Microsoft already has a very secure process about when and how support staff may access your Office 365 tenant data. Here’s a great video that explains this:

The recent addition of Customer Lockbox provides additional control for the customer.

Basically, once Customer Lockbox has been enabled the user has the final say over when and for how long Microsoft may access the tenant data to provide support.

To enable Customer Lockbox you’ll need to have the appropriate license (i.e. the new E5 SKU includes Customer Lockbox for example), then you’ll need to login as an administrator to the Office 365 admin center.

If you then locate and expand the Service Settings option on the left hand side of the screen, you should see the list shown above. In the list is the option Customer Lockbox, which you should select.

 

Now on the right you should see the above screen. To eanble Customer Lockbox simply change the switch to ON (i.e. move to right).

You’ll then receive the above warning. Select Yes to enable.

You should now see that Customer Lockbox is enabled as shown above.

To find out more about Customer Lockbox visit:

Office 365 Customer Lockbox Requests

and note once Customer Lockbox has been enabled:

If a content access request is denied or isn’t approved within 12 hours, the request expires. If this happens, you might continue to experience a specific service issue that could be resolved by allowing an engineer to access the content. We’ll (Microsoft) let you know if this happens.

So in summary, Customer Lockbox is a feature you can add on to Office 365 to prevent Microsoft accessing your data with out your specific permission once enabled.

Here is also an overview video from Microsoft:

Security is a journey not a destination and that’s what makes it so hard when dealing with technology. One of the things that I believe that makes Office 365 the best product on the market is Microsoft’s commitment to security and compliance. A great place to start if you aren’t already aware is the

Office 365 Trust center

which has a huge amount of information around security for products like Office 365. If you have a security question about Office 365, start there.

What you may not be aware of is that Microsoft has just made available a dedicated an Office 365 Service Trust Portal for each Office 365 tenant. Once you sign up, you’ll find a vast array of security and compliance information tailored specifically for your Office 365 tenant. Here’s how you sign up.

Start by visiting:

https://trustportal.office.com/

You’ll be presented with the page shown above which you’ll need to login as an Office 365 global administrator.

After successfully logging in you need to approve access from the Office 365 Service Trust Portal to your Office 365 tenant. Simply select the Accept button to proceed.

(now for some reason I’ve had to repeat the login and accept twice a couple of times for different tenants I enabled, so if it doesn’t work the first time, simply try again)

You’ll then be asked to enter you region and industries. Simply select from the pull down options.

When you have made your selections select the Save button to the right.

In a moment or two you’ll receive a message that your configuration has been save and the Trust Portal has been updated with relevant information.

You can now navigate to the menu options on the left of the page, like Compliance Reports which are shown above. Here you will see all the security and compliance information available to you as you can see. You can also use the options at the top of the page to easily search for specific information.

One of the first options I suggest you take a look at is the Office 365 Customer Security Considerations spreadsheet. You’ll find details of this here:

https://blogs.office.com/2015/11/23/announcing-office-365-customer-security-considerations-preview/

You’ll find it by selecting Trust Documents from the menu on the left,

From the options on the left locate Office 365 Customer Security Considerations Preview. Selecting this will download a spreadsheet which you can save locally.

When you open the spreadsheet you should see something like that shown above.

If you take a look at all the content in the spreadsheet you’ll find links, PowerShell commands, best practices and more. There is also an Office 365 Customer Security Considerations Preview Reference Guide available from the portal to help you use the spreadsheet.

Security is a very important aspect of cloud computing and given resources like the new Office 365 Service Trust Portal I am confident that Microsoft is making available the best information needed to help both customers and resellers understand and better secure their information in their commercial services like Office 365. This is yet another reason why Office 365, for me, stands out from the pack when it comes to being serious about business cloud computing.

If you are wondering what Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics is then take a look at these two videos.

and

To learn about how the product works then have a look at:

Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics coming next month

and

Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics public preview now available

If you are looking to purchase the product today have a look at:

Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics Pricing

For most most smaller customers the best way to get the product today is via the:

Enterprise Mobility Suite

However, it is also expected to be part of the new E5 Office 365 license that will be available shortly.

— Update —

I found today that if you go to the Add-ons for your Office 365 subscription you can purchase Exchange Online Threat Protection as a stand alone extra to your existing Exchange Online mailboxes. That make it easy to quickly and easily increase the security of your email protection with Office 365.

For more details see:

Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection