Malicious Microsoft Office documents are a popular vehicle for malware distribution. Many malware families such as Emotet, IcedID, and Dridex abuse Office documents as their primary distribution mechanism. Attackers have long used phishing emails with malicious Microsoft Office documents, often hosted in popular cloud apps like Box and Amazon S3 to increase the chances of a successful lure. The techniques being used with Office documents are continuing to evolve.

The new normal of working remotely calls for solutions that are seamless, flexible, and secure. Most enterprises believe that they are well-equipped to address the evolving cybersecurity threats. However, when employees connect through a myriad of devices, most of the time the security is highly questionable. This is because either they do not use secure devices or lack critical security updates. With cyberattacks becoming highly sophisticated, a host of security challenges awaits for the enterprise!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked by customers if we can help them apply sensitivity labels at scale to data at rest in SharePoint Online. Unfortunately, I’ve had to tell them that there’s really only one option, and it’s not pretty. To date, there is no API that allow an end user to apply a sensitivity label directly to a file in a SharePoint Online site, so the only real option is to download the file locally, apply the label and then upload the file.

Microsoft 365 (M365) has quickly become one of the most utilized email platforms and, thanks to a variety of productivity and communication applications deeply embedded in enterprise processes, it’s also a popular target for cyber criminals. Microsoft certainly understands that and has enabled extensive security mechanisms for M365, including multifactor authentication (MFA), which requires users to present more than one form of authentication before login.

Egnyte now offers email scanning and classification of Microsoft Online Exchange emails and attachments. This is a critical capability for organizations that need to deploy consistent document classification and governance across all documents, whether they exist in an Egnyte cloud repository, with other cloud providers, or on premises.