MICROSOFT 365 SECURITY BEST PRACTICES
Microsoft 365 Security is a cloud-based application that serves as a solution for many companies. Its widespread availability has made it a target for Cyber-attackers. For this reason, data security and asset protection are crucial when using cloud-based office apps.
This article highlights major threats that Microsoft 365 users face and recommends best security practices.
Is Microsoft 365 Secure?
Microsoft 365 is a data-centric system. Like other cloud-based applications, Microsoft 365 is susceptible to attacks from external sources. These attackers can destroy user defences, gain access to confidential data, disrupt operations, and cause data loss.
Statistics show that up to 85% of organizations that subscribe to Office 365 were victims of an email data loss in 2021, while 15% of subscribed organizations suffered over 500 breaches in the same year. Meanwhile, only 4% of organizations that do not subscribe to Office 365 reported the same data loss event.
Microsoft 365 Security Features
Microsoft 365 security features are accessible through the Security and Compliance Center on Microsoft Accounts. This portal aids users in choosing various security functions that suit their needs. These functions include:
1. Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Microsoft’s IAM solution allows for the set-up of digital identities for all Office users. The digital identity of every user contains their authentication details and authorization information. It helps administrators add authentication for all log-ins, manage passwords effectively, onboard, and dispel users when necessary.
Identity and Access Management (IAM) allows you to manage authorization options for all users. With this, administrators can set privileges based on roles and specific requirements. This feature gives the app access to users with appropriate permissions, restricting unauthorized users from intrusion.
2. Risk management
Microsoft 365 security suite helps to manage risks and ensure compliance. They identify risks, categorize them, and allow for data protection across Microsoft’s cloud resources.
Risk management tools assist security teams in locating insider threats, managing insecure communications risks, and fine-tuning advantages for administrator accounts. On the other hand, audit tools help users dig into compliance issues until all data security weaknesses are taken care of.
3. Information security
Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MIP) allows users to manage data across Microsoft’s cloud resources and on remote work devices. These data are classified to ensure they only reach authorized devices. Also, various sensitivity levels are defined to make data available and protect it when due.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and Microsoft Information Governance (MIG) tools create durable security controls for confidential data and establish lifecycle controls to discard irrelevant data.
4. Threat defenses
Microsoft offers Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) features that nullify cyber threats and identify security weaknesses by tracking traffic.
Microsoft Sentinel is an SIEM system that uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to monitor the Microsoft cloud. It tracks every active Office application and device. On the other hand, Microsoft Defender and Office 365 Defender are examples of XDR tools. These tools extend threat detection to all areas, like email accounts and cloud applications.
Common Microsoft 365 Security Concerns
Despite the availability of Microsoft 365 security tools, users should create their security setup and choose the best methods that fit their direct needs. Microsoft 365 security tools use machine learning algorithms and threat detection. However, gaps can be created from human error. These gaps can pave the way for attackers to work. Some threats that security managers need to assess include:
- Unauthorized access and Credential theft
- Data Loss
- Complacency
- Unsafe advantages
- Anomalies in patterns
- Password change and constant MFA attacks.
Microsoft Security Best Practices
- Educate the users on Microsoft 365 security.
- Ensure secure collaboration
- Establish anti-phishing protection
- Enable Identity and Access Management (IAM)
- Encourage the use of anti-malware solutions
- Engage in better data security controls.
- Ensure compliance check.
- Emphasize the need for stronger passwords and changing passwords.
- Enforcing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
Conclusion
Microsoft 365 Security tools are flexible and comprehensive. However, the user has to maximize these security measures to utilize Office Cloud resources. To do this, one must understand the available tools and identify the best security measure fit for the organization’s requirements.
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MASTER MICROSOFT 365 TIPS AND TRICKS
Microsoft 365 is the most dominant productivity application suite for businesses of all sizes. Truly, millions of people and businesses use Microsoft 365 apps ranging from Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, and SharePoint to Outlook. But far too many organizations don’t take full advantage of new features that can massively boost productivity levels.
