office 365 anti phishing best practices


The link in the email leads to a fake website designed to steal login credentials. office 365 phishing attacks can take many different forms, but some of the most common include: Office 365 phishing protection is essential for any business using the platform. For more information, see Preset security policies in EOP and Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Similarly, when protecting the domain contoso.com, mails coming from a domain such as contosoo.com will have an increased likelihood of being flagged as potential impersonation. I recommend enabling the option to Apply the Safe Attachments detection Response if scanning cant complete to ensure that these errors do not allow any unscanned attachments to reach end users. This setting allows mail to be delivered immediately without the attachments. This can also be called 2-step verification. Are you looking for best practices for Exchange mail flow rules (also known as transport rules)?

There is, however, a lot of room for tailoring the suite of tools to meet the needs of your organization more effectively. For more information, see. With a leading cloud-based service for email security, archiving and continuity, Mimecast provides a powerful complement to Office 365, providing highly effective defenses against Office 365 phishing and other email-borne threats. Admins need to have separate user accounts for regular, everyday use only using their admin account as necessary to complete tasks associated with job functions. What's the current recommendations for standard protection? Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 or Plan 2 contain additional features that give admins more layers of security, control, and investigation. [!NOTE] Dive deep into Azure AD Connect and Azure Group Writeback to understand how it works with the attribute flow and learn some possible use cases for it. Utilizing multifactor authentication is the easiest, most effective way to rapidly improve your organizations security. Mimecast email security services provide a number of tools to improve security in Office 365 and to neutralize Office 365 phishing scams and other threats: Mimecast Targeted Threat Protection stops Office 365 phishing scams and other advanced threats by defending against the most advanced techniques used by attackers. User Impersonation : User Impersonation configuration allows organization to list down their top executives like CEO, CFO, Directors etc and any emails coming with the exact same display name and going to users will be quarantined/delivered to Junk as per the configuration. Recommended settings for EOP and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 security, Anti-spam, anti-malware, and anti-phishing protection in EOP, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 security, Anti-phishing policy settings in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Advanced settings in anti-phishing policies in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Impersonation settings in anti-phishing policies in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, EOP anti-phishing policy settings in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 plan 1 and plan 2, Preset security policies in EOP and Microsoft Defender for Office 365, https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/ORCA/, Configure junk email settings on Exchange Online mailboxes, Change the level of protection in the Junk Email Filter, Advanced Spam Filter (ASF) settings in EOP, Verify the alert settings for restricted users, Safe Attachments for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams, Configure anti-phishing policies in Defender for Office 365, Advanced phishing thresholds in anti-phishing policies in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Safe Attachments in Defender for Office 365, Turn on Safe Attachments for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams, Use SharePoint Online PowerShell to prevent users from downloading malicious files, Set up Safe Attachments policies in Defender for Office 365, Configure global settings for Safe Links in Defender for Office 365, "Block the following URLs" list for Safe Links, Set up Safe Links policies in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, allow URL entries in the Tenant Allow/Block List, Customize the Microsoft 365 theme for your organization, Best practices for configuring mail flow rules in Exchange Online, Use security baselines to configure Windows devices in Intune, Compare the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and the Windows Intune security baselines. Mailbox Intelligence is enabled as part of the baseline; however, the option to leverage Mailbox Intelligence for Impersonation Protection is not enabled. To configure these settings, see Set up Safe Links policies in Microsoft Defender for Office 365. The second layer is user training, which teaches users how to spot phishing emails and what to do if they receive one. by Kervin Alintanahin Recently, we have received an increase in the number of malicious email samples with password-protected attachments.

The current recommendation is not to use them in new configurations going forward. Finally, a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Intune security baselines is available in Compare the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and the Windows Intune security baselines. People often send, receive, and share attachments, like documents, presentations, and sheets. Spear phishing: This type of office 365 phishing attack is targeted at a specific individual or organization.

office 365 also provides administrators with tools to investigate and respond to phishing emails. Microsoft will then analyze the email, and if it is confirmed as phishing, will take the steps needed to protect other Office 365 users from being affected. 2022 Quest Software Inc. All Rights Reserved. This setting should also consider the actions assigned in the Anti-spam Phishing and High Confidence Phishing settings detailed in the Anti-Spam policy section. Your email address will not be published. For more information, see Safe Attachments in Defender for Office 365. Not nearly enough businesses have deployed sufficient security measures against phishing attacks through website builders and CMS platforms. The Office 365 environment includes malware protection, however, you can increase this protection when blocking attachments with commonly used malware file types. I have never done any official IT in a working capacity only book work ( I recently graduated with a B.S in Cyber Security). Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is the core of security for Microsoft 365 subscriptions and helps keep malicious emails from reaching your employee's inboxes.

