Today’s cyber threats are real, they are sophisticated, and they are relentless ,and they are targeting your end-users, which means your network is vulnerable to human error, no matter how modern and robust your overall security system is. Bad clicks on email attachments and unsafe links by end-users are in fact among the biggest threats to your network. Hackers know this too, and therefore are using very sophisticated social engineering tactics to entice users to react emotionally, throw caution to the wind and just CLICK. And unfortunately, just one bad click can expose your entire network to malware or ransomware – which spells bad news for your business with a capital B. But for Office 365 subscribers, there is some good news. It’s called Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection and it offers select Exchange and Office 365 customers real-time email protection against these unknown and sophisticated attacks.
How Does Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection Work?
Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection works to protect your email in real time against these cyber attacks, essentially helping you to protect your network from both hackers and your users. Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection secures your mailboxes against such threats in two primary ways.
- Protecting Against Unsafe Attachments
With Safe Attachments, you can actually prevent malicious attachments from impacting you. It works by sending all suspicious content through a real-time analysis. By using machine learning techniques to evaluate the content, this program is trained to look for malware. Any attachments deemed unsafe are then sandboxed in a secure chamber before reaching recipients.
- Protecting Your Environment When Users Do Click on Malicious Links
Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection uses Safe Links, an extension of the existing Online Protection feature that scans content to look for malicious links. Safe Links goes one step further to fully protect your environment when a user clicks a link. While the content is being scanned, the URL’s are rewritten to go through Office 365. At the same time a user clicks them, the URL’s get scanned. Therefore, if a link is unsafe the user is either warned not to visit the site or informed that that particular URL has been blocked because it is unsafe.
Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection Reporting
Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection also includes robust reporting, so that administrators can track activity and learn who is being targeted within your organization, the types of attacks, what links users have clicked or been blocked from clicking, and locate the source of malicious links in email messages.
Don’t Ignore End-User Education
Even with the addition of Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection, we can’t stress enough how educating your end-users is a critical factor in your network security. After all, they are the ones being directly targeted with those high-pressure, fear-based tactics that are the hallmark of phishing attacks. And as we have already noted, they are also the ones who can mistakenly create computer chaos with a single click.
How to Buy Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection
This security feature can be added to the following Exchange and Office 365 subscription plans for just $2.00 per user: Exchange Online Plan 1, Exchange Online Plan 2, Exchange Online Kiosk, Exchange Online Protection, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E2, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 364 Enterprise E4, Office 365 Enterprise K1, Office 365 Enterprise K2, Office 365 Education. If you are already a subscriber to one of these plans, you should contact your IT provider about adding this to your existing subscription. (So for any of our customers – give us a call, request a call or email your Account Manager about upgrading to this feature for all of your users).
Want to Learn More About Office 365?
If you aren’t an Office 365 customer, there are some pretty great reasons to consider an O365 migration, beyond this enhanced security feature. Chief among them is that it’s a more affordable, scalable model for businesses. Because instead of purchasing and owning Office software outright for every user, you are effectively renting the most up-to-date versions of Office on a monthly basis for only the users who need it. Subscription plans can be increased or decreased as needed. And they are very affordable. It also eliminates the need for a dedicated email server, which is another cost-savings. But it’s not just about saving money – O365 really is a modern productivity solution for today’s on-demand workplace. These are some of the other advantages of Office 365 that can help to move your business forward:
- Office Where and When You Need it – because it’s cloud-based, you will have anytime, anywhere access to all of your go-to Office products. And that includes on any device, as the Office apps have been optimized for tablets and smartphones, allowing users the freedom to work from any location, online or offline. Any edits or changes made to your documents while offline will automatically sync once you reconnect.
- Get the Best and Latest Versions of Office – as an O365 subscriber, you are going to get all the latest Office features as automatic updates on all Office apps, at no additional cost. This is especially attractive for businesses who may be struggling to manage a variety of Office editions, since the “old way” to get Office was to purchase it with the computer. That leaves businesses managing the nuances of multiple versions, because it is dependent on the age of the machine. With O365, you will have a standardized suite of Office products across all users. This also means that critical updates and security patches will occur automatically in the background for all O365 users.
- Built-in Storage and Sharing – real-time co-authoring means that you can stay in-sync and productive no matter where you are. With the ability to track where your co-workers are with edits to a shared document, you can stop saving – and losing track of – multiple versions of the same document. Additionally, with Office 365, you get 1TB of online storage so you can keep all your files secure in one central location online. This helps with productivity, allowing documents to be available anytime, anywhere. It also offers a safeguard against a local disaster, allowing team members to work remotely and still stay connected if they are unable to get to the office.
- Skype for Business – you can dramatically cut down on email traffic by using this secure internal version of Skype for real-time communication. It also allows for communication with external contacts as needed.
Move Your Business Forward with Office 365
Corsica Technologies is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, and not only do we have a ton of experience in setting up and managing O365 network environments for our customers, but we also use it ourselves. We can help guide you through the entire process and make sure that O365 is the right product for you. Just complete the short form below and we will contact you right away!
