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Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Releases Information Barriers v2 with New Features for Enhanced Architecture

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In a recent article, we introduced the definitive guide to information barriers, a comprehensive guide designed to help you manage your organization’s communication policies more effectively. A few days ago Microsoft released Information Barriers v2. Here’s a look at the features included in this new version and other options for businesses looking to improve their compliance skills.

But before that, let’s go through a quick overview of Microsoft Information Barriers’ purpose and functions, and what are the missing capabilities in v1 that are targeted by IB v2. 

What is Microsoft Information Barriers

Microsoft Information Barriers is a platform designed to help companies meet compliance requirements by allowing for the implementation of policy-driven controls for internal communications. The goal of the policies allowed by the platform is to create separations (or “barriers”) between different groups or individuals within an organization, in order to prevent potentially risky interactions and communications from happening. 

Microsoft Information Barriers v2 is aimed at expanding the set of tools offered by the platform, allowing for more scalability and flexibility. However, there are still a few downsides to the platform that we will discuss further on. By the end of this article, we will talk about how companies can access a more comprehensive set of features to accomplish their compliance goals.

New Features in Information Barriers v2

Features added in this new version of Information Barriers mostly focus on enhancing the platform’s architectural capabilities. 

Let’s take a closer look at them:

Large-scale segment support

Segments are crucial tools of IB. By leveraging user attributes, they allow you to divide your organization into more manageable units. This helps ensure data security, making data accessible only to those who need it.

The previous version of IB only allowed for 250 segments within each organization. In v2, this number has significantly increased: you can create up to 5,000 segments. While a simple structure of segments based on departments may suffice for smaller organizations, this new feature allows for bigger scalability, which makes it crucial for those companies that are in the process of growing.

Multi-segment support

Until now, IB only allowed each user to be part of one segment. Now, in the multi-segment mode in Information Barriers v2, they can be assigned up to 10 segments.

This represents an important upgrade, especially when organizations become more complex and they need to support different operational scenarios. With this new feature, you can get more diverse communication rules between individuals and groups. 

Flexible user discoverability

With IB v2 administrators can enable or disable user discoverability restrictions. When the user discoverability restriction is turned off, users can discover each other in the people picker, no matter what their IB policies are. Administrators can disable user discoverability restrictions by using Security & Compliance PowerShell.   

These are the 3 new features of Microsoft Information Barriers v1. 

Mainly, the goal of this new version is to tackle some of the architectural downsides of Microsoft Information Barriers. Larger and more sophisticated segment support, as well as the flexibilization of user discoverability restrictions, are all features that are aimed at giving users more flexibility when managing their communications. 

Microsoft Information Barriers v2: Some Limitations To Take Into Account

In an ever-shifting, highly-competitive business landscape the increased scalability and flexibility provided by these new features will be welcomed by many companies. Unfortunately, Microsoft Information Barriers v2 still has a few downsides that need to be taken into account, especially for companies that need to deal with complicated compliance requirements and manage sensitive data.

Despite having focused on expanding segment-related capabilities, the policies that can be set up still only apply to internal users. In an era in which external collaborations are so crucial for most companies, this is not a minor issue. In IB v2, external team members are still allowed to add members of opposing segments to a meeting.  

Also, managing Microsoft Information Barriers requires ongoing attention and monitoring, which tends to add administrative burdens to IT departments. Analyzing and solving problems is a time-consuming, complicated task. Most of the process is done by Microsoft, which prevents organizations from taking control of it.

AGAT Information Barriers Solution: Granular Control to Manage Sensitive Data 

For many organizations, Microsoft Information Barriers may not be enough to meet their compliance goals and needs. A lot of companies, especially those in highly-regulated industries, need to be able to granularly block communications. Bearing this in mind, AGAT Information Barriers solution was designed to significantly improve companies’ capacity to manage sensitive data. 

AGAT Information Barriers solution distinguishes itself for its real-time proactive approach. This makes a lot of sense in a world in which digital working environments are extremely dynamic. Messages and information are constantly flowing in every direction, so inspecting communications in near-real time is key to preventing unwanted incidents from taking place. 

