Russia’s Cyber Threat Posed Companies to Seek Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection

Amidst the war in Ukraine, global companies should seek Office 365 advanced threat protection. But are such threats to Microsoft’s cloud service real, and what are the financial implications for lackluster Office 365 security?

In short, any company that uses Microsoft products should use Office 365 advanced threat protection.

With the war in Ukraine reaching a critical point, the Russian foreign intelligence service, SVR, is focusing its efforts to disrupt global companies. A few weeks ago, the US charged four Russian government officials for carrying out hacks between 2012 and 2017.

The targets for these hacks were oil and gas companies. It’s worth noting that Russia is the biggest gas supplier and the third oil supplier behind the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Interestingly, reports assume that Russian state-sponsored hackers would disrupt oil and gas companies after the latest rounds of sanctions.

With Russian hackers disrupting the industry with supply chain attacks, EU countries have fewer means to obtain the valuable oil and gas resources for basic necessities.

Biden Says More Cyber Attacks To Come

It’s a well-known secret that countries fight wars in the shadows. Cyber threat intelligence is an increasingly-growing topic of discussion in the Pentagon and the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation.

Biden claims the Russian government is open to more cyber attacks in the future. The National Security Agency (NSA) and the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) claim the same after the US charged four Russian government officials. The men responsible for the cyberattacks between 2012 and 2017 are Pavel Aleksandrovich Akulov, Mikhail Mikhailovich Gavrilov, Marat Valeryevich Tyukov, and Evgeny Viktorovich Gradkikh.

All four men are not in US custody.

Despite the last of these attacks dating back five years, Biden has warned about malicious activity on official government organizations and private companies in the future.

How Can Companies Secure Critical Infrastructure?

At the beginning of this article, we mentioned the need for Microsoft Office 365 advanced threat protection. For companies that operate in spheres of interest for the Russian government, such as gas and oil, cyber-attack protection is critical to prevent losing data.

Microsoft Office 365 offers companies a cloud-based solution to streamline and automate operations. It comes with well-known tools such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. But the service also includes cloud-based tools such as Microsoft Teams, Exchange Online, Outlook, and more.

It is an all-in-one package that software companies, and energy companies, in the private sector use for day-to-day operations. But Microsoft’s basic cyber-attack protection capabilities don’t stand a match for Russian hacks. These cyber threats range from DDoS attacks to malware that disrupts operations and IT infrastructure.

One way to prevent losing critical data is to use Microsoft Office 365 advanced threat protection by third-party providers.

How does Microsoft Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection Prevent Critical Data Loss?

War is fought on all fronts, not just the trenches and fields. Nowadays, sensitive data is even more valuable than infantry lives. Russian hackers gain access to any company data with insufficient O365 advanced threat protection.

Companies that use Microsoft Office 365 services are more at risk of losing critical data through malicious cyber activity. To protect company data, companies need Microsoft Office 365 advanced threat protection.

Cybersecurity companies can help with that. Cybersecurity professionals can prevent ransomware attacks, brute force attacks, and other cyber attacks on critical infrastructure by backing up data.

With a data backup policy, Russian state-sponsored attacks are far less efficient. More so, private companies have to protect and backup Office 365 data to ensure business continuity.

With a fully-fledged Office 365 advanced threat protection solution, companies prevent sensitive information from getting into the hands of Russian hackers. These solutions can alert cybersecurity professionals of future attacks with endpoint detection and multi-factor authentication.

More so, Office 365 advanced threat protection makes sure users are safely connected to the network by preventing internal network attacks.

Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection Features

Third-party Office 365 advanced threat protection solutions can save tech companies, software companies, and companies operating in the energy sector money by stopping malicious software from doing damage.

Here is a rundown of some of the features cybersecurity companies offer through their Office 365 advanced threat protection software.

• Full data backup (offline backups) for mailboxes, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, attachments;
• Full data recovery;
• Endpoint detection;
• Email tracking, filtering, archiving, encryption;
• Cyber forensics analyses;
• Spam, malware, ransomware attack protection;
• User signatures;
• Real-time threat report, alerting;
• Automatic cyber threat intelligence gathering.

These features prevent a threat actor from gaining access to sensitive data that could threaten any remote work environment. In addition, Office 365 advanced threat protection features ensure companies from the energy sector have full access to backed-up data in the case of denial of service (DDoS) attack, ransomware attack, malicious code installation, stealing intellectual property, and compromised credentials on critical infrastructure.

Third-part Microsoft advanced threat protection services will investigate incidents and ensure the safe running of company computer networks.

Conclusion

Energy sector companies who use Office 365 must protect their data from getting into the hands of Russia’s official government organization tasked with cyber activities abroad. To prevent vital data from getting into the hands of a malicious actor, go with a third-party solution that prevents brute force methods.

The attacks blamed on Russian government agencies were estimated by the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency to inflict damage in the billions of dollars.

So what better way to protect critical infrastructure than to go with an Office 365 advanced threat protection solution that will stop the attack in its track?