Types & Signs Of Brute Force Attacks

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A brute force attack is just another hacking method where an attacker tries many password combinations or encryption keys until the right one is discovered. Basically, this method relies on the perpetrator’s skills and tools used to crack a password through multiple attempts to eventually get access to a system, account, database, or network.

Brute force is less sophisticated than other techniques. Once hackers gain access, they may steal sensitive data, install malware, disrupt services, etc.

NOTE! According to a 2021 Verizon security report, 95% of the monitored organizations were targeted by brute force attacks.

Attackers can use brute force attacks to:

Hijack Devices for Malicious Activity

Botnets, networks of compromised computers, can be utilized to speed up malicious activities.

Spread Malware

Gain control of a target’s system to use it as a launching pad for wider attacks against other connected networks or systems.

Exploit Activity Data

Perpetrators may place spam ads on popular websites, rerouting traffic to certain websites, testing network security or encryption protocols used by targeted organizations.

Steal Data

Hackers can steal data such as passwords, usernames, and PINs for illegitimate financial gains.

Damage Website or App

Ruin the reputation of an organization by damaging its website or app by altering confidential information, leaking data, or spreading false information online.

Types of Brute-Force Attacks

Understanding the most common types of brute-force attacks can help organizations take efficient protective measures.

  1. Simple brute-force attacks

Hackers utilize automated software to test thousands of possible combinations to decode mainly passwords and PINs.

  1. Dictionary attacks

Perpetrators crack password-protected accounts by using a list, a dictionary of common words and phrases – basically reused, common passwords.

  1. Hybrid brute-force attacks

Cybercriminals combine automated software while using lists of common words to increase the success rate of the attack. They utilize automated systems as well as dictionaries which they constantly improve.

  1. Reverse brute-force attacks

By utilizing common passwords, such as “password1” or “12345”, makes it easier for hackers to guess usernames. The attacker knows the common password and is trying to guess which username goes with it.

  1. Credential stuffing

Hackers may use valid credentials that have been exposed in cyberattacks to access different accounts. This is possible because people tend to use the same username and password across multiple platforms.

  1. PIN brute-force attacks

Such attacks are mainly utilized against mobile devices. An automated system can be set up to try tens of thousands of Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) until the correct one is found.

Signs of a Brute Force Attack

To prevent any unauthorized access and minimize the potential damage, businesses must deploy measures for early detection. Here are the most common signs you should be aware of:

  • A sudden increase in failed login attempts, especially from a single or a few abusive IP addresses.
  • Login attempts from unusual IP addresses.
  • Suspicious web sessions from foreign countries.
  • Several failed login attempts per user account.
  • Login activity outside of working hours.
  • Login attempts using simple passwords, such as consecutive numbers or common combinations.
  • Locked out user accounts due to excessive failed login attempts.
  • A sudden increase in network traffic, targeting a specific service or app.
  • Inexplicable website or app load speed drop.

Prevention Methods

Brute force attacks are based on credential compromise, so requiring employees to create complex passwords is imperative. Implementing a Security Awareness Training program can help educate your employees on proper password hygiene.

Regularly check the web server log files to identify suspicious web sessions and remove abusive IPs from loading or accessing website resources.

On the account security side, do not use the same credentials over several accounts. Also, for all utilized apps, administrators should implement lockout policies to keep cybercriminals out of a system after too many incorrect login attempts.

Make the Zero Trust approach a priority and make sure your organization utilizes multi-factor authentication (MFA) across all applications and services. MFA is one of the strongest solutions for preventing fraudulent access.

In addition, implementing a Mobile Device Management (MDM) service like Microsoft Intune will allow you to manage user access to corporate devices and applications, ensuring you meet compliance requirements and proper passwords are being deployed.  This will help reduce the ability for hackers to gain control of your data.

At StratusPointIT we help organizations protect their assets against complex brute force attacks. For more relevant information, please contact us.

The Supply Chain Attack: Overview

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This type of cyberattack occurs when the perpetrator gains illegitimate access to your organization’s digital infrastructure just by utilizing a third-party system (provider or partner) that is already connected to your infrastructure.

Basically, because the third party has been granted the rights to use and modify areas of your network, your applications, or sensitive data, the hacker has to penetrate the third party’s defenses to infiltrate your system.

