Microsoft Launches New Security Features

If you are a Microsoft user who is concerned about cyber security, worry no more. The company previewed a roster of new security capabilities in San Francisco early this year.

Microsoft announced that it’s adding the ability to use on-premises Active Directory with Windows Hello – which uses biometrics to log into windows 10. Microsoft also launched new tools to help you to get more out of your mobile devices by launching tools to migrate group policy settings to cloud-managed devices.

Here’s a summary of the new line of security features unleashed by the IT giant.

New Windows Capabilities

With Windows Hello, Microsoft’s biometric-based authentication system, you can now use its biometric Windows Hello login system solely with on-premises Active Directory servers, rather than requiring Azure Active Directory.

If you forget to lock your computer, there’s a new Dynamic Lock feature in Windows Hello that will connect your smartphone with their Windows 10 device, and automatically lock your device when the phone’s Bluetooth signal drifts far away.

Microsoft will also allow mobile device management (MDM) software to apply settings and configurations from the Security Baseline Policies list. Before, those settings were only available through Group Policy. It’s a move that’s designed to make it possible for administrators to have the same policies on devices managed using Group Policy and MDM.

Microsoft also released a new MDM Migration Analytics Tool designed to help customers figure out migrating from Group Policy to MDM. It scans a system for all of the policies applied to it, tries to map those policies to their MDM equivalents, and gives a report of the results.

Also, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection – designed to help find and contain security threats – is gaining support for custom security rules to protect against particular threats.

Microsoft Office 365

Here’s another reason you shouldn’t have second thoughts on Microsoft Office 365 migration. Organizations using Office 365 can use a new Secure Score tool to check their security. It analyzes an organization’s configuration, then, provides you with a score based on the security controls they are using.

The feature will also tell you what Office 365 security features admins could use to improve the security of your organization. The Score Analyzer will show you features that provide the most security benefits with the least impact and then lets you drill down further from there.

While the score is a helpful tool for giving you an at-a-glance view of their security practices, it will also have some practical considerations. According to Microsoft CISO, Bret Arsenault in a blog post, Hartford plans to use the Secure Score in evaluating customers that it’s considering for cyber security insurance.

Microsoft also unveiled the private beta of its previously announced Office 365 Threat Intelligence service. This feature allows administrators to see information about cyber security threats both inside and outside an organization.

An example of this is admins can see who in their organization is the most targeted for attack, along with general information about security threats, such as how much bitcoin attackers usually request from a ransomware attack.