Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Reviews

We utilize Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to enhance our email protection.

All of our Office 365 solutions are stored in the cloud. We have recently acquired multiple licenses for Microsoft Defender for Office 365.

We also use DMS. I believe that integration comes out of the box because both products are from Microsoft and I haven't taken any steps to do any integration myself.

The comprehensiveness of DMS and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has been incredibly helpful, particularly concerning email attachments. They have successfully identified numerous suspicious attachments, some of which were reported. The integration of these two solutions has proven to be extremely beneficial. Additionally, they have been effective in detecting phishing links and untrusted sites in emails on several occasions.

I remember what actually prompted us to switch to using Microsoft Defender for Office 365. We had several people who were not tech-oriented receiving loads of phishing emails, and their credentials were almost compromised. It wasn't just them; we had many other users in the organization facing similar issues. To address this, we conducted a phishing simulation, and unfortunately, a lot of people failed the simulation. After analyzing the situation, we realized the need to provide better training and implement additional security measures in case someone made a mistake or failed to follow proper procedures. That's why we decided to go with Microsoft Defender for Office 365. So far, it has been effective in identifying a lot of threats. Previously, we received several complaints about compromised credentials, mainly due to phishing emails. However, since we started using Microsoft Defender for Office 365, the number of complaints has drastically reduced. Although some people still fail our phishing simulation during in-house tests, externally, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has proven valuable in filtering out numerous threats. I'm confident that without it, many accounts would have been compromised.

Microsoft Defender eliminates the need for multiple dashboards. When I'm on the Office 365 dashboard, I don't see any reason why I would need to access another dashboard.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 identifies various threats and notifies us whenever it detects something suspicious. Without Microsoft Defender for Office 365, it would be quite time-consuming. We used to receive numerous complaints about credential tests, but since its deployment, those complaints have drastically reduced. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has saved me a considerable amount of time.

It indirectly helps our organization reduce costs. We encountered a situation where one of our financial officers had their credentials stolen, and someone attempted to impersonate them, trying to transfer funds to other accounts. However, the system flagged the suspicious activity, and we were able to prevent the unauthorized transfer.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 improves our ability to detect and respond to threats. It easily identifies all potential threats and promptly notifies us. I can only imagine the consequences if it weren't in place. Numerous suspicious links and attachments might have gone through, resulting in additional work and time spent on finding ways to remediate, resolve, and contain the situation.

I am the IT director for my organization, a small municipality with a population of 20,000 located in New Mexico. We employ 250 staff members. Our cybersecurity measures encompass a wide range, including endpoint management and the utilization of Windows Defender for Office 365. This software is internally deployed and primarily focuses on monitoring our email systems. This is where the most intricate configuration is applied. It examines our email traffic, aiming to prevent a significant amount of spam and numerous phishing attempts, although it cannot catch everything due to inherent limitations, it effectively performs tasks such as antivirus and antimalware functions within our email communication.

I would rate the visibility into threats eight out of ten.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 assists to some extent in prioritizing threats across our enterprise, but it is not our primary tool for this purpose. I would rate the significance of this capability in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 a five out of ten.

I also utilize Windows Defender for both our desktops and mobile devices running on iOS and Android. Additionally, we employ Azure AD for authentication. All of these solutions have been seamlessly integrated into a unified dashboard. This integration process is highly straightforward and occurs automatically during the setup phase.

Our integrated solutions all work natively together to deliver coordinated threat responses.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 assists in automating routine tasks and identifying high-value alerts. This has led to a 100 percent improvement in our security operations, as we had not implemented anything prior to the adoption of Microsoft Defender for Office 365.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has aided in decreasing the number of dashboards we need to monitor, although it does not eliminate all of them. As a cybersecurity practitioner, I still require external vulnerability management for certain third-party risk assessments; Microsoft Defender for Office 365 does not cover those aspects. Consequently, I utilize a separate product for that purpose.

It currently lacks built-in security awareness features. However, efforts are being made to develop such features. The initial stages of the security awareness program can already be observed in the Microsoft platform. Defender for Office 365 provides us with a tool called Safe Links, which enables us to analyze attachments, including both files and data. If someone attempts to access content that is later identified as malicious, we receive a notification. This allows us to identify users who may have interacted with harmful content to some extent, addressing active and potentially harmful interactions. If an individual receives a suspicious link, Safe Links examines the link for potential phishing characteristics. Although the link's malicious nature might not be immediately apparent, it is delivered within a protective Safe Links wrapper. Consequently, if the recipient clicks on the link, this action is logged within the Microsoft environment. Later, if the link is identified as part of a credential phishing attack, appropriate measures are taken. This includes deleting the associated email and notifying the user who clicked on the link. Subsequent actions may involve remediation, such as password changes if deemed necessary. This integration works seamlessly and proves to be highly effective.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has helped our organization save around 20 hours of work time.