AGAT Information Barriers features are aimed at giving companies better tools for controlling and managing data in Microsoft Teams. 

Granular control 

Based on the context of each communication, dynamically block or mask all types of content: messages, files, images, calls, or shared screens. 

Compliance accuracy

Address specific and complex compliance issues without compromising performance. 

Security

Significantly improve security and data governance capacities.

Anticipate threats

Identify potential threats in near-real time and address them before they can cause damage. 

All in all, with its real-time time monitoring capabilities and its comprehensive features, AGAT Information Barriers solution allows you to limit the risk of data breaches and insider threats much more effectively.  

Check out this video to see the solution in action:

Information Barriers for MS Teams (Ethical Wall) – Granular Block File Sharing, Messages, & more

Conclusion

The launching of Microsoft Information Barriers v2 is good news for companies that are looking for more scalability and flexibility in their communication management. Despite its virtues, this new version of Microsoft’s Information Barriers solution still presents a few downsides in terms of meeting more sophisticated compliance requirements and managing sensitive data.

If you want to ensure effective management of your communication policies, AGAT Software is your best ally. In our digital era, regulations and compliance are getting more complex by the day.

Do not hesitate to give your compliance capabilities a boost. Contact us and our team will show you a short demo of AGAT Information Barriers solution.  

Categories
Microsoft Teams blog eDiscovery Uncategorized

Microsoft Teams eDiscovery: A Deep Dive


The Story of Why We Chose Microsoft Teams Business Voice


A constant flow of information is going through Unified Communications Platforms. Microsoft Teams eDiscovery solutions are designed to tackle the challenge of capturing, storing, and managing those massive amounts of data, mainly for legal and compliance purposes.

In the context of litigation, having performed thorough data archiving and being able to easily access it could be vital for any organization. This is where eDiscovery software solutions kick in. In the course of a legal case or an investigation, whenever a request for electronic information is issued, an eDiscovery process is launched in order to identify, collect, and display the required information.

Here, we will take a deep dive into why organizations using Microsoft Teams are in need of eDiscovery tools, and how they can be leveraged to get the most out of them.

Endlessly Flowing Information: Where is it Going?

A quick overview of Microsoft Teams’ capabilities should suffice to give us an idea of the amount of data flowing through the platform. Aside from its most widely used chat functionality, Teams allows you to hold video conferences, calls, and meetings, and collaborate through other Microsoft apps such as Excel or Sharepoint, among other features. For companies with a more diverse tech stack, Teams also offers the possibility of connecting with third-party apps.

Now, you might be wondering, where is all this data going? Since the storage location may change according to each functionality and data type, the answer is not as simple as one may expect. Chats and channel messages are stored in each user’s Exchange mailbox; files shared on one-on-one and group chats, as well as meeting chats videos, go to OneDrive; WiKi data and files in channel messages get stored at SharePoint.

This complicated storage structure should give us an idea of how challenging it is to accurately track and manage data that flows across Microsoft Teams.

Why are eDiscovery solutions important?

It should come as no surprise that most organizations today consider the volume of data they produce is growing faster than their ability to keep up with it. Potentially, this represents great legal risks that every company would prefer to avoid. Given this massive explosion of information and the increasing complexity of regulations, all companies should be getting ready to deal with these volumes of data from an eDiscovery perspective. 

eDiscovery solutions can give companies the appropriate tools to fulfill the complex legal and compliance requirements of the digital era. Whatever problem they need to solve, eDiscovery tools are the key to gaining an understanding of its context. 

Companies across different industries are leveraging eDiscovery platforms to collect files and associated metadata, filter information, and increase efficiency when reviewing documents. These are some of the key advantages that you will obtain by implementing advanced eDiscovery systems:

  • View Communications in Context: follow communications across channels as in the native app, observing who talked with who, how they talked, and when. 
  • Capture & Search Content by Parameters: gather messages, files, audio, video, or shared screens, and establish advanced search parameters such as text, time, users, labels, topics, keywords, and others.
  • Remove user information: for GDPR purposes, you sometimes need to delete user info from databases.
  • Integrate across applications: advanced eDiscovery solutions fit the needs of companies that have complex structures, allowing for integration with existing eDiscovery systems. 

