Cryptzone Extends HiSoftware Security Sheriff Capabilities to Office 365

Award-winning SharePoint content security and compliance solution now supports Office 365 and hybrid environments

SharePoint content has grown exponentially since 2001. Office 365 extends the reach of that content across the cloud to nearly unlimited groups of online users. As Office 365 gains momentum with SharePoint Online and OneDrive, security admins need to rethink their approach to securing sensitive information. Cryptzone today announced HiSoftware Security Sheriff for Office 365.

The latest release extends the features and functions of the on-premises solution for inspecting, classifying, securing, auditing and processing content to Office 365, SharePoint Online, OneDrive and hybrid environments.

Security Sheriff’s content security capabilities for Office 365 can help organizations to:

  • Inspect content to determine if sensitive data exists and then check against polices to take appropriate actions against business rules.
  • Encrypt Office 365 content immediately when sensitive information is identified.
  • Classify Office 365 documents at rest or in motion automatically based on the presence of sensitive data and provide options for users to classify data as it’s created. Set business rules with your classifications to not only restrict audience, but also restrict actions that can be taken with classified documents such as print, email or save as to prevent data leakage.
  • Track the entire lifecycle of Office 365 documents. This means that a policy manager or security officer can see if and when a document has been read, emailed, or printed and by whom. A document’s entire “chain of custody” is recorded and easily available in the event of a breach or a regulatory audit.
  • Control the distribution of sensitive information or confidential documents. For example, if a document is going to be emailed to a group and a listed recipient does not have proper access to that category of document, the email cannot be sent until that individual is removed from the distribution list. Users can also be prevented from printing and saving Microsoft Office documents outside of Office 365.

“The SharePoint capabilities of Office 365 make it simple to create content and share it with a global audience. However, its ease of collaboration and the resulting upsurge of content also come with increased risk,” said Kurt Mueffelmann, president and CEO for Cryptzone.

“We recently surveyed SharePoint users during a webinar, and 81% of respondents said user mistakes have been the leading source of actual damage from breaches. Security Sheriff provides organizations with the ability to apply granular security controls around content, to limit the damage that can be done by unfettered collaboration.”

While Office 365 offers standard manual features for security, HiSoftware Security Sheriff now extends its deep security functionality for on-premises SharePoint to automatically inspect, classify, secure, audit and process content in both Office 365 and hybrid environments. Security Sheriff’s context-aware inspection capabilities detect sensitive data and automatically take actions to ensure access to Office 365 content is only available to those who have permissions to the file. It can classify and encrypt data against pre-defined policies and applies business rules to control how authorized users can consume and distribute content. Additionally, since encryption permissions are applied at the individual file level, sensitive content can be stored, shared and collaborated on from any site or library in Office 365. Security Sheriff’s business rules and policies can be applied to an Office 365 or hybrid environment to centrally manage content security, reducing the administrative burden of managing content across multiple locations.

“Organizations choose Microsoft to help control their enterprise collaborative content,” remarked Chris McNulty, SharePoint MVP and Cryptzone’s CTO.

“Enterprises need to understand where users save sensitive data and who’s using it, so it can automatically be secured. Security Sheriff for Office 365 uses our full-text, high-speed policy scanning for real-time monitoring and control of the full document information lifecycle.”

McNulty added,

“Increasingly, we’re also finding enterprises planning cloud-centric or exclusive use of the cloud with Office 365. To support this model, Security Sheriff is now available on Microsoft Azure, giving organizations the flexibility to deploy best of breed compliance without any legacy on premises servers.”

Cryptzone acquired HiSoftware in September 2014, adding the award-winning Sheriff products to its portfolio, to secure the enterprise with dynamic, identity-driven security to protect critical services, applications and content from internal and external threats.

HiSoftware Security Sheriff for Office 365 is now available. More information can be found online. Security Sheriff for Office 365 demonstrations will be available at the HiSoftware booth (#702) during SPTechCon in Austin, Texas, from Feb. 8-11, 2015.