It saves our organization money. No one would accuse the Microsoft product of being cheap or inexpensive. However, the reality is that most of the security functionality is included in the licensing that I need to purchase to support my operation. In other words, I'm not buying these security products separately; I'm obtaining them as part of my Microsoft 365 licensing. It's not an add-on; they are required components of the government cloud licensing that I have purchased. Therefore, I must acquire Microsoft 365 to access applications such as Office, SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, and others. The security features are all integrated within this package; I don't need to source them from elsewhere. Additionally, I would have had to pay for the performance products regardless.

I use Microsoft Defender for Office 365 for various compliance tasks. For example, I can use it for eDiscovery to search mailbox content. Just today, a manager requested all emails for a departing user who no longer had an active license. Using Defender's content search feature, I exported the user's entire mailbox as a PST file for the manager to import into Outlook. Beyond eDiscovery, Defender also helps us monitor compliance and security scores, manage quarantine emails, investigate phishing alerts, and configure data classification, labeling, anti-spam, and anti-malware policies.

Before using Microsoft Defender for Office 365, we were plagued by phishing and ransomware emails, especially for our board members. To combat this, we implemented a Defender policy that triggers alerts for emails containing keywords like "bank account" or "credit card details." Additionally, a policy tip and disclaimer appear in user mailboxes for such emails. This disclaimer clarifies the email's external origin and allows users to move it directly to junk with a single click. Simultaneously, an alert goes to the administrator, who investigates the email: if legitimate, it's released, otherwise it's blocked.

Our organization operates a single, hybrid tenant environment with a mix of on-premises and cloud-based mailboxes, with the majority residing in the cloud. This small, non-multi-tenant setup supports approximately 2,000 users.

While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 integrates with third-party solutions, our organization prioritizes Microsoft technologies for security. We only integrate external tools with explicit management approval. This focus extends to data backup. Even though Office 365 is a cloud service, we recently purchased Barracuda, a tool that seamlessly integrates with Office 365 for data backup.

Prior to my arrival, our organization lacked a dedicated Office 365/Microsoft 365 security specialist, with IT admins relying on web searches for configuration. Upon identifying vulnerabilities, I implemented Microsoft Defender and other security measures. Our compliance score, which was around 30 percent a year and a half ago, now consistently ranges from 75 to 85 percent, thanks in large part to Microsoft Defender for Office 365.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps prevent advanced attacks like business email compromise by stopping lateral movement within the network. It also includes data loss prevention features, where our custom policies have helped block malicious emails, ransomware, and spam before they ever reach our servers. While not perfect, Microsoft Defender has significantly improved our email security, offering around 80 to 90 percent effectiveness, which we're quite happy with.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has significantly improved our security team's efficiency. The comprehensive security analytics dashboard provides insightful information on threats, including the number of phishing attempts and attacks on our servers. This data can be easily exported for clear reporting to management. Overall, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 saves us time and simplifies security analysis presentations.

We mainly use Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to secure our Office 365 combined application package, which includes Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Skype, and Teams. We have all of these combined packages in our cloud. 

Before we deployed Defender, we didn't have the right solution to safeguard these applications because our data was moved from multiple locations, from Outlook to OneDrive, for instance. After the introduction of Defender, we could instantly control most threats.

We also use Microsoft Defender for Identity and Cloud Apps. We deployed Identity recently. 

Integration is easy because Microsoft is the vendor of all of these security products. Most of these products are closely integrated, whether they're on-premise or deployed on the cloud.

These solutions work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment. All of these features work on different security layers to ensure protection. Microsoft Defender for Identity gives protection to users. That's an application layer. Simultaneously, Defender for Cloud also provides a layer of security. Each Microsoft product offers a different layer of security, so our organization is secure.

These security products offer comprehensive threat protection. Each day, thousands of people send emails that contain malicious content. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 constantly monitors those attachments and gives us alerts so that we're able to focus on threats and prioritize them accordingly.