Software supply chains are vulnerable because modern software is not written from scratch. It involves many pre-existing components, such as third-party APIs, open-source code, etc.

Supply chain attacks are diverse, often impacting large companies, as was the case last year with Okta and JetBrains in October, Norton in May, and Airbus in January.

How Do Supply Chain Attacks Work?

For a successful supply chain attack, hackers must find ways to either insert malicious code into software or compromise network protocols.

Many of the products or services that get compromised come from trusted vendors making it easier for supply chain attackers to infiltrate the targeted systems, underscoring the value of attacking the supply chain. Ironically, they may do so using software updates which are often designed to mitigate security vulnerabilities.

Therefore, supply chain attacks are some of the most difficult threats to prevent because they take advantage of inherent trust. Mitigating and remediating a supply chain attack isn’t as simple as installing an antivirus or resetting your operating system because these attacks are usually well disguised.

Common Sources of Supply Chain Attacks

Commercial software

Because hundreds of organizations may use the same software solutions, a supply chain attacker who penetrates a software company’s system or compromises the integrity of their product can eventually gain access to a great number of targets.

Open-source software

When it comes to open-source software solutions, any developer can contribute to the making of a program. Using this free access, hackers may implement vulnerabilities into open-source solutions.

Even though other members of the development community can see and evaluate the code deployed by perpetrators, they may not know what to look for, allowing hackers to initiate a variety of vulnerabilities.

Foreign-sourced software

In some countries where the government exercises granular control over what certain private companies produce, software products may contain malicious code allowing the beneficiary to understand more about the targets’ systems.

Types of Supply Chain Attacks

Based on the targeted software, there are several types of attacks, all of which involve creating or exploiting security weaknesses.

Compromised software development tools – attackers utilize these tools to implement security weaknesses in the development process.

Preinstalled malware – hackers introduce malware on mobile devices such as smartphones, cameras, etc., and when the target connects the infected device to a system or network, the malicious code is activated.

Stolen certificates – that perpetrators use to disguise malicious code under the appearance of a company’s certificate.

Compromised firmware – attackers can include malicious code in firmware to gain illegal access to a system.

The Supply Chain Security

Such cyberattacks are very sophisticated, therefore organizations often employ the power of behavioral-based analysis to determine indicators of attack to successfully defend their assets.

Mitigating the risks is paramount, consequently you should consider utilizing advanced security solutions such as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions along with a Security Operations Center (SOC) which include 24/7 intelligent threat detection systems which collects logs, makes statistical correlations, analyzes threat alerts across your network, combines data from several different sources to help security teams remediate issues in a timely manner.

In some cases, all relevant analytics, threat intelligence, and forensic data should be passed to professional analysts, who classify alerts and determine the appropriate response to reduce the risks/effects of incidents. This is known as managed detection and response (MDR).

These services combine threat intelligence, advanced analytics, and human expertise in security incident discovery, investigation, and response deployed at the host and network levels to help keep your organization secure and reduce the ability for malicious activities to move laterally in your environment.

Enhance your readiness with proactive services to improve not only the supply chain security, but your organization’s overall security posture. For more information, please reach out to us. A member of our team will get in touch with you in one business day.

The Security Risk Assessment Process

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In our last blog post we defined security risk assessment, we mentioned who should run a cyber risk assessment and why is necessary to perform such assessments at least once a year. The next step in our analysis includes relevant details of the risk assessment process.

The Extent of The Security Risk Assessment

The first step of the process is to determine the scope and the limits of the assessment. This can encompass an entire organization, an operating unit, a subdivision, or certain components like the payroll process.

Once you determine the extent, you need to inform all relevant executives, particularly those whose activities fall within the scope of the assessment. Their input is crucial to identifying the relevant processes and assets, locating risks, assessing impacts, and defining risk tolerance levels.

All parties involved in the assessment process should learn the relevant terminology, including risk likelihood and impact (the risk matrix). It helps standardize and ensures accurate communication. In addition, organizations should review risk management frameworks like NIST SP 800-37 and standards like ISO / IEC 27001 for guidance on security controls implementation.

Threat and Vulnerability Identification

Simply put, a vulnerability is a weakness that exposes your organization to potential threats.

A threat is any event that can damage your company’s assets or processes.