This article has identified some Microsoft 365 tips and productivity tricks that will make your life easier. These tips guarantee saving time and effort in creating and completing all daily tasks.
General Microsoft 365 tips and tricks.
1. Install on your other devices
Installing Microsoft 365 on other devices is essential. You may have to work when you are not at the office. There are instances where you don’t have your computer with you. However, with the help of the Microsoft Office 365 features, it is possible to install the applications to your portable devices, such as your tablet or Smartphone, and work on the necessary documents from there.
There may be some limitations with these devices, for example, the Smartphone. However, you can still make corrections and check documents.
2. Activate the “ALERT ME” Function
You can activate the “ALERT ME” function when working with a team, instead of constantly checking to see when other team members have finished their end of the project work. This is a major time-saving feature for collaboration and teamwork. Regarding time management, this is one of the best Microsoft 365 tips and tricks you can use.
3. Use “Tell Me”
“Tell Me” allows you to enter words or phrases that direct you to a command performed instantly. Click “Tell me” from the navigation bar and type in a command. A drop-down menu may appear to fine-tune your request. Click on the option you want and get your desired result.
4. Utilize Keyboard Shortcuts
Microsoft offers dozens of keyboard shortcuts in Windows to make your life easier. While you won’t be able to remember all of them, you can jot down a few that you can start utilizing immediately. Mastery of these keyboard shortcuts will help you give commands faster while working.
5. Avoid the constant email ping
Turning on the “Do Not Disturb” feature in Microsoft Office will enable you to stop receiving email notifications for the scheduled time. This feature is best when you need optimum focused and untapped productivity levels. You can also use this feature during rest time at night.
6. Share Your Work
This feature allows collaboration between users. To share your work; right-click on file and select share from an open document, you can also select the file from the document menu and right-click or click the ellipses to select share.
Click Invite People and enter their email addresses. Clicking “SendWorkbook” will open an email window with the file attached but will not enable active collaboration.
7. Restore previous work
Microsoft Office365 enables you to restore your last saved copy (up to 25 previous copies), saving precious time and effort. View and restore files in SharePoint or OneDrive by clicking File> Info and selecting View. You can see previous versions and restore prior content as needed
MICROSOFT WORD TIPS AND TRICKS
These are Microsoft 365 Tips and Tricks that can help you easily navigate through Microsoft Word include:
1. Easy Copying, Cutting, and Pasting
This is one of the most basic tips in Microsoft Word. To copy, highlight the concerned text, hold down the “Ctrl” key, or the “command” key on your MAC and press “C”. After this, you go to the area you want to paste the text. Hold down the “control key” (or command) and press “V”
To cut, use the key “X” instead of C. This completely removes a text or image from where it used to be so it can be pasted on a new area. The “Copy” feature also serves as a temporary backup, as whatever you copied will be stored in the system’s temporary memory.
2. Ditch the unnecessary formatting
To remove the formatting from your document, highlight the section in question (or you can select all of it using the Ctrl and “A” keys) by holding down the Ctrl key and then pressing the Spacebar. This will remove all the formatting from the highlighted section.
3. Add a hyperlink
Adding an already saved hyperlink to a chunk of text is a required trick to drive leads to intended and necessary sites. To do this, highlight the word or phrase you want to add the link into, then press Ctrl, right-click the selected section again, and choose “Hyperlink.”).
4. Smart lookup
This is an easier way to search for additional insights or background information to text content. Smart lookup helps you get right to the links you want to share and copy them back onto the text (to add a hyperlink, right-click the selected section again and choose “Hyperlink”).
To use Smart Lookup, highlight a word or phrase, right-click the highlighted section, and choose “Smart Lookup.” This will automatically open up your browser and bring up a Google search for what you selected.
5. Smart way to delete
It can be tiring to delete longer words (or groups of words) using the backspace key, and if you hold it down, you risk wiping out an entire line. To delete the smart way, use the Control button and then Backspace. This will delete the previous word. You can also double-click the mouse on the word, and it will automatically highlight that word, for which you can press Backspace.
