Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Overview

One of the main challenges that companies are facing is managing the exposure to risk associated with the email infrastructure.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 [formerly Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (Office 365 ATP)] is Microsoft Office 365’s cloud-based email filtering service that helps protect your organization from unknown viruses and malware while providing protection zero-day and includes functionality to safeguard the organization from malicious URLs and attachments, as well as from Phishing and Impersonation attempts.

Solution and benefits

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has advanced URL tracing and reporting capabilities that allow administrators to analyze the types of attacks occurring in their organization.

In particular, the features that can be activated for e-mail are the following:

  • Safe connections
  • Safe attachments
  • Intelligence for spoofing
  • Quarantine
  • Advanced anti-phishing features

Here are the main ways you can use Microsoft Defender for Office 365:

  • In a Microsoft Defender for Office 365 filter-only situation, the latter provides On-Premises or Cloud email protection;
  • Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can be enabled to protect mailboxes hosted in the Exchange Online cloud;
  • In a hybrid deployment, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can be configured to secure the messaging environment and to control mail “routing” when using a combination of on-premises and cloud mailboxes in Exchange Online Protection for mail filtering electronic input.
  • In addition, when properly configured, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 allows you to detect and block files identified as malicious even for SharePoint, One Drive and Microsoft Teams: The “locked” file remains present in the document library and in web, mobile or desktop applications, but it CANNOT be OPENED, COPIED, MOVED or SHARED.

Requirements

  • Licenses
    • Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1
    • Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2
    • Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 is included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
    • Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 is included in Office 365 E5, Office 365 A5, Microsoft 365 E5 Security and Microsoft 365 E5.
    • The “Safe Documents” feature is only available for users who have Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E5 Security licenses (not included in Microsoft Defender plans for Office 365)