Vulnerabilities can be identified using several methods including automated scanning, performing security audits, penetration testing, vendor security advisories, following application security testing protocols, etc.

Your analysis should cover as many types of flaws as possible, such as technical, physical, and process flaws. For instance, a company that does not have physical access control is vulnerable to physical intrusion, while a connected device that does not have malware protection is vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Analyze Risks and Potential Impact

The third step of the process is to determine how the risk scenarios your team has identified can impact the organization. In security risk assessment, potential risk (the probability that a particular threat can exploit a vulnerability) is calculated based on several factors:

  • Ease of exploitability
  • Discoverability of the security weakness
  • Threat occurrence (some threats occur only once while others are recurring)
  • Prevalence of the threat in the industry
  • Historical security incidents.

Prioritize Risks

A risk matrix can be used to classify each risk scenario based on likelihood and impact. It is crucial to define a risk tolerance ratio and specify which threat scenarios should be addressed by third parties along with other relevant details, such as preliminary measures, specific security protocols, etc.

Based on the risk matrix you can choose one of three actions:

Avoid – if the risk level is low and it is not worthwhile to mitigate it, you may decide to take no action.

Transfer – if the risk is significant but difficult to mitigate internally by your designated team, it is advisable to share the risk by transferring responsibility to a third party, by contracting an outsourced security service.

Mitigate – all risks that can be addressed internally should be handled accordingly. You can do this by implementing specific security controls and other similar measures.

Note! Security risk assessments usually include a certain level of residual risk that will be either missed or not fully addressed mainly because of the complexity of certain emerging threats. Therefore, business executives should be aware of this and always refer to residual risk within the organization’s cybersecurity plan.

Document All Risks

It is extremely important to document all identified risks. All findings should be reviewed and updated regularly to provide visibility and for maintaining the state of security.

Risk documentation usually includes relevant details of the risk scenario, information about the existing security controls, the risk level, the risk mitigation plan, the residual risk expected, etc.

Also, every risk category should have a risk owner, basically a person or a team responsible for keeping the threat to an acceptable level.

Organizations must discover and address any emerging threats in a timely manner. Therefore, a solid initial security risk assessment will provide a good basis for any further assessments.

Conclusion

Security risk assessment is a large and ongoing effort which requires time, resources, and more than anything, a professional approach. For more related information, please reach out to StratusPointIT.

Security Risk Assessment: Overview

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All your business processes, technologies, and business operations involve inherent security risks, and your organization is the only one responsible to make sure those risks are both acknowledged and addressed.

Regardless of the size of your organization, the need for a technology security risk assessment is obvious because the threat is imminent. Many organizations do not have one performed, exposing their assets to cyber-attacks.

Who Should Perform a Cyber Risk Assessment?

The process requires organizational transparency, typically provided by internal teams. However, organizations with no skilled personnel can outsource risk assessment to a third party.

An in-house team will include technicians and engineers with a deep understanding of the organization’s network infrastructure and flows of information for any process or system.

Why Perform a Security Risk Assessment?

Protects Your Reputation

Without regular assessments, the danger of security breaches is high, putting your organization’s reputation on the line with clients and vendors for not adequately protecting their data against an attack. This would affect your reputation and impact the potential of your business.

Avoid Security Breaches

Regardless of how sophisticated your systems are, your organization will always be a target for cyber criminals. Hackers are constantly looking for fraudulent means to take advantage of any vulnerabilities in your system.

Performing frequent risk assessments can help your team identify security issues and ensure that relevant policies and controls are put in place before a breach.

Keeps Systems Updated

Security protocols are always changing, and your organization’s technologies and processes are changing as well. Conducting security risk assessments regularly allows you to consolidate the state of security of your business.

Reduces Costs

Depending on the size of your organization, a breach can cost you thousands of dollars or even more just to get your data back and business operations up and running.

However, there is the cost associated with clients leaving or time spent reassuring clients. All those costs mentioned are usually unplanned expenses and can become a heavy burden to your budget. A security risk assessment allows you to plan and reduce such costs.

Avoid Violations

Organizations that handle sensitive data, such as protected health information, are required to abide by security and privacy laws. Failing to perform a security risk assessment is a violation of these regulations.

Also, if a breach does occur, there is the potential of fines and long and costly lawsuits. One of the easiest ways to avoid non-compliance is by performing a security risk assessment.

