
Published On September 14th, 2022
Reading Time 8 Minutes Reading
security issues with office 365

A couple of days ago, I encountered a severe instance where my Office 365 cloud service got hanged while trying to upload a large size file in my O365 user account. Soon after that, I came to know that few of my files also got vanished with this instance. Because of which, I have decided to backup my data to my local drive to prevent such mind-scratching hurdles. Could someone let me know some reliable solution to backup Office 365 data to a local drive and get over with Microsoft Office 365 security issues? Please advise!”

There are similar such user-queries, which can be seen across various tech-forums. Across the world, a majority of the organizations are incorporating digital alteration so as to meet the growing needs of the user. Moreover, it is the matter of fact that Office 365 has bought a great relief for the users in terms of digital transformation.

However, security breaches are ubiquitous, which is one of the security concern that bothers users. As malware and data hacking attempts are increasing over this Office 365 cloud-based service, users face a tough time to protect the mailboxes against these attacks. Apart from that, Office 365 is also vulnerable to cyber attacks and ransomware attacks wherein users may have to undergo different challenges to access back the Office 365 data.

Want to know how to prevent and minimize the risk of such malicious attacks, data breach threats and so on? Here, we will disclose some strategies to overcome the different Microsoft Office 365 email security issues!

O365 Itself Provides Some Data Security Features to Deal with Microsoft Office 365 security issues

Dealing with any security breach associated with Office 365 is not a cup of coffee. There are modern cyber attacks that are so vigorous that it becomes hard nut to crack to fight these back. And the lost data and information is a whole another thing to get back.

Somehow, there are couple of preventions that Microsoft provides in Office 365 Suites, that we can use in the first place, so that even if any data loss issue arises in future, we are already prepared for it.

#1 Configuration of DLP (Data Loss Protection)

Keeping Microsoft Office 365 security concerns in mind, the DLP (Data Loss Protection) policy must be enabled in Office 365 account. It lets users to identify the crucial information across different locations like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and applies a policy to the data with respect to the restrictions, which is applied to the data.

Moreover, one can also prevent the accidental sharing of all the sensitive data, which is been stored in Office 365 mailbox. One can also monitor and restrict other users from sharing the data with external users. For instance, in the Office desktop programs like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, etc. These applications are also capable to identify the crucial data and moreover apply the DLP policies to fight with security issues in Office 365.

Enabling the DLP provides constant monitoring support in which the users share the content in these Office programs. Altogether, DLP lets users to erase the vulnerability of sharing the data intentionally.

How to set up Data Loss Prevention policy in your Office 365 mailbox, find the steps here: Quickly Set Up Microsoft Office 365 Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Policy

#2 Office 365 Threat Intelligence

With the increase in cyber attacks like spear-phishing, malware, malicious hyperlinks, spoofing, etc. It is been observed that data security is the major priority of the users. The smart Threat Intelligence offered by Office 365 is a crucial factor for Microsoft Office 365 security issues which keeps a complete record of all the suspicious activities and delivers a proper insight for the same.

Basically, the records are generated based on the information, which is present in the Security and Compliance Center. It keeps a track and provides information from different attributes like messages tracking, security events, user activity, etc. Because of these, the security team and O365 Global Administrator that works in the organization creates a strategy to safeguard the user’s data by smartly dealing with such cyber threats.

Wondering what all tasks does the Threat Intelligence performs? Keep reading the blog and get in-depth information about the Office 365 security concerns!

Different Functionalities of Office 365 Threat Intelligence

  1. Make use of tools to analyse and recognise the various suspicious activities
  2. Smartly yet effortlessly finds the threats in SharePoint and O365 Exchange Online
  3. Shows the complete insights to safeguard the organization from cyber attacks
  • Applying Email Encryption – Another Crucial Office 365 Email Security Concern

For the purpose of confidentially communicating with the end users, one can make the best use of different encryption options, which can be availed from the Office 365 subscription. In order to encrypt the data, which the user sends. One approach is to use TLS (Transport Layer Security), which is a cryptographic protocol that protects the connection between servers for securing the communication.

The second approach can be S/MIME, which is one of the popular methods to encrypt the sent emails. Apart from that, IRM is another way of protecting the data related to information leakage issue. Moreover, it is a feature, which is a part of Azure RMS that renders complete data protection for sent emails and its attachments for both Online and Offline. All these together with the BitLocker offer the encryption of the emails from the robust cloud service provider i.e., Office 365.

  • Make Use of Office 365 Secure Score

Microsoft offers Secure Score, which is an Office 365 security analytics tool. It suggests the different approaches in reducing the risk of different catastrophes and Microsoft Office 365 security issues in Office 365. The Secure Score analyse the various settings and activities of O365 and generates a comparison to the security standard, which is set by Microsoft and later provides a score for the same. It is one reliable way to start the implementation of the different improved security controls that is been offered by Microsoft.

  • Enabling SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

During the process of configuring the Office 365 account, users are instructed to configure the DNS to securely work with Office 365. Basically, SPF is a record type, which is used to inform other email channels whether the email belongs to protected or authenticated system. With the help of SPF, one can prevent the spoofing to a greater extent. Therefore, with the custom domain, set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication).

Is There Any Direct Backup Solution to Deal with Office 365 Security Issues?

All above liberties provided by Office 365 are inevitably essential and must be used to the core, in order to cope up with the security issues in Microsoft Office 365. However, a backup is irreplaceable, when it comes to the best email security for Office 365.

With the help of Office 365 Cloud Email Backup and Restore, which is a powerful utility to backup all Office 365 data effortlessly to local storage, one can smoothly protect the Office 365 mailbox data by creating the backup of the same in the local system. It permits users to save the entire mailbox items like emails, contacts, tasks, notes, etc to PST or EML file format. It is one of the most recommended and reliable options to protect the Office 365 sensitive data from various external threats.

Time to Wrap Up

In order to protect the data from the Office 365 cloud storage service, one can follow this blog to implement the different approaches to safeguard the crucial data. Besides opting for the in-built functionalities of the Office 365 cloud service, one can also make the best use of the automated approach to deal with Microsoft Office 365 security issues as suggested above.

Frequently Asked Queries

How the Threat Intelligence works in Office 365 ?

Threat intelligence offered by Office 365 will keeps the complete record of all suspicious activities. It keeps track and provides information from different elements like messages, user activity, security events, etc.

How can I prevent accidental sharing of data ?

With the help of Data Loss Protection (DLP) of MS Office 365 user can Identify crucial information across different location. This helps you to prevent the accidental sharing of sensitive data from the Office 365 mailbox.

Is there any analytical tool provided by Microsoft ?

Yes, Microsoft providing Secure Score. This will automatically analyze various activities of Office 365 and generate a comparison to security standards.

Which are the encryption methods used in MS O365 ?

The mainly using encryption techniques are TLS (Transport Layer Protocol) which use to protect the connection between the servers. S/MIME this one is used to protect sent emails. Addition to this Office 365 provides BitLocker for the encryption of emails from the cloud services provider.

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By Ashwani Tiwari

Being a Chief Technical Analyst, I am aware of the technicalities faced by the user while working with multiple technologies. So, through my blogs and articles, I love to help all the users who face various challenges while dealing with technology.