Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to Get Advanced Threat Protection for Priority Accounts

Microsoft is working on some important updates for Microsoft Defender for Office 365. The cloud-based email filtering service is getting a new update that should help organizations to prioritize threat protection for enterprise accounts tagged as critical priority users.

Back in November 2020, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 added the priority account protection feature, which helps organizations protect their most visible, targeted, and most vulnerable executive-level employees from cyber attacks. This capability is available to all enterprise customers with a Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 subscription.

This Microsoft Defender for Office 365 update aims to improve the priority account protection feature by bringing new security capabilities that will allow customers to enhance protection for specific users within their organization.

“As part of this release, we are introducing a Context filter within Threat Explorer and the Threat Protection Status report through which you can search for emails where Priority account protection is involved. In addition, the Threat Detection Details tab on the Email Entity page will be updated to show the threats, corresponding detection details, and whether these detections were identified as part of Priority account protection,” the company explained on the Microsoft 365 roadmap.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to enhance the URL protection report

For IT admins, Microsoft is also planning to roll out some improvements to the URL protection report. With this release, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is adding four new action types to the URL protection report Action view, making it easier for admins to use the reports. The list includes “Admin allowed, Admin block, pending scan, and Admin blocked with clickthrough.” This update will also merge all Office 365 applications (PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Visio, and OneNote) into a single consolidated view called “Office.”

According to the Microsoft 365 roadmap, the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 updates will start rolling out to all standard release customers in March this year. Do you think that these new capabilities will help to protect your organization from phishing and malicious attacks? Let us know in the comments section below.