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Ethical Wall for Microsoft Teams

Control who can communicate with whom, using specific collaboration options. Apply policies on external or internal users and groups.

✔Granular control is offered based on groups, domains and users and applied dynamically based on the context of the communication

✔Policies can also be applied to flexibly control the types of communication such as IM’s,file sharing,screen sharing,audio and video

✔Policies can be applied to chat, teams and/or meetings depending on participant type (Employee, external or guest)

✅ For information about Microsoft Information Barriers capabilities and limitations check our blog post with all the information

HIGHLIGHTS

Control All Communication Interactions	Rule-Based Enforcement	Complete Auditing and Reporting
SphereShield Ethical Wall enables you to block and control voice, files, chat, video and screen sharing.Rules can be reciprocal (both parties blocked) or one-sided.	Apply unlimited granular policies through robust policy enforcement that define permitted operations and content between communicating parties.	Obtain complete information regarding violation attempts for training and awareness. Admins can be configured to be notified as incidents happen.
Simple and Powerful	Cover all Microsoft Teams Scopes	SaaS or on-Premise installation
Rules are configured in a simple and intuitive web interface for ease of usage for compliance administrators. Rules are automatically implemented in almost no time from creation.	SphereShield Ethical Wall covers all scopes: Chat, Meetings and Teams & Channels	SphereShield can be used both as a SaaS where no installation is required, or installed in the customer's DMZ or Cloud (Azure, AWS, etc.)

What can the Ethical Wall Do?

See below typical policies implemented by the Ethical wall

✔Prevent HR group from sharing files with non-HR members

✔Block Finance Group from uploading any files to OneDrive, SharePoint or Teams

✔Allow only Teachers to Create new Teams in a School Tenant

✔Block file transfer while communicating with a specific external domain

✔Block communications between finance and research group

✔Block desktop sharing for a specific group

✔Allow only specific users/groups to communicate externally

And more...

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Real-Time Compliance To Serve Multiple Industries

SphereShield's Ethical Wall for Microsoft Teams was designed as a ready-to-serve tool with the focus on granularity.

Industry-specific solutions

Financial Services and Trading

Banks, Investment funds, credit-card companies, insurance companies and accountancy firms need to comply with regulations such as FINRA, MiFID II or EMIR.

These regulations require blocking communications where there can be conflict of interests, for example, when investors talk with researchers that possess non-public information

HealthCare

HealthCare institutions that need to comply with regulations such as HIPAA, need to control communications that could contain sensitive patient information.

For example, restricting doctors from sending files to preventing information mishandling

Education

Educational institutions often need to restrict communications to avoid behavior breaches and other unpleasant consequences. SphereShield can be used to create policies such as restricting a 12th grader from communicating with a 5th grader.

Additionally SphereShield Ethical Wall can create a rule that requires a coach or a Teacher to be present in every communication

Law Firms

Some Law Firms are required to prevent lawyers communicating with each other to avoid conflict of interests.

Common Problems Solved by the Ethical Wall

Block File Sharing Across the Microsoft Environment

SphereShield Ethical Wall for Microsoft blocks file sharing across Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive, not allowing any loopholes in the process

Protect Users Privacy

Companies that want to restrict communication between C-Level Executives and the rest of the company can prevent them from receiving unsolicited communications.

The Ethical Wall can allow those executives to send messages and files but not the other way around.

Third-Party or Outsourced Companies Restriction

SphereShield Ethical Wall can create policies to allow only one department to communicate to an external company, while blocking all other departments from doing so. Another scenario is when a company doesn’t want to allow meetings between external and internal employees.

Notify Participants About Policy Rules

SphereShield Ethical Wall notifies users about policy rules created using instant messages and action feedback popups.

Ensure that appropriate notifications are communicated to external and internal contacts.

Flexible and Simple Policy Creation

SphereShield Allows creating multiple Ethical Wall policies using a variety of parameters quickly and intuitively.

First, users need to define the conditions on which the policy should apply on. Conditions describe who the policy applies to, based on domains, groups and users. Groups can be fetched from your local AD or Azure AD.

After that, the user selects which communication is going to be blocked or allowed. Choose between Chats, FileSharing, Audio in Meetings, Video in Meetings and Screen Sharing.

The Ethical wall also controls meeting planning. If a policy is set to restrict video or audio, it will automatically cancel the meeting planned for the parties.

Once done, the user can save and organize policies as needed. SphereShield works like a firewall and scans policies from top to bottom. The policies will be applied with almost immediate effect.

Compare Microsoft and AGAT control capabilities
	Office 365		AGAT
License →	Essential/E3	E5 (Information Barriers)	SPT2 (E.W. License)
Internal control by Groups/Users (Allow/Block)	❌	✅	✅
External Control by External User (Allow/Block)	❌	❌	✅
External Control by Internal group/users/domain	❌	❌	✅
Granular Control Capabilities (IM’s/files/audio/video/screen sharing)	❌	❌	✅
Can be fully controlled by compliance role only	❌	❌	✅
Web User Interface (GUI) Easy to operate	N/A	❌	✅
Notifications to end-user/admin	❌	❌	✅
Incident auditing for compliance awareness and training	❌	❌	✅
Reports by user/policy/domain	❌	❌	✅
External system integration/SIEM	❌	❌	✅
Control Which Teams can add guest (coming soon)	❌	❌	✅
Price/User/Month	$5.00/$20.00	$35.00	Up to 90% less