Kaspersky today announces a new version of Kaspersky Security for Microsoft Office 365 that now widens protection for employee collaboration by protecting SharePoint Online and enabling secure file sharing within Microsoft Teams. This enhanced product adds these capabilities in addition to previously available protection for Exchange Online and OneDrive. The solution will not only continue to shield inboxes from malicious phishing emails, but also ensure that only safe and reliable files can access SharePoint Online, allowing IT security managers to define the scope of sites for scanning. To help companies ensure the security of remote working and collaboration, Kaspersky has extended the product's free trial version for 180 days. 

Kaspersky research found that 186 million malicious spam messages targeted corporate users in 2019, which was 54 million more attacks than in 2018. One of the most effective phishing techniques in 2019 were emails disguised as automatic notifications from legitimate services such as Microsoft Outlook. The emails asked users to authorize services that would obtain user credentials from corporate emails, which could then be used in an attack on an organization.

During January and February 2020, Kaspersky Security for Microsoft Office 365 blocked at least one attempt per corporate user mailbox on average from clicking on a phishing email link. The recent upgrade introduces enhanced anti-phishing capabilities with a dedicated anti-spoofing feature. This protects corporate users from targeted phishing emails that are seemingly sent on behalf of colleagues or subcontractors, but actually use spoofed domain names. The new feature also allows customers to create a list of reliable company and subcontractors email domains so that the product is better able to detect a malicious email sent from a forged domain.

In order to reduce exposure to other threats, Kaspersky Security for Microsoft Office 365 has extended protection for SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams, securing all collaboration and messaging channels within Microsoft Office 365. This means that even if a malicious file accesses a user endpoint and an employee tries to share it with colleagues through chats or Teams channels, it will be detected and transferred to quarantine almost immediately so other users do not have a chance to open it and initiate infection. This is especially important for companies with remote workers mostly communicating with colleagues through digital channels.

Due to this extended protection, customers can now feel confident that malware will not be uploaded into SharePoint Online. The product detects a malicious file by immediately scanning every file once it is uploaded, moving it to quarantine and providing an IT security manager with the detection report and statistics on the dashboard. Furthermore, administrators can manage and refine the scope of scanning of corporate SharePoint sites to add protection to selected sites only, or all of them at once.

"Companies that are moving to cloud services and tend to use communication tools, such as Microsoft Teams, want to keep their data protected and meet the requirements of secure collaboration and messaging for their employees," said Sergey Martsynkyan, head of B2B product marketing at Kaspersky. "To help companies meet these needs, we have expanded protection for Microsoft Office 365 to cover all associated applications. This gives customers assurance that the entire cloud service is secured by default and potential threats do not affect employees' working processes."

More information about Kaspersky Security for Microsoft Office 365 and access to a six-month free trial version can be found on the product web page.