Increase Self-Awareness

Another major benefit of such an assessment is the ability to provide you with a detailed report about your network and how it is being utilized. This could also highlight inefficiencies within your network that could be costing you money and could be easily streamlined with an adequate solution.

An IT security risk assessment can help identify exploitable vulnerabilities that your team might not be aware of. Unfortunately, without proper insight over their network, an organization cannot efficiently secure its infrastructure against an attack.

A Culture of Safety

Creating a culture of safety should be more than just a legal requirement. As an organization, it is your responsibility to build an environment where your staff and customers feel safe and valued.

Developing skills for identifying, analyzing, and evaluating security risks is crucial. Therefore, investing in security risk assessment training will help your organization in the long run.

NOTE: Cybersecurity awareness training can serve as a starting point for empowering workers with a clearer understanding of security risks.

As you can see, there are several benefits to an organization for having regular security risk assessments performed. Our seasoned team has the necessary resources to provide you with top-notch cyber risk assessment, security awareness training, network security services, and more.

The Hacker Mindset

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It’s critical for IT security teams to stay vigilant not only when it comes to major security issues, but also to minor challenges and always following security best practices.

Putting yourself in the shoes of a hacker is beneficial. Sometimes you have to poke holes to point out flaws. Get together with your team and discuss system vulnerabilities, potential threats against your organization’s data, etc.

People having different perspectives is a huge edge because it may lead to identification of exploitable security issues and addressing these issues will eventually improve the state of security of your company.

As IT security threats evolve, chief information security officers and their teams must be prepared for everything from zero-day exploits, deepfakes, supply chain threats, malware, etc.

By ensuring visibility across your infrastructure, encouraging employee training, and supporting bug bounty programs, your organization will improve its security posture and be better prepared to overcome security obstacles.

The No.1 Security Ally Is Your Team

Recent breaches have shown us that the level of sophistication and damage caused by malicious actors doesn’t slow down. Unfortunately, hackers who breached casino giants MGM, Caesars few months ago also hit other international organizations over the past few years and allegedly collected more than $300 million in ransom so far.

So, if hackers are staying up to date on the latest threats and risks, it goes without saying that we should as well. Creating a “security champions” program across the company is a great way to instill security. Therefore, you should have a team member from your legal department, sales, finance, etc., who can connect with your security team and be a liaison for security.

A widely known saying is you need to create a “human firewall”.  One way to help this is to implement Security Awareness Training to help your team understand proper passwords, types of phishing attacks, etc.

Bug Bounty Contests

The easiest way to access ethical hacking is to organize bug bounty contests. Executives should reward good behavior.

Encouraging employees to attend hackathons, even if it is only to observe or learn at first, is very important. It’s one step in the right direction for cybersecurity education.

The increased need for internal cybersecurity education and support for bug bounty programs will continue growing in order to keep up with rising threats.

For hands-on IT security learning, you should arrange company-wide competitions and games that encourage employees to figure out how cybercrime could potentially harm and ways to protect themselves and the overall organization against such threats.

Simulations are very effective for preparing your staff against a real breach. Teamwork is a valuable resource in developing and implementing a viable cybersecurity solution.

Many companies combine bug bounty programs with third-party penetration testing. Every organization should have a bug bounty program, but if you’re not ready yet, just make sure you have a way for users to report security issues to you.

In addition, there are automation tools that can perform Penetration Tests, a platform that combines the knowledge, methodology, processes, and toolsets of a hacker.  To put it in simple terms, the automated application will try to hack your network to test your security.

Increase Visibility

With 93% of malware hiding behind encrypted traffic and only 22% of organizations claiming that can prevent malicious access to their service accounts, it’s no wonder that there were more ransomware attacks in the first half of 2023 than in all of 2022. Once a cybercriminal has made their way into the network, you must act within a limited time interval. Clear visibility over network traffic will help stop the cybercriminal from gaining access to company data.

Without full visibility, there will undoubtedly be a way in for hackers without your team spotting them because they typically infiltrate an organization’s network via hidden or sneaky entry points. This way, cyber criminals continue to hide within your network and grant themselves access to the organization’s sensitive information.

Implementing a Security Operations Center along with Endpoint Detection and Response and/or Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools can increase visibility into your organization.