In a report done by.

When the feature is enabled, files that open in Protected View will be scanned before the user can click through to enable editing. This topic has been locked by an administrator and is no longer open for commenting. This setting quarantines messages that contain attachments based on file type, regardless of the attachment content.

This makes it much harder for cyberattackers to gain access to your data. These may include: The Security and Compliance Center for O365 has many different tools to help you keep your sensitive data secure. Anti-phishing protection plays an integral role in detecting and blocking phishing emails before they reach the users inbox, helping to keep an organizations information secure. This gives the phishing attempt the benefit of seeming important or urgent, making the recipient more likely to accept it at face value.

Office 365 phishing is a cyber attack that uses email or other electronic communication to trick users into revealing personal information or clicking on malicious links. To automatically apply the Standard or Strict settings to users, see Preset security policies in EOP and Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Messages are then treated differently based on the level of confidence assigned. Ransomware will then attempt to extort money from the victims by asking for ransom. Either way, admins can modify these global Safe Links settings at any time. With a passion for creative problem solving, he enjoys developing solutions for business requirements by leveraging new technologies or by extending the built-in functionality with automation. All of these settings are part of the Advanced Spam Filter (ASF). Admins and users can submit false positives (good email marked as bad) and false negatives (bad email allowed) to Microsoft for analysis. To configure these settings, see Configure anti-phishing policies in Defender for Office 365. The. Tips to Help Keep Office 365 Secure Against Breaches.

For more information about the default sending limits in the service, see Sending limits. This setting applies to spoofed senders that were automatically blocked as shown in the, Adds a question mark (?) These are the same settings that are available in anti-spam policy settings in EOP. And from their vantage point across companies, geographies, and industries, analysts can track emerging attack vectors and prevent breaches. To address the severity of human error, organizations have made investments in Office 365 security and awareness training. You can create a mail rule to put these into quarantine. Additional information on office 365 phishing protection can be found here. Example Analysis of Multi-Component Malware, How the War in Ukraine Has Influenced the Scammers Underground.

Read how Privileged Identity Manager permissions can be set to help prevent malicious attacks and user errors compromising sensitive resource. The Built-in protection column shows the values that are set by the Built-in protection preset security policy, which are also our recommended values. (a regular Windows server AD network).

If your subscription includes Microsoft Defender for Office 365 or if you've purchased Defender for Office 365 as an add-on, set the following Standard or Strict configurations. Im nervous that is for sure. - Be wary of unsolicited emails, even if they appear to come from a trusted source. If you have configured custom domains for your Microsoft Office 365 environment, you can also configure targeted anti-phishing protection. To put it simply, unless there is a legitimate need to allow specific file types, most of the extensions listed in the common attachments filter can be blocked. Not nearly enough businesses have deployed sufficient security measures against phishing attacks through website builders and CMS platforms.Read Article on DarkReading >. You may withdraw your consent at any time. This setting extends the Mailbox Intelligence functionality to mails that are protected via Impersonation Protection to help improve the reliability of results. All organizations should review, configure and tune the appropriate security settings in various areas of Microsoft Office 365s services to make sure the proper risk tolerance levels are met. The spoof settings are inter-related, but the Show first contact safety tip setting has no dependency on spoof settings. Safe Links cannot protect against zero-day phishing threats. Its not relevant for regular users to have access, and could pose a threat. Use Safe Links in supported Office 365 desktop and mobile (iOS and Android) apps. With so many configurable options within Defender for Office 365, it can be hard to know where to start.

This article describes the default settings, and also the recommended Standard and Strict settings to help protect your users. To configure these settings, see Turn on Safe Attachments for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams and Safe Documents in Microsoft 365 E5. For more information about these settings, see Impersonation settings in anti-phishing policies in Microsoft Defender for Office 365. This commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository. Large File Send lets users send files up to 2 GB through email, avoiding the use of third-party file sharing services that fall outside an organization's security perimeter. Have a look at this thread: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2147005-exchange-transfer-rule-for-spoofed-emails, Education within all organizations is so key anymore because that's the only way to actually safeguard from the affects of phishing emails - Employee Training Techniques That Stick.