Essential Features of an eDiscovery solution: Finding the Right Fit for your Company

While there are many eDiscovery solutions out there, it is important to make an informed choice so that the one you go for is the one that is better suited for your own specific needs. Here is a list of just a few of the basic features that you should keep in mind when choosing which eDiscovery solution to implement.

  • Content Capturing
    • The first and main feature of any eDiscovery solution. Ideally, a solution should be able to extract messages from private and public channels, shared files, screen-sharing content, audio, and video. 
  • Data Storage
    • In terms of storage, some solutions are entirely cloud-based, while others allow you to store information on-premise or host it in a private server. While any of these may meet your needs, solutions that offer you different choices may give you more flexibility.  
  • Search Index and Interface
    • Solutions with powerful search filters provide a wide set of parameters to configure and optimize searches. By performing searches on text, time, users, labels, topics, keywords, and other criteria you can save tons of time and improve efficiency and accuracy. 
  • Recording
    • While electronic documents are produced in a variety of media, search can only be performed by text. Tools that accurately record and transcribe all meeting audios accurately enhance search capabilities of eDiscovery solutions. You can see an example of an advanced compliance recording and analysis tool here. 

Aside from these features, there may be significant differences between eDiscovery solutions that could make them more or less appealing. Some may be praised for their flexibility, or for their intuitive interface, or for offering a comprehensive set of tools. On the other hand, being too restricted, lacking adequate features, or having unfriendly interfaces or sorting systems are usually mentioned as negative characteristics.

But in the end, what will determine which solution is the right one for you is how it fits the specific needs of your company and the industry you belong to. Compliance and regulatory needs can vary greatly from one industry to another. While the regulatory systems for some industries may be relatively simple, others need to comply with strict and strong regulations, especially when they deal with sensitive information. 

Industries that manage private data – such as banking, financial services, logistics, insurance, legal services, education, healthcare, and many others-, are in need of eDiscovery solutions with robust compliance capabilities and functions designed to tackle the regulatory challenges of these industries.

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About AGAT SphereShield’s eDiscovery for Microsoft Teams

With information scattered across various different places, being up to the task of managing it according to legal needs can prove enormously challenging. SphereShield eDiscovery comes to the rescue when a legal or compliance challenge demands you to track and identify certain pieces of data. 

Among existing eDiscovery solutions, it stands out mainly because it enhances companies’ ability to navigate through the challenges of complex regulatory systems. The set of features it provides is especially suitable for data-sensitive organizations that take part in highly regulated and information sensitive industries. Implementing SphereShield eDiscovery will allow you to:

  • Accurately capture all types of different contents: messages, files, audio, videos, recordings, shared screens, and more. 
  • Flexibly store information: you can choose whether to store on-premise or host in a Virtual Private Server (VPS).
  • Efficiently search using a wide set of parameters: Text, Time, Users, Servers, Labels, and more.
  • Seamlessly integrate with other eDiscovery systems in your stack
  • Easily remove user info from database when necessary to comply with GDPR regulations
  • Comprehensively see conversation contexts on incidents


SphereShield’s eDiscovery workflows can significantly scale your capacity to manage large quantities of data, streamlining your reviews, and potentially saving you hundreds of hours of work – aside, of course, from the costs of legal and compliance issues. It is designed to efficiently guide you as you dive into the oceans of data your company is producing every day. 

Check out the video below and see the platform in action:

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzUAd0k8NDM

If you are interested in taking a closer look at our Microsoft Teams eDiscovery solution to see if it suits your needs, all you have to do is ask for a free live demo below. Fill in your company details and a representative will soon get in touch with you.

Categories
Ethical Wall

Breaking Down the Benefits of Information Barriers Across Multiple Sectors

Table of Content

  1. Introduction
  2. Ethical Walls: What Are They?
  3. Ethical Walls Are Not Only for the Financial Industry
  4. Financial and Services Trading
  5. Healthcare
  6. Education
  7. Law Firms
  8. Other Industries
  9. Choosing an Ethical Wall or Information Barrier Provider, Our Recommendation:
  1. Conclusion

Introduction

Information Barriers (Ethical Walls) are a term that denotes the capability to specifically restrict communications for regulatory or other business purposes.