If IT security professionals can better understand “the hacker’s approach” and their “modus operandi”, they will be able to protect their own systems, employees, and customer data.

Data Loss Prevention

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Data loss prevention (DLP) includes tools, processes, and policies specifically used to ensure that sensitive information is not lost, leaked, or misused.

DLP tools help classify data and identify violations of predefined policies. Once identified, DLP enforces remediation, it triggers alerts, utilizes encryption, and other actions to prevent users from accidentally or maliciously sharing data that could expose organizations.

DLP Adoption

According to Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise DLP of 2017, Gartner estimated DLP market would reach USD 1.3 billion in 2020. In 2022, Grand View Research – DLP Market Size and Share Report estimated the global data loss prevention market at USD 1.8 billion and expects an annual growth rate of 22% until 2030.

The data loss prevention market has evolved, now it includes cloud storage, complex security services, such as advanced threat protection, multi factor authentication, etc.

The massive uptick in DLP adoption is not accidental. Here are the main reasons that are driving the wider adoption of data loss prevention programs:

  • Nowadays, there are more places that require protection, such as multiple cloud platforms, complex networks and services which make data protection processes more difficult.
  • Global data protection regulations constantly change, usually tightening data protection requirements.
  • Data breaches are more frequent, potentially exposing a lot more data as people and organizations rely on technology more than ever.
  • Stolen data is worth more.

DLP Best Practices

Determine your main data protection objective.

Are you trying to protect your intellectual property or meet regulatory compliance? Having a clear understanding will allow you to easily determine the most appropriate DLP architecture.

When searching for DLP solutions, cover as many aspects as possible.

  • What types of deployment architectures are offered?
  • Do you need to defend against both internal and external threats?
  • Will users be able to self-classify documents?
  • Are you interested in protecting mainly structured or unstructured data?
  • What compliance regulations are you bound by? Are there any industry-specific standards?
  • How quickly do you have to implement your DLP program?
  • Will you need additional staff to manage your program?
  • What technologies would you like to integrate with your DLP?

Also, a comprehensive DLP solution will provide the IT security team with complete visibility into all data on the network:

Data in use: Protecting data being used by an application or endpoint through user authentication and access control.

Data in motion: Securing transmission of sensitive information while it moves across the network.

Data at rest: Protecting any network-stored data including cloud through access restrictions and user authentication mechanisms.

Always collaborate with all business units and with your IT security provider to define the DLP policies that will govern your organization’s data. This will ensure that all business units are aware of the policies in place.

Define success metrics and share results with business executives. Determine measurable key performance indicators and monitor them closely to determine the efficiency of your DLP program and areas of improvement.

Contextualize suspicious attempts to strengthen prevention measures and remediation activities.

Document your processes carefully. This will help you implement policies consistently, give you a document of record for when reviews are needed, and will also be necessary when onboarding new team members or employees.

Perform regular audits to ensure that your DLP program is working as intended.

Conclusion

DLP is a program, not a product. Observing how users, systems, and events interact is crucial for data protection. Understanding that DLP is a constant process to be continuously worked on will help you achieve long-lasting success.

AI & Cybersecurity

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Traditional IT security tools like antiviruses or firewalls function based on a predetermined structure. Such tools come equipped with a list of malware types or blacklisted websites, which must be regularly updated – a system with obvious limitations.

AI combines large data sets and utilizes them based on intuitive processing algorithms. It helps automate operations by processing large amounts of data faster than humans ever could.

Today’s cybersecurity tools integrate such capabilities intended to work with big data.

Artificial intelligence is generally used in cybersecurity for behavioral analysis, threat detection, vulnerability assessment, and incident response.

AI algorithms can analyze network traffic data, learn what normal network traffic patterns look like and based on that can detect patterns and anomalies indicating suspicious attempts and attacks.

AI-powered behavior analysis is used to successfully indicate malicious activities. This makes user activity monitoring and threat detection more effective.

Also, AI-based systems can be used to automatically respond to various threats by limiting user access, terminating connections, quarantining infected devices, disabling user accounts, etc.

Proven Benefits

AI requires preparation and providing the learning models with data to be used as a reference when identifying patterns, but the benefits are obvious. Here are just some of them:

Self-improving models

AI models utilize machine learning to analyze user behavior. After an anomaly is discovered, the system triggers various response actions. Such a system refines its model over time, making it increasingly more accurate.