Configuring the options Notify an admin about undelivered messages from internal senders and Notify an admin about undelivered messages from external senders to forward reports to a monitored security mailbox will allow admins to track when malware is blocked with a notification similar to the one shown in Figure 5: When configuring Defender for Office 365 using Configuration Analyzer, if you dont have a Safe Links or Safe Attachments policy created in your tenancy, Safe-attachments will not be shown in Configuration Analyzer. Learn more about preventing Office 365 phishing with Mimecast, and about solutions forvirus ransomware. Using the baselines, there are a handful of attachment types blocked by the common attachment filter (Figure 4), covering the most commonly blocked file types. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. Also append .doc emails with a warning (especially of late). The Standard and Strict values indicate our recommended values in the default outbound spam policy or custom outbound spam policies that you create. [!NOTE]

This is typically in the form of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, in exchange for data access. This can also be called 2-step verification. Safe Attachments for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams protection and Safe Documents protection have no dependencies on Safe Links policies. Attackers would be able to send you email that would otherwise be filtered out. to address sophisticated threats like business email compromise and targeted phishing. The unified audit log holds all user, group, application, domain, and directory activities that are performed in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Cyrens dedicated security analysts have the expertise to deeply investigate sophisticated threats their embedded documents and messy code. [emailprotected].

The attacker will send an email that includes a malicious attachment disguised as a valid one to gain access to a person's device and sensitive information.

The attachments are then scanned and readded to the mail, post-delivery by Defender. The setting is available under the Actions section of the Anti-Phishing Policy. By default, downloading the file is still allowed, however, this can be disabled by running the following command in the SharePoint Online Management Shell: The Safe Documents feature for Office Clients allows Office Clients to enforce a Microsoft Defender for Endpoint scan before opening a file. This setting should be considered to extend the protections applied to Exchange out to the other areas of the platform, particularly where there may be external users interacting with Teams or SharePoint. For the standard baseline, the Phishing Threshold is set to 2 (Aggressive). We recommend the following Standard or Strict configurations. For any false positive or user reported items, we do not need to be involved. Don't forget the helpful directions in 'Protect Against Threats in Office 365'. I have created this video tutorial of Step by Step tutorial of the recommended configurations of Anti Phishing Policies in Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection.

Blogs frequently at, Anti-Phishing Policy: Enable Users and Domains to Protect with Impersonation Protection, Anti-Phishing Policy: Enable Mailbox Intelligence Impersonation Protection, Anti-Phishing Policy: Enable First Contact Safety Tips, Anti-Malware Policy: Common Attachments Filter, Anti-Malware Policy: Configure Notifications, Safe Attachments Global Setting: Turn on Safe Attachments for SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams, Safe Attachments Global Setting: Turn on Safe Documents for Office Clients, Safe Attachments Policy: Enable Dynamic Delivery for non-Hybrid Environments, Safe Attachments Policy: Apply the Safe Attachments detection Response if scanning cant complete, ASF settings as part of Anti-Spam policies are being deprecated, How to train your users against threats with Attack Simulation Training (practical365.com), Teams get big features improving usability & security, and Microsoft Ignite is back in-person: Practical 365 Podcast S3 Ep. First Contact Safety Tips are a relatively new addition to Defender for Office 365, and at the moment seemingly not captured by Configuration Analyzer. Ive gotten hired as a Jr Network Admin and I do not know what to expect. 3.

Its important to note that the most common malware file types are PDF and Office Documents. To create and configure these policies, see Configure anti-phishing policies in Defender for Office 365. Office 365. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); In episode 3 of season two, Paul Robichaux and Steve Goodman chat about a flurry of new Microsoft Teams features - including the long-awaited Teams Connect shared channels going into general availability, plus Microsoft's headline conference for IT professionals is back in-person - but will it be the same? Office 365 Message Encryption is an included feature with Microsoft 365 thats already fully set up.

This means that if you protect the user Bruce.Wayne@contoso.com (Figure 1), then an email from the address Bruce.Wayne@fabrikam.com will have an increased likelihood to be flagged as potential impersonation based on the similarity to the protected user. To configure these settings, see Configure anti-phishing policies in EOP. This is by design, the ASF settings as part of Anti-Spam policies are being deprecated and these protections are being integrated into other parts of the platform. The baselines via Configuration Analyzer will protect the accepted domains in your organization but any critical partner or supplier domains should be added.