While many in the compliance and GRC areas are very familiar with this, a lot of people do not fully understand its potential benefits and how many industries can gain from implementing ethical walls or information barriers inside their organization.

Ethical Walls: What Are They?

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As mentioned in the introduction, Ethical Walls serve the purpose of establishing limits in the internal or external communications of the company. The big question is, what does it solve? 

First, let’s take a look at the things that Ethical Walls (Information Barriers) should do:

  1. Limiting file sharing inside organizations.
  2. Limiting external communications with third parties, customers, outside employees, etc.
  3. Act in real-time to block communications not allowed by the company, e.g.: from small-ranked employees to the CEO.
  4. Provide a comprehensive log of blocked communications.

As they can be seen from the capabilities, the goal of any Ethical Wall (or Information Barrier) policy is to set clear partial or total barriers in communication to achieve compliance with regulations, avoid conflicts of interest and prevent breaches from either internal or external parties. You can also check this other reference blog to know more about Ethical Walls:

https://agatsoftware.com/blog/information-barriers-and-external-meetings/

Ethical Walls Are Not Only for the Financial Industry

 

Searching for Ethical Walls will usually throw results related to the financial world. Of course, this is where it originated, but let’s try to think about this fact.

Great products like duct tape, the microwave, modern jets, and the GPS were first invented with military purposes in mind. Eventually, these found a great reception for normal civilian use, and we could not imagine our lives without them.

The same goes here, although Ethical Walls and Information Barriers did originate as a tool to comply with financial regulations, their usage goes above and beyond. We would like you to explore many scenarios where Ethical Walls are being used and the potential benefits for other industries. Let’s explore!

You can also read this other blog to learn how to take maximum advantage of Ethical Walls: https://agatsoftware.com/blog/information-barriers-external-comunications/ 

Financial and Services Trading

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FINRA, MiFID II, and EMIR regulate the banking industry, investment funds, credit card businesses, insurance agencies, and auditors. When there is a potential conflict of interest, such as when investors speak with academics who have access to proprietary material or when a financial institution prohibits its employees with non-public information from communicating with external users, the conversation must be prevented.

Here are a few examples of how Ethical Walls deliver for the financial industry:

1. A company wants to block file sharing with external third parties for Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive.

2. A company wants to restrict communication between C-Level Executives and the rest of the company, only allowing those executives to send messages and files but not the other way around.

3. A company wants to allow only one department to communicate externally while blocking all other departments from doing so.

4. A company that does not allow employees to meet with external parties.

Healthcare

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In the healthcare industry, regulations like HIPAA are very strict regarding keeping confidentiality between doctors and patients.

Due to this, a series of technical steps are required. After solving how to deal with PII and PHI, providers need to make sure things like:

  1. Limiting information sharing between doctors.
  2. Limit file sharing between doctors and other personnel.
  3. Limit which external communications doctors can have access to.
  4. Limit the possibility of sharing screen or video depending on the meeting context.
  5. Limit access to sensitive cloud-stored PHI and PII for non-relevant personnel.

 

Education

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Communication restrictions are frequently necessary for educational settings to prevent conduct violations and other unpleasant outcomes. 

Just as in the real world, educational institutions that decide to provide virtual classes and classrooms, as well as chat communication spaces, need to make sure that the same rules would apply and avoid becoming a ruleless chaotic space.

Ethical walls can help establish policies like:

  1. A school wants to block students from one grade from talking to students in another grade.
  2. An educational institution requires a coach or a teacher to be present in every communication.
  3. An educational institution wants to limit students to be able to talk to their teacher and no other.
  4. A university wants to limit external communications on the UC platform.

Law Firms

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Some law firms are really strict with lawyers on communicating to avoid conflicts of interest.

