Top 10 Policies You Should Configure in Microsoft ATP Immediately

Microsoft ATP policies provide organizations with advanced security features that help protect against threats and cybercrimes. With the rise in threat rates daily, if not on an hourly basis, it is important to know what tools are there to protect your workplace’s network infrastructures.

In this modern tech-driven era of today, enterprises are constantly integrating cloud-based solutions in their workplaces. These software-led approaches may lead to data loss, exposing business-critical information to the outside world. Traditional security solutions like firewalls do not protect against threats like zero-day vulnerabilities.

Microsoft ATP Policies offer an extremely potent post-breach solution for all its users that helps automate endpoint detection and response. The ATP software investigates the potential impact of each threat and provides reports to IT specialists. These professionals can then mitigate and remove threats using advanced tools and automation.

What is Microsoft ATP? 

The Microsoft solution is an advanced cloud-based filtering system. It helps safeguard your company against viruses and other malware. The ATP policies provide real-time protection from unsafe attachments by utilizing configured policies by the system administrator at all levels of the organization, domain, user, and recipient. 

Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is integrated with Exchange Online Protection and Office 365 Threat Intelligence to build robust protected network infrastructure. The cloud can then offload mail servers and protection systems using ATP. Also, Microsoft ATP policies are a low-cost investment, considering that they can save you thousands of dollars by hindering a potential system breach.

Why do you need Microsoft ATP Policies?

The traditional approaches like antivirus used signature-based matching to identify the type of threat infiltrating their networking infrastructure. This methodology uses a blacklist of known threat sources and compares it with malicious activities over the internet. Hence, the approach can no longer stop many cyber attacks since modern attackers use dynamic attack vectors that can easily bypass them.

The Microsoft ATP policies integrate deeply with Azure Advanced Threat Protection (Azure ATP), providing end-to-end security solutions. Given below are some of the benefits of including ATP solutions:

Behaviour Analysis provides Dynamic protection

The process uses machine learning to differentiate between normal and suspicious system behaviour. This allows for threat detection even if the IT experts are unfamiliar with the tools and methods used. 

Enhanced detection and response 

With proactive responses, organizations ensure to catch attacks as quickly as possible. These automated responses provide the IT teams with enough time and flexibility to investigate by stopping the attacks timely.

Centralized dashboards

With the help of dashboards, security analysts can help procure centralized event information that aids in timely response to suspicious events. Data aggregation helps reduce errors by ensuring the events view in context.

Seamless prioritization and planning

Solution-based approaches benefit companies by providing recommended actions in response to threats. This helps the security specialists efficiently investigate events. Also, these practices allow them to make the most effective response to a specific threat.  

Top 10 Microsoft ATP Policies To Configure Immediately

Microsoft Defender ATP does not require any hardware infrastructure for deployment. It is a fully cloud-hosted solution using ‘endpoint behavioural sensors’ installed in between the operating system of each piece of equipment. The sensors are constantly collecting data and feeding it back to your organization.

To help understand the system analysis behaviour, let’s explore some of the Microsoft ATP policies you need to configure for end-to-end cybersecurity encryption:

Threat and Vulnerability Management

MDATP has visibility of all software insights into patches, instalments, and instalments. The policy discovers missing patches and prioritizes its recovery according to security recommendations. Integrating MDATP with Intune and SCCM provides a built-in recovery process.

Attack Surface Reduction

Instead of being marked trusted by default, applications should first undergo a screening test. Extra controls with MDATP can help minimize areas vulnerable to cyber attacks. Additionally, hardware isolation also reduces attack surfaces.

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)

One of the primary policies used by Microsoft ATP is EDR. An actionable alerts report is given to the IT and security analysts. Alerts with common characteristics are grouped and labelled as incidents. This aggregation makes it easier for security teams to investigate breaches.

Safe attachments

The policy ensures files attached to the email are not malicious. The message is routed first through a unique environment where attached files are analyzed using virus signatures, machine learning, and advanced analysis techniques.

Safe Links

Safe links work on the same principle as safe attachments. The only difference is that this feature checks links in emails and files uploaded or downloaded. If a link is not secure, Microsoft 365 ATP will send a warning message to the user if he tries to click on the link.

ATP for SharePoint

ATP for SharePoint protects users utilizing SharePoint Online sites to collaborate inside the organization. The policy blocks suspicious files and documents. The malicious content is blocked, and users cannot access these. 

Anti-phishing protection

Self-learning systems and complex algorithms work in unison to detect phishing attacks automatically. Utilizing email analysis and user habits allows the detection of phishing attempts in the future. These measures minimize scamming attacks to a great extent. 

Quarantine

Suspicious files are moved to quarantine and can be later restored or deleted by the system administrator. Also, the stored data in quarantine delete automatically after the configured retention period surpasses.

Spoof Intelligence

Attackers often send spoofed emails appearing safe if the sender uses a manager’s name in the sender field. If the email asks for money transfer credentials, it constitutes a threat to the user. Hence, Spoof Intelligence can detect if the sender uses a real name or a spoofed name. 

Reports

Office 365 ATP provides reports analyzing incoming threats. These reports constitute threats detected in the last 90 days by Office 365 and Exchange Online Protection.

Conclusion

Microsoft ATP policies reduce the risk of data corruption and loss. Real-time reporting capabilities help monitor the Microsoft environment and take timely actions if threats are detected. These practices help build a robust AI-powered solution to ensure swift and active protection against data breaches of all kinds. 

If you want to use ATP policies to protect your workplace infrastructures, contact our Microsoft Gold partner team today.

Bas Majeed

I am an experienced Information Technology Support Technician with a demonstrated history of working in the IT and technology services industry. Skilled in Technical Support, Lunix, Active Directory, Cisco VPN, and Cisco Security. Strong information technology professional with a Adv. Diploma focused in Network security from TAFE NSW, South Western Sydney Institute.