Microsoft has rolled out a unified management experience for Data Loss Prevention across Office 365. The new reporting features spread across Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online, and OneDrive for Business.
Previously, admins had to manage Exchange Online through the Exchange Admin Center and Sharepoint and OneDrive through the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center. They can now create a DLP policy in the SCC that covers all three services.
This significantly reduces the time it takes to maintain policies and means admins don’t have to switch between applications. Thankfully, Microsoft has been smart about the implementation. Existing policies in EAC the won’t be removed, and you can still create new ones there if you prefer it.
However, the company does have plans to implement new features in the Office 365 SCC that won’t come to EAC. As a result, admins still using it in a few months time may be a bit behind. Microsoft is planning to implement custom sensitive types of unified SLP policies and a simplified overall experience.
Unified Report Process
You’ll also be missing out on the single interface to view and manage reports in. The new unification will display policy reports in the same place, making it easier to assess the impact. You can also use it to compare violations across the platforms so you can act on areas of weakness.
Microsoft will also be giving additional details for DLP events that are published through the Activity Management API. For those unfamiliar, the tool lets admins collect DLP event data across Office 365 with third-party tools. Previously, the scope was limited and alerts didn’t have as much information as alerts from Office 365. After considerable feedback, it’s now possible to get the full details.
After considerable feedback, it’s now possible to get the full details. However, the data will need separate permissions in Azure AD. You’ll find it under “Read DLP policy events including detected sensitive data”.
You find more detail on how to implement that, as well as the update as a whole, on the Office blog.