Also, if you want to remove an entire paragraph or block of text. Triple-click inside this block and the entire paragraph will be selected, then click on backspace.
MICROSOFT TEAMS TIPS AND TRICKS
To navigate Microsoft Teams optimally, here are some tips and tricks:
1. Saying NO to emails
Instead of relying on emails or working within the office to receive Instant Messaging (IM), you can post and forward every group email into a Team access folder. By using the Teams application, you can select the “Get Email Address” option, then copy and paste the addresses of everyone you want to have access to the individual channel.
In this case, everyone will receive messages in the same area and it works as a combination of IM and email service, all tied into one powerful productivity suite.
2. Take advantage of the command line
The command line is a blank bar with a pencil-on-paper icon next to it. In this line, you can type several commands that will instantly take you where you need to go. Sifting and searching for a particular bit of information can be time-consuming and tiresome.
A better way to do this is to type in one of the accepted commands, and Microsoft Teams will take you there.
3. Locating a conversation
Using the “@Mention” feature, you can locate a conversation you are interested in, instead of scrolling through a list especially when many conversations are involved. To achieve this, type in the “@” symbol, followed by their name, into the search bar, and it will instantly bring up the conversation.
4. Group people together
An easy way to send messages to a group of people in Microsoft Office is to group individuals into a single tag.
To do this, you need to choose the “Create a new tag” option and give it a name. Once you’ve named it, you can then add people. Click the “Add People” option and type in the names of the people you want to include in the single tag. Now, instead of typing out all the individuals you want to send the message to, you can simply use the “@” and then add the name of the group.
5. Organize your teams
With Microsoft Teams, you can organize your teams in an order of priority, that is, the most important team is at the top of your list.
To do this, click and hold down on the team name, then drag it to the location you want it to appear in. Whether it is at the top of the page or you find your eye wandering to the Calendar button, you can tweak and edit the configuration as much as you’d like.
6. Mark the message as unread
In Microsoft Teams, you can keep a message received that you are yet to respond to as unread to enable you to get back to it subsequently. This can be achieved when you click on the three dots on the right of the message. From the pull-down menu, select “Mark as Unread.” This way, it will be highlighted and ready for you to read whenever you have a chance to sit down and go back over your messages
MICROSOFT EXCEL TIPS AND TRICKS
Here are some Microsoft 365 tips and tricks for Excel that can help you become more productive.
- Autocorrect
There is an AutoCorrect feature that will allow you to correct difficult entries without having to proofread immediately. To use this feature, you’ll want to select the “File” menu, then choose “Options,” followed by “Proofing,” and then “AutoCorrect Options.” You’ll then select an entry you know is spelt correctly and type in what you’d like to type while inputting the entries.
Whenever you input what you have typed in, Excel will automatically swap it out and put in the correct spelling.
- Switch data from a row to a column
You can now easily convert a row into a column without clearing and entering the cell content again.
To do this, you’ll want to copy the row in question, and then move your pointer to a blank section on the spreadsheet. From here, choose “Home,” then “Paste,” followed by “Transpose.” Just remember you need to copy the data before it works.
- Removal of blank cells
When you have blank cells around your spreadsheet, you’ll need to remove them without using the time-consuming random scrolling and deleting method. This can prove difficult especially if you have a huge number of blank cells you need to remove.
All you need to do is choose the column with the blank cells, then select “Data,” followed by “Filter.” Once the down-facing button appears, you’ll choose “Undo Select All” and then choose the last option given, which is “Blanks.” You can then return to “Home” and then “Delete.” This will remove all those pesky blank cells scattered on your spreadsheet.
- Add a diagonal line
To input a diagonal line to the cell, you’ll want to choose the cells in question, then click “Home,” followed by “Font.” Once the new window appears, choose “Borders,” then click ‘”More Borders.” Here you will have the option of selecting a diagonal line. and “K.” keys. This will add the hyperlink to the selected text.