Here are four examples of how Ethical Walls can work in the law firm industry:

  1. Limiting communications between lawyers and their own defendants.
  2. Preventing other lawyers from communicating with people that aren’t their clients.
  3. Limit screen sharing or other functions during meetings.
  4. Prevent lawyers from communicating with external third parties.

Other Industries

We just mentioned some interesting use cases for Ethical Walls, but the truth is that many more industries and sectors can benefit from establishing Ethical Walls.

Governments, public agencies, pharmaceuticals, business intelligence, very large corporations, and many more can benefit from creating limits to communications in a world where mishandling conversations can be dangerous if not fatal for a business.

Choosing an Ethical Wall or Information Barrier Provider, Our Recommendation

When it comes to choosing an Ethical Wall or Information Barrier provider for unified communications such as Microsoft Teams, Webex, Slack, and the like, it’s important to understand which key features and desirable functions it should have.

Necessary Features for Ethical Walls

To begin, it needs to have the basics restricting either individuals or groups from communicating with other people or groups.

Second, it needs to cover both internal and external communications. It’s not enough to restrict an IT department from communicating with HR if they eventually could contact outsiders.

Third, it needs to work in real-time or near-real-time (2 or 3-second delay). Unallowed communications that can’t be viewed can wreak havoc on companies’ regulatory or internal compliance rules and render all efforts useless.

Fourth, it needs to be granular when selecting which communications to allow and which not to. Some companies will be ok letting people chat while restricting file sharing, and others will be ok sharing desktops but not allowing remote control in meetings.

Fifth, but not less important, it needs to be affordable. Companies are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in IT and security infrastructure before they can see any profit coming. Optimizing spending for software that is not related to bringing revenues is vital to keep business running.

Good to Have Features for Ethical Walls (Information Barriers)

After describing the necessary features for an Ethical Wall solution to be worth considering, let’s go to some nice-to-have features that can also be vital.

First, an Ethical Wall policy should be easy to set up. Easy-to-read UIs with clear visibility are sometimes crucial when trying to understand that all is being set correctly and there are no loopholes in communications.

Second, it should be able to function both on the cloud and on-premise. Some companies will have stricter security measures when allowing cloud apps to function and having on-premise software will make any cybersecurity team happy on any given day.

Third, it should be able to have a good logic setup and not allow for workarounds. If John is not allowed to contact the IT department, he shouldn’t be allowed to join their group chat or join them on a team call.

Take control of your external meetings always, read the full article here:

https://agatsoftware.com/blog/sphereshield-external-meeting-control/

Our Recommendation

At AGAT, we have been working for the last decade perfectioning our Ethical Wall (Information Barrier) for MS Teams, Webex, and Slack (Google and Zoom coming soon). While some providers offer communications-restricting tools, nothing goes as comprehensive as our flagship and award-winning solution.

Costing a fraction of other famous providers, our Ethical wall delivers more efficiently and generously.

Some of its features are:

  1. Restrict communication participants and control or block specific an option such as chat or file sharing, between different users.
  2. Granular control is offered based on groups, domains, and users and applied dynamically based on the context of the communication.
  3. Specific policies can be applied to chat, teams, and meetings depending on participant type (Employee, external, or guest).
  4. Simple and intuitive UI that facilitates policy creation.
  5. A comprehensive log of all blocked or monitored actions for easy incident resolution.
  6. Works both as on-premise or on-cloud software.
  7. It’s featured at the Microsoft Teams Appsource and Webex Apphub as a partner solution.

You can see a short video showing how it works.

Video

Conclusion

Ethical Walls or also known as Information Barriers, have to be taken seriously into account at the time to secure any entity or business as it can save money on regulatory fines, avoid conflicts of interest and even promote healthier communications by limiting the amount of information that is shared or which parties can be involved in a conversation.

With that being said, we invite you to try our Ethical Wall solution for yourself and see how much impact it can have.

Contact Us today to see how our Ethical Wall can help in security, compliance, and governance on your Unified Communications Platforms (MS Teams, Webex, Zoom, Slack & Skype for Business).

For more information about SphereShield’s Ethical Wall for Microsoft Teams, visit us!