UPDATED 08:25 EDT / FEBRUARY 29 2016

NEWS

Microsoft unveils a slew of new security services to secure the enterprise

Microsoft unleashed a number of new security services last week, as part of a renewed security initiative laid out by the company’s CEO Satya Nadella last November.

The major new offering is the new Microsoft Cloud App Security service, available from April, which aims to give companies greater control and more protections over Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps like Ariba, Box, Office 365, Salesforce and ServiceNow. The new service is built on technology Microsoft obtained when it acquired cloud access security broker Adallom Inc. in September of last year.

Also last week, Microsoft said it’s planning to add several new security features to Office 365 later this year. These include the ability to review cloud services users are connected to, advanced alerts that provide warnings of suspicious or unusual activity, and permissions for approving or revoking rights for third-party applications that connect to Office 365. These features will be rolled out in the third quarter, Microsoft said.

Microsoft also plans to extend its Customer Lockbox service to OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online, during the second quarter. Customer Lockbox is an add-on service for Office 365 and Exchange Online, and makes it easier for admins to gain access to user’s accounts when there’s a need to troubleshoot any problems.

Azure Security Center will also be given an upgrade, Microsoft revealed. The plan is to add new security management and reporting capabilities to Azure, for example, by giving IT teams the ability to customize security polices to the requirements of specific workloads. Microsoft also said it’s planning a new Power BI Dashboard from where admins can view, analyze and alter security alerts and recommendations from any location or device.

In addition, the company said it’s planning to integrate new vendor security solutions with Azure Security Center in the next few weeks, including products from Cisco Systems Ltd., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., and Fortinet, Inc.

Last but not least, Microsoft also said it’s making a preview of a new Azure Active Directory Identity Protection service available later this week. The service is able to monitor more than 14 billion user logins every single day, searching for suspicious activity and calculating the “risk severity” of each user. Using this information, admins can then adjust the security settings for each user accordingly.

Microsoft’s breathless list of security announcements came as it posted a new “progress report” that follows up on Nadella’s original security keynote from last November. The company also said we can expect to see a lot more security-related news during the 2016 RSA Conference at the Moscone Center, San Francisco, this week.

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