Microsoft launches Collaboration Security for Teams, in preview

The Covid pandemic brought on a new era of working remotely, shaking up the traditional ways organizations functioned. Nowadays, two-thirds of businesses across the globe have adopted the hybrid work model, with the likes of Microsoft Teams taking center stage in facilitating collaboration. But with great power comes great responsibility – and, unfortunately, great opportunity for cyber attackers. Phishing and ransomware, the pesky culprits of data breaches everywhere, have extended their reach to collaboration platforms.

To tackle the problem, Microsoft has introduced the public preview of Collaboration Security for Microsoft Teams, aimed at assisting organizations in safeguarding themselves against the increasing cyber-attacks. This new feature is accessible to customers of Microsoft E5, Microsoft E5 Security, or Microsoft Defender for Office 365.

The company is adding security features, including prevention, detection, and response, to Microsoft Teams to protect customer email environments. These collaboration security capabilities will be integrated into Microsoft 365 Defender, a top-rated XDR solution that correlates signals and alerts across various domains. The move will provide customers with a comprehensive and unified SecOps experience to keep their collaboration environments secure.

Furthermore, Microsoft is expanding message protection by empowering Teams users to report potentially suspicious messages. This proactive measure triggers an alert to the security team, who can conveniently view the flagged message within the Microsoft 365 Defender portal for further scrutiny. The tech firm is also introducing Zero Auto Purge (ZAP), which analyses messages after delivery and automatically hides those containing malicious content to prevent compromising the account and safeguard end-users.

To foster knowledge, mindfulness, and threat evaluation among users of Microsoft Teams, the technology heavyweight has integrated simulation and instruction resources for potential attacks. Also, the advanced hunting capabilities of Microsoft 365 Defender are being expanded to cover Teams security, allowing users to examine up to 30 days of raw data and identify potential threats through customized searches or guided hunting workflows.

Via Microsoft