Malicious attachments: This type of office 365 phishing attack involves sending an email with a malicious attachment. This is a good read for some tips and tricks to avoid email attacks.

To address the severity of human error, organizations have made investments in Office 365 security and awareness training. To configure these settings, see Configure global settings for Safe Links in Defender for Office 365. The Default in custom column refers to the default values in new Safe Links policies that you create. For example, if Bruce.Wayne@contoso.com is a protected user and a user in our organization frequently communicates with Bruce.Wayne@fabrikam.com, the information gathered from mailbox intelligence will influence the phishing confidence of this scenario to lower the likelihood that the legitimate sender is seen as a phishing attempt. Although there's no default Safe Attachments policy or Safe Links policy, the Built-in protection preset security policy provides Safe Attachments protection and Safe Links protection to recipients who aren't already included in custom Safe Attachments policies or Safe Links policies. In this article, I will examine the different components of Defender for Office 365 and how you can customize the configuration beyond the baselines to enhance the relevance and impact the policies have on your tenant.

to the sender's photo in Outlook for unidentified spoofed senders. Attachment Protect shields users from weaponized attachments by preemptively sandboxing and scanning files or rewriting attachments to a safe format. If you have configured custom domains for your Microsoft Office 365 environment, you can also configure targeted, can help protect your business from any malicious. Attackers can use malicious websites links in email or other files. with a big THANK YOU.

Although there's no default Safe Links policy, the Built-in protection preset security policy provides Safe Links protection to all recipients (users who aren't defined in custom Safe Links policies or Standard or Strict preset security policies). This is particularly useful to help users stay vigilant and remind them when they receive a mail from an address they are not familiar with: I suspect this setting will become standard as part of the baselines in time, but its worth enabling manually until then to help users to detect potential spam or phishing attempts from unknown mailboxes. The user has read-write access to a few network shares (mapped drives on server).What kind Webinar: Rimini Street-SAP Decisions to make for 2023 - Know your Options, SAP Decisions to make for 2023 - Know your Options, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/tuning-anti-phishing, https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2147005-exchange-transfer-rule-for-spoofed-emails, Tips to Help Keep Office 365 Secure Against Breaches. The attacker will use personal information to craft an email that appears to be from a trusted source. Ready to learn more about how you can protect your business from O365 attacks? This rating can be low, medium, high or very high confidence. Set External Email header for external domain emails. You can download the ORCA module at https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/ORCA/. The recent waves of attacks with Emotet use a similar approach. Creating the initial policies will bring them into scope of the analyzer. For more information about Advanced Spam Filter (ASF) settings in anti-spam policies, see Advanced Spam Filter (ASF) settings in EOP. Safe Links cannot protect against zero-day phishing threats. For more information about these settings, see Spoof settings. See Best practices for configuring mail flow rules in Exchange Online. [!NOTE] We recommend adding domains (sender domains) that you don't own, but you frequently interact with. But with new, more sophisticated attacks emerging every day, improved protections are often required. Online Businesses Become a Phishers Playground .

Use these links for info on how to set up your EOP service, and configure Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Its important to learn how to configure and deploy these security features, and train employees, so you can protect your sensitive business data. To continue this discussion, please ask a new question. Ready to learn more about how you can protect your business from O365 attacks? Although the malicious document needs an extra step to be accessed compared to just being attached as it is, the additional [emailprotected] We have no specific recommendations for these settings. If it seems like you are still receiving phishing attempts despite having active preventions in place, this threshold can be used to harden the protections. To configure this setting, see Configure anti-phishing policies in Defender for Office 365. Your email address will not be published. Not selected and no email address specified. In a report done by Stanford, they found that approximately 88 percent of all data breaches are caused by an employee mistake. By using anti-phishing protection, users and organizations can effectively protect themselves against the damaging effects of a phishing attack. When you log in, youll need to type a code from your mobile device in order to access Microsoft Office 365. Its important to note that this doesnt specify who gets the policy assigned, that is done in the regular policy assignments. Hope you like the videos, please do subscribe to the channel to be updated with future tutorials. They know Today's Spark! Safe Links in Defender for Office 365 includes global settings that apply to all users who are included in active Safe Links policies, and settings that are specific to each Safe Links policy. Anti-phishing protection also helps Office 365 users verify the legitimacy of websites they may be directed to from an email. acts to restrict access to your companys data by encrypting files or even locking computer screens. While Office 365 has so many features which help improve overall security and compliance, these controls do not necessarily address the most dangerous threats that face every organization, which is human error. Either way, admins can modify these global Safe Attachments settings at any time.

