NEWS
How to ensure your Microsoft 365 data is backed up
- Details
- Written by Ricardo Segalla
User Rating: 0 / 5
Chances are right now you have a Microsoft 365 application open. Over one million companies around the world rely on the suite of Outlook, OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, SharePoint and Microsoft Teams on a daily basis. They’re mainstays of modern business that virtually everyone is familiar with and they’re provided by one of the biggest names in the tech industry so what possible downside could there be?
Well, despite the ubiquity of Microsoft 365 applications, many businesses don’t know that Microsoft’s native tools don’t always support data backup and recovery. That is, until an application crashes or an important file goes missing and no recovery is possible. Making matters worse, not all backup and recovery solutions are built to support Microsoft 365 data and applications – leaving businesses to wonder if they’re protected from accidental or malicious data loss when they should be able to rest easy knowing that their files are safe and recoverable.
The good news is, if you’re a client you don’t have to worry! Our backup and recovery capabilities extend to all of your critical Microsoft 365 and OneDrive data, backing up applications, files, folders and individual email attachments. This ensures that when the Excel spreadsheet you spent all day building disappears you can restore it (and a bit of your sanity) in seconds.
If you aren’t yet one of our backup and recovery clients, here are the questions you should be asking to ensure that your Microsoft 365 backups are secure and available for seamless recovery:
1. What Microsoft 365 data does the solution back up?
Not all backups are the same. As mentioned above, some backup and recovery solutions – and service providers – don’t offer Microsoft 365 backups. Others may have some backup capabilities for Microsoft 365 but not for all of the users, groups or sites that you need to protect. When this is the case you have two options: either layer on another backup solution/provider or replace your existing backup solution/provider with one that covers all of Microsoft 365 (and all of the other apps and systems your business needs to stay in business). Whenever possible, we recommend integrated, unified solutions and services to ensure that protection is as comprehensive and easy to manage as possible.
2. Are Microsoft 365 backups encrypted?
From the time a Microsoft 365 backup is performed to the time it’s stored and recovered, it needs to be protected. If you’re storing backups of Microsoft 365 in the cloud (which you should be) backup protection both in-transit and at rest is essential, particularly for sensitive or confidential files. Encrypted backups of Microsoft 365 ensure that the data you’re backing up stays safe from unexpected views and edits. This is vital for modern businesses because recovering data that’s already compromised is nearly as damaging as not being able to recover it in the first place.
3. When you need to recover from a Microsoft 365 backup what are your options?
Speed is everything when it comes to backup and recovery. After all, downtime following data loss costs your business both time and money. That’s why the most important point to consider when choosing a Microsoft 365 backup solution or service provider is what the recovery process entails. To begin, a fast recovery should be your goal, the best Microsoft 365 backups can offer recovery of a file in seconds and larger volumes of data in a matter of minutes. That said, there are a number of factors built in to making sure that recovered Microsoft 365 data is as valuable as you need it to be.
- Ease of recovery: if you’re not working with a service provider for your Microsoft 365 backup and recovery needs, it’s crucial that you’re able to quickly and easily perform a backup recovery ranging from a single lost file to all of the data on OneDrive.
- Granular restore capabilities: Recovering a single Word doc or email needs to be as easy as accidentally deleting them. Make sure that the solution or provider you work with has the ability to perform granular recoveries so that a single lost file doesn’t necessitate a time-consuming complete restore.
- File search capabilities: If you lose the final, approved version of a PowerPoint presentation recovering the first draft of the presentation will seem like salt on the wound, rather than the solution you’re looking for. Find a Microsoft 365 backup solution or service provider that enables individual file search capabilities to make your recoveries accurate and effective.
Looking for Microsoft 365 backup services?
Contact our team to learn more about the benefits of Microsoft 365 backup and recovery services today!
- Hits: 320
Monti ransomware resurfaces with new Linux encryptor
- Details
- Written by Ricardo Segalla
User Rating: 0 / 5
The Monti ransomware has restarted activity after a two-month break with a new Linux encryptor that targets VMware ESXi servers.
The Monti attackers are using this new encryptor to target organizations in the legal and government sectors. Older variants of Monti, which was first spotted in June 2022, were essentially a carbon copy of the leaked Conti ransomware; however, this new Linux encryptor only has a 29% similarity rate with Conti, according to researchers at Trend Micro.
Monti has made numerous modifications to its locker, which are primarily designed to make it more difficult to detect.
Several ransomware families now have Linux versions of their encryptors, including Akira, Royal, Noberus, and LockBit.
If you need more information about security and protection solution, talk with R2SIS Tech team.
Source: Symantec Threat Landscape Bulletin 08/15/2023
- Hits: 287
Microsoft 365 Security Tools - Part 2
- Details
- Written by Sara Oliveira
User Rating: 0 / 5
Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based productivity platform that includes apps like Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, and more. Microsoft 365 also includes security and collaboration tools designed to make working internally and communicating with partners easier. Here are some tools offered in Microsoft 365 that can ensure the security of your company's information:
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
New batches of malware are released every day, and Office 365 has a solution to help protect your email, files, and online storage from them.
Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection can help protect your mailboxes, files, online storage, and applications from sophisticated new attacks in real time. It offers holistic protection on Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business.
By protecting you against dangerous attachments and expanding protection against malicious links, it complements the security features of Exchange Online Protection to provide better protection against unknown threats.
Encryption
Encryption is an important part of information protection strategies and file protection. With Office 365, data is encrypted at rest and in transit using the various strong encryption protocols and technologies that include Transport Layer Security / Secure Sockets Layer (TLS / SSL), Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), and advanced AES encryption. pattern)."
“Examples of data at rest include files that were uploaded to a SharePoint library, Project Online data, documents that were uploaded to a Skype for company meeting, email messages, and attachments that are stored in folders in your Office 365, mailbox, and files uploaded to OneDrive for Business.
Email messages that are in the process of being delivered or conversations taking place in an online meeting are examples of data in transit. In Office 365, data is in transit whenever a user's device is communicating with an Office 365 server, or when an Office 365 server is communicating with another server.
- Hits: 607
Microsoft 365 Security Tools - Part 1
- Details
- Written by Sara Oliveira
User Rating: 0 / 5
Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based productivity platform that includes apps like Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, and more. Microsoft 365 also includes security and collaboration tools designed to make working internally and communicating with partners easier. Here are some tools offered in Microsoft 365 that can ensure the security of your company's information:
DLP
Data Loss Prevention Policies are policies designed to protect an organization's confidential information.
Based on conditions, DLPs ensure the protection of your information by alerting users or even preventing them from sharing confidential information with unauthorized persons.
Policies can work with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business, and are set in the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center, which is available in most Office 365 business plans.
Secure Score
If your organization has a subscription that includes Office 365 Enterprise, Microsoft 365 Business, or Office 365 Business Premium, and you have the necessary permissions, you can view your organization's score by visiting https://securescore.office.com.
The secure scoring service discovers which Office 365 services you are using (for example, Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive), then analyzes your settings and activities and compares them to a baseline established by Microsoft. You will receive a score based on how aligned you are with security best practices.
You'll also get recommendations on steps you can take to improve your organization's score.
Using the secure scoring service helps increase the security of your organization by encouraging you to use the built-in security features of Office 365 (many of which you have purchased but may not be aware of).
- “The secure scoring service does not express an absolute measure of how likely your organization will have your data breached. It expresses the extent to which your organization has adopted controls that can reduce the risk of having your data breached. No service can guarantee that you will not be violated and the safe score should not be construed as a guarantee in any way. ”
- Hits: 610
ENCRYPTION VULNERABILITIES USING SHA-1
- Details
- Written by Caique Alves
User Rating: 0 / 5
SHA-1 is an encryption type with a cryptographic hash function. This means that with each encoding, a new hash is generated. This type of encoding method is also called a cryptographic hash function.
As already said, theoretically the SHA function should create a unique hash for all data inserted into it, but with increasing insertion, the chance of different peers creating the same hash number increases together, thus generating a collision between with these already generated numbers.
So with the collision, you can create an untrusted certificate with a hash identical to a trusted certificate. If they make you install this untrusted certificate, it can make a fake certificate as trusted and distribute malicious data.
The problem increased when attacks on the SHA-1 hash algorithm became more dangerous with “chosen prefix collision attacks”. It means collision attacks can now be performed with custom entries, and they are no longer just accidental, allowing malicious users to target files to duplicate and forge.
SHA-2 Usage
SHA-2 is a group of hashing algorithms that were created to replace SHA-1. SHA-2 contains several hash values, they are SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512. SHA-256 is the default value.
There are a lot of different ways to create hashes, the algorithm used by SHA-2 is one of the most used for the balance between security and cost, it is a very efficient algorithm against collision attacks, the hashes combinations are much larger than the combinations of the SHA-1 type.
Another feature of the SHA-2 hash algorithm is that the size of the resulting hash is always the same, no matter how long it takes to generate, the result is always a sequence of 64 letters and numbers (with an encoding of 256 bits and 32 bytes).
SHA-2 has several uses and one of them is in Bitcoin, SHA-2 is used for the mining process, but also in the process of generating bitcoin addresses, this is due to the high level of security it offers.
Another important use is within the blockhain network, all nodes contain a 64-character hash copy representing the information, for example, an entire block. Once this information is validated by the network, any manipulation of this information by attempting to modify any character in the validated hash would be detected immediately and discarded.
Main difference SHA-1 e SHA-2
Hash values: SHA-1 generates a value of 160bits, SHA-2 generates 256 bits in the standard format.
Usage: SHA-1 used to sign SSL certificates, SHA-2 used as a function into blockchain.
Security: SHA-2 mais seguro pois contém 256 bits em seu formato padrão.
Diversity: SHA-2 contains 256 bits in its standard format, that’s why is more sucre than SHA-1.
- Hits: 579