Insight into Microsoft 365 Data Protection? The Microsoft 365 service offers excellent collaboration opportunities for both internal organizational use and interaction with external stakeholders. Sharing information and inviting guests has been made very easy, and knowledge work across organizational boundaries has become part of our daily lives. However, there is a flip side, and concerns have arisen, especially with Copilot implementations, regarding how organizational data is protected – for example, whether individuals who should not have access to information can erroneously access it.
Assistance for IT Management in Analyzing Data Protection Status
Microsoft offers versatile tools for identifying the location of sensitive data, managing sharing configurations, and controlling guest users. However, to ascertain these matters, one must perform actions in various places and combine information to obtain the necessary insights. The Microsoft 365 licenses in use also partly affect what can be investigated and seen. In Finland, a perhaps less known company, AvePoint, has for some time now introduced a product that simplifies visibility, data protection risk assessment, and management configurations within the Microsoft 365 service.
AvePoint Policies & Insights products help organizations identify and remediate data protection deficiencies within their Microsoft 365 service, thereby reducing risks. AvePoint has recognized certain limitations in Microsoft’s services and has introduced a more user-friendly approach to data protection monitoring and settings configuration. As a company, AvePoint specifically focuses on managing and protecting data across various SaaS solutions.
Visibility and Practices
As its name suggests, AvePoint Policies & Insights consists of two distinct sections. The Insights component provides visibility into data protection risks within the Microsoft 365 service. This includes, for example, information on how sensitive data has been shared from SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive workloads. It reveals whether sensitive data has been shared with external parties, or if direct permission assignments have been made to the SharePoint document library underlying a Teams team from outside its members. It also identifies potential anonymous shares made outside the organization, and so forth. Insights leverages sensitive information types, data classifications, audit log data, and permission assignments available in the Microsoft M365 service. Insights conducts risk analysis based on data sensitivity and the scope of its availability, presenting the findings clearly in the service’s portal view.
In the Policies section, various policies can be defined, either derived from observations made in the Insights section or independently. As an example, I would highlight guest user management. Many organizations struggle with their manageability. Guest users who haven’t logged in for a long time often remain unnecessarily active. Manually cleaning these up is an additional and time-consuming task for IT administrations. To enable lifecycle management for user accounts in the Microsoft 365 (Entra ID) service, it requires a certain license level or, alternatively, the implementation of separate automation. In the Policies section, a policy can be defined to automatically remove, for example, guest user accounts that have not logged in during the last year – regardless of the Microsoft 365 license level.
AvePoint Policies & Insights versus Microsoft's Own Data Protection Tools?
AvePoint Policies & Insights does not directly replace any M365 compliance features included with, for example, E5 license levels. Instead, it offers additional benefits for identifying and remediating issues. While the product can perform some of the same configurations as E5-level licenses, I personally believe these products primarily provide added value in terms of visibility, identification, and manageability, regardless of the Microsoft license level used in the M365 service.
Naturally, the most significant benefits from the tool’s automation are realized at the Business Premium and E3 levels, where, for instance, the Entra ID license level does not otherwise enable the same automations. I recently wrote a
Conclusion
AvePoint Policies & Insights is an excellent tool for gaining clear visibility into the data protection risks associated with Microsoft 365 services. It is rare to find a product outside the Microsoft ecosystem that so clearly adds value alongside Microsoft’s offerings. These solutions have indeed become key instruments within the services we provide to IT administrations!
The services we have built around Microsoft 365 environments are designed to empower IT administrations and provide crucial information, including on data protection, to support their decision-making. It offers an insight into Microsoft 365 environment data protection! Therefore, if you have any concerns regarding data protection within the Microsoft 365 service, please do not hesitate to contact us for a more detailed discussion.
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