Your Microsoft 365 data is a gold mine for hackers. Computer security firm Mandiant has warned that targeted threat groups are investing a lot of time and money into not only understanding Microsoft 365 but also figuring out exactly how to attack it. 

Why are they doing this? Most organizations hold a lot of business-critical and confidential data in their Microsoft 365 footprint. After all, Microsoft 365 has become a Tier 1 application. But with 71% of Microsoft 365 users experiencing an account takeover, and 81% suffering an email breach, Microsoft 365 users are becoming incapacitated at an alarming rate. When disaster strikes, they can’t be productive. And unfortunately, when this happens, IT is in the hot seat.

If you’re not yet protecting your Microsoft 365 data from cyber threats such as ransomware, you’re not alone. But with new enhancements to Rubrik protection for Microsoft 365, now is the time for you to join the many Microsoft users considering Microsoft-recommended third-party data protection for the first time. 

Take it from Rubrik customer Ruddy Cordero, Senior Director of Infrastructure and Operations at Sesame Workshop. “Working for Sesame Workshop, which has a lot of intellectual property and a lot of data in many places, we are always looking to protect against ransomware. That’s why we invest in good technology and the best out there to make sure that my team sleeps at night.”

When admin credentials are compromised, attackers can delete data by manipulating retention policies. That’s why secure, air gapped protection from Rubrik – with separate backups from the Microsoft 365 tenant and solution – is ideal for cyber resiliency.

What’s New with Rubrik for Microsoft 365 with the Winter Release?

Enterprise Scale

We’ve been protecting Microsoft 365 for a while now, and have taken the opportunity to further scale our support for enterprise customers, focusing our engineering efforts to protect up to 100,000 Microsoft 365 users. 

With an increased demand for enterprise support comes the need for even more coverage. That’s why another upcoming Rubrik addition to Rubrik protection for Microsoft 365 is enhanced coverage for the Microsoft 365 suite, so you can not only better guard against ransomware, but also accidental data deletion – a reality for companies like Sesame Workshop. “We constantly use our backups for file restores and email restores. Especially those cases where we have staff that deletes something, and they forget that they deleted it. They come back to us 60, 90 days later. We have to go back to our backup to recover it.  And the only place we can do that from is Rubrik. Easy restores and they have their file in a matter of minutes.”

As for SharePoint, recovery for Lists is a capability that users have been asking for, and we’re delivering. Lists are a fundamental object in SharePoint. When customers create custom applications inside SharePoint, Lists are a key part of that application. These lists are very customizable and making any change to the columns (the content) can be destructive. But now, you can restore the list configuration with the data intact. 

And for Microsoft Teams, Channel Posts are now recoverable. If critical information were to be accidentally deleted in a channel, related to the topic of R&D, for instance, that data can now be automatically restored in just a few clicks. And for ease of use, you can restore that data right back into the same channel, into another channel, or even consolidate channels into a single channel as part of a cleanup process.


Enhanced Protection

With this expanded coverage also comes an even greater focus on both arming our defenses to align with the Zero Trust framework and making the task of securing your Microsoft 365 even easier. With the addition of Active Directory (AD) Security groups, you will be able to automatically protect Microsoft users out-of-the-box. Apply certain SLA policies to particular user groups, according to function or status within your organization. When new users come on board, the correct policies are automatically applied. Whether it’s enforcing stricter SLAs for executives or other employee groups in an organization, this becomes a non-task for everyday management. 
 

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Also, new granular role-based access (RBAC) controls define permissions at the object level. Limit access to certain teams in Microsoft Teams, or only allow access to a select group of files and folders in OneDrive. You can even ensure that administrators from a certain geographic region in a multinational organization can only touch data in SharePoint for their respective regions.

Rubrik makes it easy to get started with a free trial of Microsoft 365 protection – check it out today! Plus, join usat the Rubrik Data Security Spotlight to hear more from our Microsoft 365 experts and to see the new enhancements in action.

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