Getting the Most out of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Policies, Sean McAvinue is a Microsoft MVP in Office Development and has been working with Microsoft Technologies for more than 10 years. for GPO/on-premises options, and Use security baselines to configure Windows devices in Intune for Intune-based security. As with most of the thresholds in the Defender suite, the value set here depends highly on the organization, industry, and associated risk.

In PowerShell, you use the New-SafeAttachmentPolicy and Set-SafeAttachmentPolicy cmdlets for these settings. All trade/service marks or names referenced on this site belong to their respective owners. Anti-phishing solutions can help protect your business from any malicious phishing attack. Likewise, if you are getting too many false positives, it may be worth considering a lower threshold for your organization. The baselines provided are a fantastic way to get Defender for Office 365 set up quickly in your environment, but they dont take you all the way. With this setting in place, files that are uploaded to SharePoint but detected as malicious by Safe Attachments will be locked and users will be unable to interact with the file. Redirect messages to a security admin for review. To learn more about Defender for Office 365 and other Office 365 Security topics, check out these articles: The Most Important Steps an Administrator Can Take to Make Exchange Online Secure by Default (practical365.com), How to train your users against threats with Attack Simulation Training (practical365.com)Office 365 Security Resources (practical365.com), Office 365 Security Resources (practical365.com). For more information, see Preset security policies in EOP and Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Cyren 2022.

, however, you can increase this protection when blocking attachments with commonly used malware file types. As Modern Workplace Practice Lead at Ergo Group, he helps customers with planning, deploying and maximizing the many benefits of Microsoft 365 with a focus on security and automation. EOP customers get basic anti-phishing as previously described, but Defender for Office 365 includes more features and control to help prevent, detect, and remediate against attacks. 2. For the list of file types, see. When moving to the cloud, these threats pose as a great a risk as well, but for all its benefits, Office 365 alone may not fully mitigate this risk. If you have not configured custom domains, you will not need to do this. Attackers can use malicious websites links in email or other files. Creating an emergency access admin account can also be helpful in case a problem arises. Please visit our Privacy Statement for additional information. This covers a large amount of undesirable file types, so I highly recommend reviewing the list Microsoft has provided and using a whitelist approach to choose which ones you dont want to block. In Microsoft 365 organizations, we recommend that you leave the Junk Email Filter in Outlook set to No automatic filtering to prevent unnecessary conflicts (both positive and negative) with the spam filtering verdicts from EOP. While this can obviously cause issues if used for every contact internal and external it can be a very powerful way to protect important users such as the CEO of a partner organization. In general, Office 365 provides several layers of phishing protection, including filtering and user training. Recently, I wrote an article around how you can get started with Configuring Microsoft Defender for Office 365 using Microsofts Preset Security Policies and Configuration Analyzer. For example, a mail purporting to be from the CFO of an organization, requesting an update of payment details urgently can often pressure recipients into acting quickly, before considering the validity. Regular updates will help patch any vulnerabilities that could be exploited by phishers. There are not a huge number of configurable options within the Anti-malware settings but there are a few settings that you will want to review which arent covered in the baselines. To prevent users from downloading malicious files, see, This feature is available and meaningful only with licenses that are not included in Defender for Office 365 (for example, Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E5 Security). As a "first aid" configuring anti-spam/phishing policy+allowed domain/ip list+audit log switching on may help to filter big amount of incoming mails.As second stage is SPF/DKIM/DMARC, Security score updates, if hydrid - checking connectors.And it's never enough :-), This works very well to filter a great deal of stuff - we never get any good from .ph, .br, .top, .info etc. With this feature, your business can send and receive encrypted emails. For more information, see. The Default in custom column refers to the default values in new Safe Attachments policies that you create. [!NOTE] Why?

A crucial part of keeping Microsoft Office 365 secure is regularly checking the audit logs and keeping up with security recommendations in the Microsoft 365 Security Center. Similarly to the items above, this could pose a threat if there was a hacked account in your organization or another that you work with. Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection enables additional layer of protection against malicious URLs, Malicious Attachments and Phishing campaigns. With Mimecast's comprehensive services for email management, IT teams can avoid deployment of a variety of disjointed point solutions to augment Office 365 features, while also mitigating single vendor exposure. Unfortunately, Safe Documents requires a full Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E5 Security license (most likely due to the integration with the Defender for Endpoint service).