The financial industry is a highly regulated part of most economies. A number of local, national and regional regulations apply to businesses in the financial services industry.
As a small business, it can be costly and complicated to comply with these regulations. Microsoft 365 makes it easier and affordable by providing you all the right tools in one place to help your company meet financial industry compliance.
Online Threat Protection and Email Security
Microsoft 365 uses Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), which automatically scans all the outgoing and incoming emails as well as email attachments. It uses an anti-malware to detect if there are any malicious or suspicious links. If en email contains such links, ATP stops the users from clicking on them.
In addition, Microsoft 365 also scans all the hyperlinks in Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. This makes sure that all potential malware is stopped before it can reach your data and infect or steal it. It also ensures the integrity and safety of your online communications and related data.
Mailbox Audit and Activity Tracking
Your company’s mailboxes contain sensitive business and user information. So it is important to make sure that no unauthorized persons access this information. Mailbox Audit Logging feature lets you keep track of the persons who access the mailbox and the activities they perform.
You can define the users and activities you want to track. For instance, you can decide whether or not to track when an email is deleted or moved. You can also determine whether or not to track the activities of administrator, users, owners and other people who access the mailbox.
Once you enable this feature, all log entries are stored in the mailbox. Each entry includes the IP address, host name and other details. If an email is moved from its original position, the log entry includes the destination folder. By default, all log entries are retained for 90 days. You can modify the settings if you want to store them for a longer period.
Email and Data Encryption
A very effective tool for achieving email security is encryption. Encryption ensures that only an authorized person is able to decrypt and read an email. Even if an unauthorized person accesses an encrypted email, he can’t decipher and read it. Similarly, you can also improve the security of your stored data, such as documents, by encrypting them.
Microsoft 365 lets you encrypt emails as well as other forms of digital data. This adds an extra layer of security. You can use encryption as a part of your broader data protection strategy.
eDiscovery Center
Businesses today process, handle and store a huge range of electronic information. You can use this data to make better decisions as a business. But it also makes it harder for you to identify, locate, search and find the relevant information when required.
eDiscovery is an advanced Microsoft 365 feature. eDiscovery can search through all types of electronically stored information (ESI). This feature lets you collect, archive, and search the most relevant data from multiple sources. You can search across different Microsoft 365 components using eDiscovery. These components include Skype for Business, SharePoint Online sites, Exchange Online mailboxes, Microsoft teams and Microsoft 365 groups.
eDiscovery can also identify social media posts, voicemails, chat messages, word processing files, spreadsheets and SMS texts. You can then store and archive this data in a compatible way using Microsoft 365.
Your business may face legal situations where you need to find and provide relevant ESI to authorities. eDiscovery makes it easier for you by letting you search, locate and collect this information in one place. You can organize the search output under different cases and share them with different stakeholders.
Advanced eDiscovery
Advanced eDiscovery allows you to store duplicate copies of data in a separate location in an easily downloadable format, and also allows for data indexing for quick and easy discovery. It uses intelligent machine learning capabilities to accurately identify different types of data. It also analyzes unstructured data and digs through it to find relevant information for you.
By using Advanced eDiscovery, you can make sure that your organization’s data is stored in such a manner it can be easily searched when required.
Multi-factor authentication
Passwords have traditionally been used for user authentication in online services. But passwords are easily compromised. All security experts agree that MFA can significantly enhance digital security.
MFA uses multiple methods of authentication and adds more layers of security. It is used to enhance the security of business systems, mailboxes, important documents and any online service that requires a login.
There are many ways of adding MFA. These include:
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Phone: When you login, you receive a phone call or text message with verification code.
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App: You download a mobile app. When you log in, you use the app to generate a code. This code then enables you to log on to an online service.
Microsoft 365 comes with capabilities to enable multi-factor authentication. You can use MFA to ensure that only the authorized users access your Microsoft 365 services. This protects important business data from falling into the wrong hands. It also helps you comply with the data security and integrity regulations.
Data Loss Prevention
The Microsoft 365 Data Loss Prevention (DLP) feature can be used with ease to record all relevant electronic communications and ensure that confidential information is not accessed by unauthorized persons. DLP ensures that important information and documents of your organization do not leak out. You can choose from different DLP policies in the Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Centre.
For instance, if a person at your organization tries to send an email with personal information, you can block the email or alert the person about it. Similarly, you can detect and monitor information like credit card numbers and social security numbers. DLP is able to identify sensitive information across all Microsoft 365 services that your organization uses.
By using DLP, you can simply block any emails sending out such information. You can also prevent users from uploading sensitive data to cloud storage or any other online services.
This makes sure that critical information does not leak outside of your organization. Financial regulations from SEC and other authorities hold a business responsible for data leakages. By blocking such leakages, you are able to comply with financial regulations more effectively.
Mobile Device Management
Employees today use a variety of mobile devices, including iPhone, Android, iPad and Windows Phone. They use these devices to access Microsoft 365 mailbox and other online services.
Microsoft 365 offers comprehensive mobile device management (MDM). With this feature, you can review each device and see if it is compliant with organizational policies. If it’s compliant, you can enroll the device so that it can access Microsoft 365 services. Once a device is enrolled, you can review it on a regular basis to make sure it stays compliant.
You can also add and change security policies that apply to these devices. If an enrolled device gets stolen or lost, you can remotely wipe it to make sure important data does not fall into the wrong hands.
MDM makes sure that all the employees or workers at your organization access online services in a secure way.
Continuous Compliance
Financial regulations change and evolve with time. This means that your organization may need to evolve its compliance strategy over time. This is known as continuous compliance. Continuous compliance means that you monitor and review your compliance position regularly. You also adopt new IT standards and technologies to ensure the security and compliance of your systems.
Microsoft 365 has more than 1000 controls and checks in place. These allow Microsoft 365 services to evolve and change rapidly whenever new regulations or standards are created. Microsoft 365 is also compliant with many important global standards and regulations. Microsoft 365 services can help you ensure that your data and processes stay compliant with new regulations and standards.
Microsoft reviews Microsoft 365 and other product data on an ongoing basis. It evolves products by implementing new customer and industry standards to help you ensure ongoing compliance.
Conclusion
With the above features, you can record, collect, archive and handle data in a safe and secure way. You can also define and implement compliance policies using Microsoft 365.
Microsoft 365 works across multiple devices. It is incredibly easy to use and gives you full control over connected devices and organizational data.
