New Zealand | Microsoft Purview - Protect Yourself, Don't Become a Data Breach Statistic

Hambik Matvosian - 02.03.202320230302

Microsoft Purview – Protect Yourself, Don’t Become a Data Breach Statistic

New Zealand | Microsoft Purview - Protect Yourself, Don't Become a Data Breach Statistic

Hey folks! Pure Awesomeness (aka Hambik Matvosian) here and you’re probably all wondering where the heck I’ve been with my blogs. Well, between putting together the content for my monthly FastTrack Updates to trying to work out where the year went, I’ve been busy beefing up my knowledge around Microsoft 365 Compliance…wait…sorry…yes, they changed the name again. Let’s try that again…I’ve been busy beefing up my knowledge around all things Microsoft Purview. 

Now, before I continue and pump a tonne of knowledge into your cerebrum, I need to ask this question…have you been following my FastTrack Updates? If your answer is yes, perfect. Pass GO, collect your $200 and keep reading. If your answer was no, then we really need to talk. I mean, it’s pretty much the most educational piece of content you’ll find across YouTube, LinkedIn and Face…Meta…or whatever it’s called now, so make sure you watch the videos and hit that Like and Subscribe button (do I sound like a content creator yet or what?)

Now, down to business and why we’re here today. But first, you know what you need to do: 

  • Grab a cup of liquid gold (aka the Ristretto, Doppio or Mezzo Mezzo – see, this is why I’ll never be a barista. I had to Google that last one)
  • Like and share my previous blogs and FastTrack updates
  • Subscribe to Insentra’s YouTube channel (trust me, there’s some great pieces of content on there)

OK, formalities done, it’s time to move onto discussing the topic of the day…Microsoft Purview. Buckle up and here we go!

What is Microsoft Purview?

Yes, Microsoft has done it again and changed the name of a product we’ve been so used to for several years. Microsoft Purview combines the former Azure Purview and the Microsoft 365 Compliance Centre into one beast of a platform to provide you with a unified range of solutions around data governance and risk management.  

So, what does it bring to the table you ask?

  • Helps you gain visibility into assets across your entire data estate
  • Enables easy access to all your data, security and risk solutions
  • Helps safeguard and manage sensitive data across clouds, apps and endpoints
  • Manages end-to-end data risks and regulatory compliance…and finally
  • Empowers your organisation to govern, protect and manage data in new, comprehensive ways

You’re probably reading this and thinking “we trust our users to do the right thing.” Whilst this statement may be true, sometimes users don’t even know they’re putting the entire organisation at risk by sharing that one folder called Cat Memes to an external party, not realising they saved a document in that folder with passwords which they forgot to transfer to a password vault. This can very easily lead to a data breach. 

Here’s a number that will rattle some bones – according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach 2022 report, the cost of a data breach in 2022 averaged USD 4.35 million! So how can you avoid your organisation becoming a statistic in this report? Read on to find out what solutions are available! 

If you need a refill of your Mezzo Mezzo, now is the time. 

Refill done. 

Read on!

Compliance Manager

No, it’s not the title of a new role that needs to open in your organisation. Although, if you already have a Compliance Manager in your team, then Compliance Manager in Microsoft Purview will most likely be their new best friend. It helps organisations manage their compliance requirements with greater ease and convenience. Compliance Manager can help take an inventory of data protection risks to managing the complexities of implementing controls, staying current with regulations and certifications and reporting to auditors. In other words, Compliance Manager will tell you what remediation steps are recommended to help reduce risk and will even provide you with an overall score across the tenant. Yep, that’s right, another score to keep track of…and you thought Secure Score, Identity Score and Exposure Score were enough.

Data Loss Prevention

We’ll refer to this bad boy as DLP because you know, acronyms. What does DLP do I hear you ask? The policies that you create can help prevent sensitive information from leaving your organisation. So, what’s classified as a sensitive information type? Oh, you know, tax file numbers, medical numbers etc so nothing too concerning if it landed in the wrong hands (said no one ever).

Information Protection

It’s pretty much in the name…protecting information. How is that done I hear you ask? Quite simply, using labels. Gone are the days where a simple stamp with the words “Confidential” marked across the printed document was enough to deter someone from passing that document onto a 3rd party. Now, with the evolution of the beast that is Microsoft 365 and the constant development of AI, organisations can now configure labels, assign them to policies and apply these labels to documents and emails automagically. I should make a note that the automagicness (yes, I made up a word) of applying the labels does require E5 license SKUs and the AI used is the good AI (not the one that took over Skynet and summoned Arnie to protect us all). However, manually applying the labels can be achieved with E3 licenses. 

