Interlink Cloud Blog

There is a lot of misconception about the capabilities of Microsoft 365 with regard to data protection.  Many organizations avoid backing up Microsoft 365 data because they assume that Microsoft takes care of that for them.  The reality is that, while Microsoft provides tremendous data protection capabilities, they require configuration and have some important limitations that need a third-party solution to address.

Microsoft 365 data protection capabilities can be divided into three general areas:

1) High availability and redundancy:

Microsoft 365 services are highly redundant.  Exchange Online, for example, uses technology that has been proven out for many years in on-premise scenarios including database availability groups and transport shadow redundancy to ensure that all data is stored in both primary and secondary data centers.  Similarly, Microsoft 365 file storage across SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive are built on Azure georedundant storage.  All data is stored in at least three locations in a primary data center and replicated in three locations in a secondary data center.  While this protection ensures high availability, it does not protect against accidental deletion or allow for recovery from data corruption.

Mitigate risk for your environment by identifying the top 10 ransomware infection vectors and how to protect them!
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Ransomware Will Continue to Get Worse

Ransomware is a specific kind of malicious software used by cybercriminals to render data or systems inaccessible for extortion or ransom. In a standard ransomware attack, the cybercriminal achieves unauthorized access to a victim's network and installs the Ransomware in locations that typically have sensitive data. Then, they execute the attack and lock the files on that network – making them inaccessible to the victim until the ransom is paid.

Ransomware is becoming one of the most used cyber-attack methods to exploit your organization's data. Global headlines of increasingly damaging ransomware attacks are becoming more and more common – like the recent Colonial Pipeline attack. Organizations can combat ransomware by using infection vectors to identify the most common points of entry used by attackers. Infection vectors are the method in which a cybercriminal gains access or infiltrates your online network or systems to exploit private information. Once identified, an organization can adjust its security efforts accordingly – mitigating risk and potentially extremely costly ransomware scenarios.

Your Office 365 data is critical to the success of your business.

Are you protecting it appropriately?
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Modern Data Management & Backup Strategies

Interlink has seen many organizations fall behind in their data management and backup strategy – and thus incur risks. Organizations must look at not only data centers and endpoints, but also at their Office 365 data to ensure their environment is properly protected and mitigating risk. Microsoft Office 365 monthly active usage is continually growing across the world – and e-mail, calendar items, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams files cannot be overlooked for businesses to be adequately prepared for backup/recovery scenarios.

Microsoft provides native backup/recovery capabilities, though third-party solutions can offer extended data protection and granular recovery options - for SLA (Service Level Agreement) compliance and rapid recovery from deletion, corruption, or attack. Best practices for data protection include having multiple copies of your data (housed outside source and production environments), proper retention policies, and a data strategy that doesn’t solely rely on on-premises technology. Many organizations need to keep data longer for industry requirements, legal reasons, and to meet compliance or regulatory bodies. While retention policies are important, they do not substitute for a true backup which should capture configurations/settings/security/etc. that are focused beyond the content level.

Autopilot is here to help simplify the process of deploying or onboarding new devices within your organization – find out how.

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Typically, deploying new Windows devices has been entirely in the hands of IT. Custom images have to be built, maintained and applied to get everything ready for new users…despite having an OS pre-installed. This can be followed by hours of the manual setup of applications, policies, and drivers for each new or repurposed device. All this manual set up takes away time and resources that could be better spent on other valuable projects. Sound familiar? Thankfully, Microsoft has developed Windows Autopilot – a new cloud-based technology that is quietly transforming this typical tedious provisioning process into a more automated and user-friendly process.

User identity is the foundation of all security strategies...

Protecting your user identity from compromise is the #1 investment you can make to protect your organization. Closely aligned with user identity are desktop and mobile endpoints, which are used to access your organization’s resources.

In this special on-demand event, Interlink experts will walk you through modern identity and access management utilizing Azure Active Directory Premium and modern device management with Microsoft Endpoint Manager.