Each year the online threat to small businesses grows, becoming more capable and more sophisticated. To address those issues, Microsoft added two new security offerings as of Feb. 1, 2019.
The threat landscape is growing rapidly. “With more than 16,500 known security vulnerabilities being catalogued, 2018 set a new record over last year’s previous record of 14,714,” writes TJ Kang in Security Magazine. And 2017’s figure was twice that of 2016, according to statistics from the U.S. government’s National Vulnerability Database. So it makes sense that businesses are concerned.
The Chertoff Group, a global security advisory firm, predicts that the biggest threats this year will come from cryptojacking, software subversion and vulnerability attacks, in addition to ransomware attacks and a plethora of increasingly sophisticated email scams.
Your company’s online security is a process, not a project. New threats are being created all the time and your security system needs to be monitored constantly and updated regularly to decrease the exposure to costly and even damaging attacks, no matter what line of business you’re in.
In a January post, Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, outlined the new offerings for Office 365 and Microsoft 365.
The new Identity & Threat Protection package combines security tools across Office 365, Windows 10, and EMS. It includes advanced threat protection services including Microsoft Threat Protection (Azure Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), Windows Defender ATP, and Office 365 ATP including Threat Intelligence), as well as Microsoft Cloud App Security and Azure Active Directory. Office 365 ATP includes these services:
- Scanning email attachments for malware with ATP Safe Attachments
- Scanning web addresses (URLs) in email messages and Office documents with ATP Safe Links
- Identifying and blocking malicious files in online libraries with ATP for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams
- Checking email messages for unauthorized spoofing with spoof intelligence
- Detecting when someone attempts to impersonate your users and your organization’s custom domains with ATP anti-phishing capabilities in Office 365
The package is currently available for $12 per user per month before volume discounts.
The Information Protection & Compliance package combines Office 365 Advanced Compliance and Azure Information Protection. It’s designed to help compliance and IT teams perform ongoing risk assessments across Microsoft Cloud services, automatically protect and govern sensitive data, and efficiently respond to regulatory requests leveraging intelligence, is available for $10 per user per month.