By the way, 50 likes on this blog post and I’ll submit a request to Oxford Dictionary to formally recognise the word “automagicness”.  

Also, check out my fellow crew member, Joe Cirillo’s blog on DLP and Information Protection 

Keep reading!

Records Management

On to an important requirement for most organisations today. Cast your mind back to when retaining documents meant that organisations had cardboard boxes filled with hundred and hundreds of documents, stored in a vault…in the same building! When an auditor came knocking, it meant rummaging through the boxes labelled “A – Box 1 of 24” to try and find the documents requested. Nowadays with the whole digital transformation idea, documents, or records, are all…yes you guessed it…digital. With E5 licenses, organisations can take advantage of the Records Management solution within Purview, which can provide some of the following capabilities: 

  • Label content as a record
  • Configure retention and deletion settings with retention labels
  • Start different retention periods when an event occurs
  • Export information about all disposed items 

Bonus tip just for my loyal readers and followers – you can activate a 90-day trial of Records Management from within Purview and test it out! OK, Microsoft has this tip published but what sort of blogger would I be if I didn’t pass on this knowledge?

Insider Risk Management

Risks are everywhere and it’s not always the external risks that organisations need to protect themselves from. Unfortunately, internal risks are also a possibility. Internal risks could refer to any of the following: 

  • Leaks of sensitive data
  • Confidentiality violations
  • Intellectual property theft
  • Fraud
  • Insider trading 
  • Regulatory compliance violations 

So how can organisations combat these risks? Insider Risk Management of course…or IRM (yep more acronyms but don’t get this acronym confused with Information Rights Management). Conversation for another day on why Microsoft has two different products with the same acronym. 

Insider Risk Management helps you quickly identify, triage and act on risk activity. Available with E5 licenses and hopefully a product you’ll never need to use! 

For more information and helpful insights on insider threats, be sure to check out the Insider Threat Ultimate Guide.

E-Discovery

Hopefully you’ll never need to use this feature but if your organisation is dealing with a legal case and needs to produce the required data, eDiscovery is your friend, provided retention policies are turned on across the tenant. Now, don’t get this confused with backups. Whilst eDiscovery is a way to gain access to data through retention policies, it’s not designed to be a backup and restore solution. So, if your organisation is relying on eDiscovery and retention policies to fulfil RTO and RPO requirements, we need to talk! 

To provide you with some more information (because you know, what kind of awesome content creator/blogger would I be if I didn’t share such information), eDiscovery comes in two flavours: Standard and Premium and yep, you guessed it…dependent on whether you have E3 or E5 licenses across the tenant (can’t say you didn’t see that one coming) 

Information Barriers

Pretty self-explanatory (kind of). Basically, information barriers isare a way to restrict two-way communication and collaboration between groups and users across Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. To expand on this, in the professional context, it’s often used in highly regulated industries and help to avoid conflicts of interest and safeguard internal information between users and organisational areas. The simpler explanation – Information Barriers can prevent Simone in Marketing from sharing cat memes with Mark in Operations because she knows Mark doesn’t like cats and can prevent Mark from responding back, causing conflict, resulting in you, the reader, referring back to the eDiscovery section of this masterpiece to determine what could be the end result. 

On to the last product! It’s almost over…I can hear the heartbreak…

Content Explorer

So, your organisation has a bunch of data across Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. Now, you need to figure out whether any sensitive information resides across these platforms. Allow me to introduce you to content explorer. Content explorer shows a current snapshot of the items that have a sensitivity label, a retention label or have been classified as a sensitive information type in your organisation. Now, just want to make it clear – content explorer does not provide you a snapshot of what’s being shared across the organisation, both internally and externally. That requires multiple different reports to be generated and analysed and not all from within Purview. But never fear, there is an easier way to obtain this level of information and visibility, but it does require you, my loyal reader, reaching out to me directly to discuss. 

There you have it folks! Another blog written by yours truly, all about the native capabilities that Purview can bring to the table to help stop your organisation from becoming a data breach statistic! 

Until next time, Pure Awesomeness signing off!

If you’re interested in learning more about Microsoft Purview and how it can help your organisation manage data governance and risk management, contact Insentra today! Our team of experts can help you understand the capabilities of Purview and assist in implementing the solution for your business.

Related Topics

Microsoft Purview: The Future of Compliance and Governance
Enhancing Microsoft 365’s Information Security Governance
Why You Need Microsoft 365 Backup Solution After All

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