We use the bidirectional sync capabilities. It's an important feature to us because we need it for proper syncing and security, both on-premises and on the cloud.

The solution is deployed on a public cloud.

Defender is used in one tenant, and multiple departments use it. It provides security for about 2,000 users.

We have seen multiple benefits from using Defender. Our data was on-premises about five years ago. We migrated our data to the cloud to improve our security. It's awesome to get all of the security features in the cloud. To apply these features on-premises requires different hardware and multiple vendors. With Microsoft Defender, we're able to have a single manufacturer.

Microsoft Defender for 365 helps automate routine tasks and the finding of high-value alerts. It's a detection mechanism, so it doesn't solve the issue, but it will give us alerts and other notifications. It provides system alerting and patches.

The alerting automation definitely affects our security because our organization requires alerts constantly. The Defender setup for Office 365 applications gives us a clear alerting dashboard. The dashboard has multiple features that are linked to most of our applications, so it's more secure.

This solution helps eliminate the need to look at multiple dashboards. With different vendors for security, we obviously had vertical dashboards. Microsoft Defender gives us a single dashboard that we can link to other applications. 

Defender has reduced time spent by 50%.

It definitely saves us money because other vendor products cost more. The hardware itself costs money. Defender's subscription costs less. We have saved 50% compared to other solutions.

Defender decreases the time it takes to detect and respond. We're able to detect 20-30% faster.

We use Microsoft Defender for Office 365 for our endpoint security.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365's visibility is good.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps prioritize threats across our enterprise by using an endpoint.

Integrating with other Microsoft solutions is generally straightforward, as everything can be managed from a single console. However, there are some cases where the integration process can be complex, such as when it requires accessing a different dashboard. Overall, the benefits of managing multiple Microsoft solutions from a single place outweigh the occasional complexity of integration.

Our solutions work together natively to provide coordinated detection and response across our entire environment. This coordinated detection provides high-quality results because it is easy to check emails and endpoints for threats. We chose to bundle the solutions because of their ability to integrate.

Coordination and integration are essential in cybersecurity because there are many resources to monitor. The ability to coordinate and integrate from a single source makes it easier and helps to eliminate the need for multiple products.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has improved our security posture, especially around email. It integrates easily with our other Microsoft solutions and provides good visibility into our systems.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps automate routine tasks.

Automation allows us to focus our resources on critical issues instead of the standard security tasks that can be automated.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 saved our organization time.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 increased our productivity, which resulted in cost savings.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helped decrease our time for detection and response. 

We mainly use Microsoft Defender for Office 365 for people who teach or work remotely. This allows us to effectively control and monitor them.

We have faculty who aren't even near the college. Some of our faculty are in other cities and teach remotely. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 enables us to manage everything through the cloud, so we don't have to ship anything back and forth. We can do updates or address any issues with computers remotely.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is used to protect our organization from attacks.

Our deployment is a hybrid model with 80 percent being on the cloud.

The visibility into threats is excellent. A dashboard provides real-time information on emails, blocked emails, blocked files, and blocked URLs.

We integrated Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Intune with Microsoft Defender for Office 365. Integrating Intune was a little difficult but we managed.

The solutions work natively together to provide coordinated detection and response across our environment. This is important.

The integrated Microsoft solutions provide comprehensive insights into threat issues through threat analytics.

Microsoft Sentinel allows us to ingest data from our entire ecosystem. This is important because it provides us with a vital security feature that allows our organization to monitor and respond to alerts and threats detected in our enterprise via Sentinel. We have configured custom alerts and triggers in Sentinel, which gives us a better understanding of the threats in our organization.

Microsoft provides a comprehensive view of alerts to help investigate issues and address malicious emails. We can investigate and share feedback in our message tracking log and the threat explorer in Defender to mitigate and resolve the root cause of the issues.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 saves us time with our investigations.

We now use the cloud to maintain our email as a gateway which has saved us money by not requiring on-prem hardware.

Our time to detect and respond to malicious emails was decreased. The solution provides the CPU resources needed to scan emails for malicious content, and it also makes it easy to track the number of administrative emails sent to users.

Over 4,000 employees across my organization use all of the products under Office 365, as it is super pervasive. Everybody uses them every day in my organization. My organization is a manufacturing company, where Office 365 has become a daily necessity.

I am a little biased towards Microsoft Teams because it is what I use and helps me pay my bills. In Microsoft Teams, file-sharing options and ease of collaboration or meetings allow for quick collaborations and chats.