Microsoft Teams Adds Robust Protection Against Phishing and Cyber Attacks

Microsoft has officially launched its collaboration security feature for Microsoft Teams. This new tool is designed to strengthen security with robust end-to-end protection, safeguarding against cyberattacks and ensuring a safer communication environment.

In Microsoft Teams, this new collaboration security feature protects customers against cyberattacks with various end-to-end security capabilities. It enhances security by granular federation controls, which allow organizations to control how external entities communicate with their employees. Security teams can manage which tenants, domains, and users interact with their organization, and use OTP authentication to protect meetings. Microsoft Teams also offers recommended actions within Microsoft Secure Score to help improve overall security posture.

Enhanced in-line protection against malicious links and attachments

Additionally, Microsoft Teams enhances user protection by using advanced threat intelligence and machine learning to continuously monitor and scan URLs and files shared within chats. The inline protection intercepts malicious links and attachments to neutralize threats before they reach end users in order to reduce the risk of data breaches and downtime.

Moreover, suspicious content is executed in a secure sandbox environment for real-time detonation, which ensures that malicious content is identified and removed. The time-of-click protection feature evaluates URLs when clicked by end-users, which provides an additional layer of protection across the Microsoft Teams desktop, web, and mobile apps.

The integrated quarantine management feature allows security teams to efficiently investigate flagged messages in Microsoft Teams. “This balance between seamless collaboration and robust security, supported by inline URL protection and integrated quarantine management, helps ensure security without disrupting communication, enabling your users to stay productive while keeping threats at bay,” Microsoft explained.

Reporting of suspicious messages

Microsoft Teams allows employees to report suspicious messages, including those from external users, directly to security teams and Microsoft. This proactive reporting helps organizations quickly detect and respond to potential threats. Security teams can also manage where submissions are sent to ensure effective learning and feedback.

Threat hunting and response in Microsoft Teams messages

In May 2024, Microsoft detected Storm-1811 using the Teams app to impersonate help desk agents and target users. Microsoft mitigated risks by suspending the fraudulent accounts and tenants. With advanced threat detections, Microsoft continues to identify and counter next-generation threats by analyzing anomalous activities and user behaviors. Security teams receive correlated alerts within the unified SOC platform, which help them respond to phishing attacks, suspicious tenants, and compromised users.

Better SOC investigations with Advanced Hunting

Advanced hunting in SOC investigations is important for detecting security threats early. This feature provides deep visibility into granular data to help security teams detect patterns and anomalies before they escalate. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 enhances this capability with dedicated hunting tables for Microsoft Teams messages, which offer real-time insights into URLs and message events. This capability lets security teams quickly mitigate potential threats and correlate them across Teams and email.

Microsoft Teams’s new security features boost collaboration by integrating advanced threat detection, efficient SecOps management, and real-time user alerts. This comprehensive approach ensures secure communication channels, boosts operational efficiency, and maintains productivity without compromising security. Keep in mind that administrators will need to enable the Microsoft 365 connector to enable threat detections for Teams security.