Comprehensive Guide for Microsoft Teams Security Best Practices

What is Microsoft Teams?

Before we learn what Microsoft Teams’ security practices are, we need to know what Microsoft Teams is. It is a collaborative platform that is based in the cloud where users can collaborate, make calls, share files, and much more. These extremely useful features are made for teams to promote business communication and improve productivity. 

The following features set Microsoft Teams apart from other competitors: 

1. Online Meetings: Organisers can add any person, both from the outside as well as inside the business with a capacity of up to 10,000 users. 
2. Online Screen and Video Sharing: Microsoft Teams has integrated an extremely useful feature for users that allows them to conduct video calls where they can collaborate on their projects efficiently and also have the ability to share their screens. 
3. Storage of Documents in SharePoint: SharePoint stores all the files and data of the users in a team along with the documents shared among users in the channels automatically to the SharePoint folder. 
4. Sending Chats: Users can use this feature to send messages to each other as well as to send documents which helps improve productivity and promote collaboration. 
5. Teams and channels: These are message-sharing discussion boards where users can communicate with one another.
6. Discussion within channels: Each team member has the ability to contribute to a variety of conversations and to mention other users in order to include them in the discussions.

Is Using Microsoft Teams Secure for Users?

Users can often encounter security issues in microsoft teams as is the case with any sharing platform. Following this detailed guide on Microsoft Teams security best practices, you can minimise these risks and reduce security issues. Enabling some security features can inhibit users from using the collaborative features and can take away the benefits that Microsoft Teams provides to their users. 

Consistently monitoring your teams can help you overcome these risks and ensure that the users in channels are not receiving unauthorised access to data or are misbehaving with other users. 

The Trustworthy Computing Software Development Lifecycle (SDL) is utilised while developing Microsoft Teams. 

This type of development lifecycle helps Microsoft develop software by keeping security and privacy in mind. During the development stage, all the security issues and vulnerabilities come to light before it officially releases to the public.

What are the General Microsoft Teams Best Practices?

Following are some steps that you can follow to prevent security concerns: 

1. You can create different teams for different departments and projects within the company and its organisational structure. 
2. You can create channels for different projects as well as sharing of documents to ensure that all the members increase their productivity. 
3. As long as the company keeps tabs on the employees and monitors them, these employees can make teams and add other users to them. 
4. You can also track reminders, meetings, calls, and more using automated chatbots that reduce the workload on the employees and improve their as well as the organisation’s productivity. 

Here are some of the Microsoft team’s best practices: 

1. Using multi-factor authentication for employees. 
2. Implementing a zero-trust policy.
3. Classifying sensitive data into separate teams so that only the authorised users can access this data. 
4. Conducting audits to make sure that the data of the organisation is safe. 
5. Ensuring that employees do not download sensitive information and files on unauthorised devices.

Microsoft Teams Security Best Tips to Follow

Users use SharePoint for file sharing. OneDrive stores the files and data, and Azure AD handles the authentication. 

As you can see, Microsoft’s global settings continuously address security issues that pop up in Teams. However, further work is still in need to ensure that Microsoft Teams is completely secure. 

You can follow the below-given points to ensure the security of Microsoft Teams: 

• Application management

When you install third-party applications, they can enhance the functionality of Microsoft Teams. These applications can pose a threat to security. Users should be managing these applications regularly through the manage apps page in the Teams Admin Center. 

• Creation of Security Groups

You should create groups with reliable employees in them. They should be given access to create groups and different teams. Every member should be assigned to groups where they can keep track of the other users’ activities within each group. 

You should also ensure that the users are given the ability to create private channels but with limited members. This way, users can make private channels that facilitate secure and safe communication as well as sharing of files.  

• Limiting Access for Guests

It is important to limit the access of the guests in order to ensure that all the sensitive data and files are being shared in a controlled manner. 

• Incorporating Additional Microsoft Features

Several features help users secure the Teams. Some of these features are: 

1. Data Loss Prevention.
2. Advanced Threat Protection.
3. Backup Automation.

• Monitoring User Activity

Sharing of files, getting access to make changes to permissions, and many such different activities should be monitored to protect the files and data that are being shared from getting leaked out of the organisations. 

Conclusion

Microsoft Teams is a universally growing productivity tool that helps users collaborate effectively. As more organisations adopt Microsoft Teams, the security of sensitive files and data has become a great concern. Due to this, users need to be aware of the Microsoft Teams security best practices. In this article we have discussed the measures that they can take to prevent security breaches from taking place.