Conclusion
Once you become a power user in Microsoft Office, you will notice that you don’t just navigate the applications more quickly, but you also stay focused with fewer distractions.
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APPLICATIONS OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud computing has become relevant across many sectors for its flexibility, scalability, and cost savings. Organizations, businesses, companies and schools use cloud computing applications. These applications aid productivity, make remote work easy and increase collaboration.
Applications of Cloud Computing
What are the applications of cloud computing in real-life scenarios for businesses? Cloud computing offers countless benefits to companies – from large organizations to start-ups – that utilize its services. Cloud technology has gained credit for fueling some of the world’s largest brands and it also serves as bedrock for major innovative products and technological tools.
- Business Applications
Business applications are used for communication, sharing files, and increasing productivity. These applications are useful for businesses as security, privacy and access to sensitive data are considered.
– File storage
Cloud-based file storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box allow easy file sharing and collaboration. Companies can store documents, visual assets, videos etc. securely in the cloud and enable employees to access them from anywhere.
– Email and communication
Services like Gmail, Outlook and Slack provide businesses with hosted email, instant messaging, and video conferencing over the cloud. The applications of cloud computing for email services is crucial to a business.
– Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer relationship management systems like Salesforce, Dynamics 365 CRM and Zoho CRM run on the cloud allowing sales and marketing teams to manage customer data and interactions from anywhere.
– Productivity apps
Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace (G-suite) provide essential productivity apps like word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software on the cloud with real-time collaboration.
2. Consumer Applications
Cloud computing applications are not limited to businesses. Individuals have access to using cloud resources both free and paid subscriptions.
– Media storage
Services like Onedrive, and Google Photos allow consumers to store personal photos and videos with easy access.
– Gaming
Cloud gaming services like Google Stadia, and Nvidia GeForce Now allow playing high-end games by streaming them over the internet without needing powerful PCs.
– Streaming Services
Services like Flickr, Spotify, Apple Music allow consumers to store their music in the cloud and stream/access them from various devices. Netflix is a movie streaming platform that allows users to watch and download movies from anywhere on devices.
– Smart home devices
Connected home devices like smart thermostats, lights, locks, and speakers rely on the cloud to enable remote access and voice control.
3. Government Applications
A major application of cloud computing is required for government parastatals. Government agencies require access to the cloud leveraging storage, security and privacy.
– Data storage & analytics
Government agencies leverage the cloud for securely storing and analyzing massive amounts of public data for insights. Government agencies store and manage large databases of the citizens’ data.
– Cloud-based email
Migrating email systems of government departments to hosted cloud email services improve efficiency and collaboration.
– Disaster recovery
The Cloud helps agencies easily replicate data and systems to alternate sites as part of their business continuity and disaster recovery planning. This way, in the event of disasters like fire incidents, public information is on the cloud and can be recovered. This eliminates the use of paper and file storage.
– Public web applications
Cloud-hosted web applications can enable citizens’ online access to government services and information.
Learn more about Cloud Computing from our experts.
Benefits of the Application of Cloud Computing
1. Improved Collaborations
Cloud-based technology has fostered improved collaborations in schools, companies, businesses and organizations.
2. Enhancing Telemedicine
Administering healthcare is now beyond physical location as medical practices can be done via the Internet.
3. Record Keeping
Cloud computing applications help to keep records and sensitive information. In large and small healthcare facilities, records of patients are treated with utmost importance. Cloud computing can help secure this record and ensure easy storage and access to these data.
4. Advanced Analytics
Medical records of patients can be analyzed using cloud-based technology. This will make the process easier and less expensive, seeing that the tools can be used without owning them.
Conclusion
The scalability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of cloud computing has made it the go-to choice for hosting a vast range of applications across business, consumer and government use-cases. The ability to achieve more agility while reducing infrastructure costs is driving widespread cloud adoption.
