Strengthening Security Measures: Microsoft Defender for Office Enables Users to Report Suspicious Messages in Teams

 Cybersecurity is an ever-evolving landscape that requires constant vigilance and innovative security measures. Recognizing this, Microsoft is launching a new feature in Microsoft Defender for Office that empowers end-users to report suspicious messages within Microsoft Teams, further enhancing the security of your online communications. This feature will be automatically activated for Microsoft Defender Plan 2 or Microsoft E5/ Office E5 customers.

Starting in early June, Teams administrators will have the ability to control if users can report security risk messages within the Teams Admin Center. By mid-June 2023, this functionality should be available across all tenants.

How will this impact your organization?

This new feature is designed to protect your organization from potential security threats, including phishing or spam messages, or malicious content such as a phishing URL or malware file.

An important point to note is that the toggle setting in the Teams admin center will not affect the Teams clients. Meaning, end users will not be able to report messages as a security concern unless the tenant has also opted into the Teams Security preview.

The toggle is provided so that Teams admins can opt out of the automatic 'on' by default configuration or define other policies around end users reporting security concerns. An opt-out period of at least 30 days will be provided, after which the Teams client will grant end users the ability to report messages as a security concern based on the toggle's setting.

Data Security and Confidentiality

Microsoft prioritizes your data security and confidentiality. When a user reports a Teams chat message as a security concern, the message is treated as per your organization’s user-reported settings. The reported content, including the message itself, any files or URLs, message headers added by the Microsoft filtering system, and related data, is copied for analysis to fine-tune the message hygiene algorithms.

This data is stored in secured and audited data centers in the USA and is deleted as soon as it is no longer required. While Microsoft personnel might read your submitted messages and files, your message remains confidential between you and Microsoft and is not shared with any other party as part of the review process.

Reporting Messages in Teams

In order to report a malicious message, users can simply hover over it without selecting it and click on More options > More actions > Report this message. Users should verify 'Security risk - Spam, phishing, malicious content' is selected before clicking Report.

A few points to remember:

• The reported message will remain visible to the user in the Teams client.
• Users can report the same message multiple times.
• The message sender is not notified that the message(s) was reported.
• Microsoft sends an email notification to the user who reported the message, acknowledging the report.

What happens after a user reports a message?

Once a user reports a Teams message to Microsoft, it goes through a series of steps depending on the settings in the 'Reported message destinations' section on the User reported settings page. Options include sending reported messages to Microsoft and the reporting mailbox, to Microsoft only, or to the reporting mailbox only.

Information about user reported messages in Teams is available on the User reported tab on the Submissions page, enabling the admins to view and triage user reported messages in Teams.

Preparing for this update

Teams administrators can opt out of this default "on" option via Teams messaging policies in the Teams admin center within the opt-out period, which extends no earlier than August 10th. You can edit the settings in the global policy or create and assign one or more custom policies to turn on or turn off this feature.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, so too does the importance of cybersecurity. This new feature within Microsoft Defender for Office 365 provides another layer of protection for your organization, allowing for a safer and more secure digital environment.

Stay vigilant, stay secure, and harness the power of innovative tools to fortify your digital boundaries.