New M365 Features that Boost Productivity and Security

Unlimited Microsoft Teams Dial-In Audio-Conferencing

Organizations big and small are boosting productivity and collaboration by using Microsoft Teams. Currently, Microsoft 365 users can use the PSTN Audio Conferencing feature with certain Microsoft 365 Enterprise licensing. As for the licenses below these (like E3 and other business, government, and frontline licenses), users have to purchase an add-on license in order to utilize this feature. 

Announced via a Microsoft blog post, Microsoft stated that it would add unlimited dial-in capabilities for Microsoft Teams meetings across the enterprise, business, frontline, and government suites. This allows customers to dial-in to Teams meetings from 70+ countries on virtually any device. This Microsoft Teams feature will be available to for specific types of licenses. 

While changes will be effective in March of 2022, Microsoft has extended a $0/user promo through the end of May 2022 to bridge the gap between the announcement and availability.

Microsoft Defender Security

Microsoft Defender Security is a pre- and post-breach enterprise defense suite that coordinates detection, investigation, protection, and response across endpoints, applications, email, and identities to provide integrated protection against sophisticated attacks. That said, some features Microsoft Defender for 365 are only included for specific Microsoft 365 licenses and often restricted to a specific Plan (like Plan 1 and Plan 2).

Microsoft Defender offers a number of security features, one of them being Endpoint Detection Response. Not every license gets to experience all of what Endpoint Detection Response can offer, however. For example, those with Microsoft 365 E3 licenses receive what is EDR without the detection response. Business premium licenses get EDR in its entirety.  

Microsoft has now combined Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 in a coordinated cross-domain security suite. This suite offers extended detection and response (XDR) capabilities through better data coverage, combined incident management, automatic investigation and remediation, Microsoft Threat Experts, threat analytics, and cross-domain hunting capabilities.

Businesses that partner with Centre receive Microsoft Defender automatically, as the minimum standard even though Microsoft does not include this by default.  

Modern AI Capabilities

With the popularization of the hybrid work environment, Microsoft has improved AI capabilities through Viva to not only keep teams connected, but to foster more communication, knowledge sharing, resources, and learning in the hybrid workplace. 

Features include personal insights to get employees to prioritize wellbeing while prioritizing efficiency as well as manager and leader insights to help improve team productivity. 

Microsoft Viva is available for enterprise licenses only but not as an entire suite of products. All M365 plans will get Microsoft Viva Connections, but Viva Learning and Viva Insights are features that are only partially included in enterprise license plans. All Microsoft Viva Topics are available as an add-on. 

Geo-Fencing Security

With geo-fencing security, businesses can establish a virtual boundary around a specific location. This prevents businesses from being hacked into by hackers from foreign locations.  How does this work?

An administrator or developer establishes a virtual boundary with GPS or RFID enabled software. This geofence then triggers a response when an authorized device enters or exits that area. If someone tries to access company data from outside of that geofenced area, they will be forced to contact the administrator or developer to be granted access. Access can be granted within a matter of minutes or denied if the company doesn't recognize the device attempting to get company data.  

Dark Web Monitoring

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 9 million US citizens have their identities stolen every year. One of the biggest ways this happens is through online identity theft.

With Dark Web Monitoring services, hundreds of thousands of websites are scanned each day to look for personal information that criminals could use to steal users' identities.  If any potentially compromising information is found, the user is notified immediately. 

Enhanced Secure Score

With Microsoft's Secure Score, organizations can enjoy complete transparency into their security posture. While Microsoft alone can offer tools to gain insight into an internet-connected environment- at Centre we take it a step further.

We look at the internal IT environment, ensuring that the environment as a whole- not just Microsoft applications are taken into account to assess the vulnerability of your environment. 

Feature Adoption and Utilization Tracking

It is estimated that only 20% of app users use an app fully. With feature adoption and utilization tracking, users can get full knowledge on the applications made available to them and track their usage. 

When it is time to review utilization for annual renewals, businesses will have a clear image of what was most useful to them and what wasn't. This way, they are able to cut unnecessary costs and shape their tools towards their business needs. 

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Deployment

Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) provides an added layer of security for users. Many business leaders question the need for multifactor authentication for every user in an organization, but each user is a potential entry-point for a data breach.

Therefore, multifactor authentication is an important tool that works to ensure all users are safeguarded against these attacks. 

Conditional Access Policies

A Conditional Access Policy is a hypothesis that says, "if this happens, then this will happen". This is perfect for enforcing company policy and ensuring that all processes are done in the correct order. No employee can escape the conditional access policy set by your organization and none will try to because your system will be locked tight. 

Below are some common Microsoft 365 configuration standards compared to secure by default configurations delivered by Microsoft cloud experts at Centre Technologies.