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Sujatha Narasimhan , Senior Sales Engineer at Mimecast control . This involves securing all entry and exit points within the infrastructure . For example , with emails , most organisations focus on controlling incoming and outgoing emails but overlook internal communications . So , conversations between colleagues become a blind spot and that ’ s where organisations need visibility .
After visibility , the second need is security tools and mechanisms that can respond to attacks . Organisations need to start asking themselves ‘ How do we limit an attack if it were to surface from within our organisation ?’ What if a scenario arises where an account gets compromised within the organisation and the internal user starts spamming customers ? That ’ s why measures to counter internal threats with effective security tools are essential .
Thirdly , a prevalent industry issue is an overwhelming volume of incidents security teams battle with . Outsourcing or managed responses can improve the mean time to detect and respond to incidents and allow organisations to focus on the core operations of running the business .
Lastly , the power of APIs ( Application Programming Interfaces ) is a significant advantage that is hugely
Even the basic Microsoft license now offers comprehensive protection and this will cover various risks like accidents , malicious attachments and allow Business Continuity .
underestimated . Instead of applications working in silos , integrating various security technologies through APIs will enable the sharing of threat information and enhance preventive measures across network and device levels . So , leveraging APIs , ensuring visibility , optimising incident response and managing overwhelming incidents all contribute to a more robust defence against threats .
What are some of the features included within Microsoft 365 that help ensure stronger security and what are its limitations ?
Let ' s focus on key security features . Even the basic Microsoft license now offers comprehensive protection and this will cover various risks like accidents , malicious attachments and allow Business Continuity . While this might be true , the extent to which they provide this protection is very limited . For instance , if an entry-level scam happens on Microsoft ' s site , we can rely on reputation databases to detect any malicious URLs and block them .
Mimecast does the same thing but that ’ s where the similarity ends . We protect from a lot more attack vectors and not just a reputational database . True security requires more advanced techniques and this is where we specialise , using AI to better identify such threats and detect impersonation attacks .
Similarly , Microsoft ' s impersonation protection can be configured as a policy , but its scope is limited to only about 60 users . If an organisation has as many as 1,600 users , applying this becomes complex as we would have to create hundreds of impersonation policies to protect those users . So , it ' s not just from a technology perspective but from the ease of use , admin and maintenance headaches .
Additionally , depending solely on Microsoft for email continuity is risky as recent events have shown the system ' s vulnerability to downtime . Aside the technological limitations , if an attack happened and you were in the recovery process , it would be difficult to keep sending emails and host events simultaneously in the process . It is like having all your eggs in one basket .
On the other extreme , an organisation might opt for Microsoft ' s premium license which provides more features . However , it will still lack the same efficacy as other brands in terms of email security and faces potential service outages due to overreliance on a single source . So , while both Microsoft and other premium licenses will offer similar features , there are nuanced differences in security effectiveness and reliability that need to be carefully considered .
Why is a third-party solution a key necessity to mitigate security risks with Microsoft 365 and what added value can Mimecast provide ?
Microsoft is an amazing product and collaboration tool . However , that ' s exactly where the problem arises . Productivity and collaboration were key drivers at its building stage and not security . While it is a great tool , it is lacking in its ability to protect productivity suites and collaborations .
Also , Microsoft is widely adopted and has since the pandemic undergone a complete Digital Transformation with several organisations using its collaboration tools . The wide adoption and amount of data it holds makes Microsoft a primary threat landscape . Relying on Microsoft to provide security
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