Secured authentication

The IT security industry is moving away from old security methods such as user/password combinations and looking for ways to make IT security smarter. AI is a valuable addition as it can be integrated with multiple authentication layers to verify a user’s identity.

Using fingerprint scanners, facial recognition, and other AI solutions will help identify fraudulent login attempts, creating a much tighter security mechanism.

Better vulnerability management

Artificial intelligence solutions analyze existing security measures to identify potential gaps, enabling organizations to focus on the most critical areas. This makes troubleshooting more efficient and provides insight into the circumstances faster than any human could.

Improved security-related processes

There are some cybersecurity tasks which are repetitive and monotonous, tasks that may slip by. Fortunately, AI-driven tools can perform all those recurring tasks automatically and only require confirmation before making any changes.

Improved efficiency

Human attention is limited, while AI can cover multiple tasks simultaneously. AI solutions are both time and cost effective.

Balanced workloads

Skilled work isn’t cheap to hire or maintain, so it is in a business’s best interest to ensure the IT security staff’s experience is used on complex tasks. While AI can take care of most manual tasks, human personnel can develop other ways to improve the organization’s cybersecurity posture.

AI-powered Cybersecurity Solutions

Today’s AI capabilities include advanced models allowing them to process large amounts of data in real-time. Here are a few technologies that integrate AI for cybersecurity.

Endpoint Security

Endpoint security uses AI to tack and analyze processes on laptops, desktops, and mobile devices allowing your IT security team to shut down threats before they cause any damage.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS)

AI-powered intrusion detection systems are capable of autonomously identifying threats using machine learning models. With enough data to work with and professional training, such models can be very accurate when dealing with potential threats and can help identify signs of intrusion early on.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Data loss prevention tools automatically encrypt data before it is transmitted or restrict any unauthorized users from accessing sensitive information. DLP tools are now using AI and machine learning to improve their functionalities and performance.

DLP tools monitor, analyze, and successfully detect potential data exfiltration attempts preventing unauthorized or accidental data leaks.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

AI-powered SIEM tools use behavior analytics and cybersecurity threat feeds to detect abnormal activities. SIEM solutions automate many time-consuming manual tasks such as suspicious activity detection allowing faster incident response.

In Summary

AI can detect in real time potential vulnerabilities within systems and networks, alert security teams, shut down network parts, etc. Unfortunately, cybersecurity threats are increasingly more complex, which is why static models are too slow in today’s cyber landscape.

Microsoft Copilot: Introduction

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Microsoft Copilot is an innovative tool that assists users in their daily tasks. It boosts user productivity by harnessing generative AI to provide suggestions and by automating repetitive tasks.

With its intuitive features and integration into the Microsoft 365 suite, Copilot can revolutionize the way we work.

How To Use Microsoft Copilot

The tool offers users access to a wide array of features and resources to help them work faster and better. It even offers tailored recommendations based on individual needs and preferences.

For junior programmers, Copilot might help them better understand programming by providing contextual guidance. This accelerates their learning curve and ensures they start with industry-standard coding practices.

Here are some tips to make Copilot even more efficient:

  • Provide clear instructions within your input.
  • Collaborate with your colleagues who also use Copilot.
  • Install any relevant updates.

Customizing it will enhance its ability to provide tailored suggestions that match your writing style and project requirements.

Important! Copilot has limitations that users should be aware of. For instance, Copilot does not guarantee the correctness or quality of suggestions it generates. Therefore, users should always review AI-generated recommendations and test any piece of code before using it within their projects.

Installing Microsoft Copilot is the first step to enhancing productivity. Copilot can be downloaded from the Microsoft 365 app store or the Microsoft Copilot website. Copilot is also available on iOS and Android.

Just recently, Microsoft launched a consumer-focused paid Copilot plan. This makes Microsoft’s existing services, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others, far more attractive, as it boosts productivity and efficiency by allowing the user to access Copilot within each one of these applications.

How To Enable Microsoft Copilot

Follow these simple steps to enable the Copilot:

  1. Ensure you have a Microsoft 365 or Copilot Pro subscription and have the latest version of the app (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etc.) installed on your device.
  2. Open a PowerPoint presentation, or a Word/Excel file.
  3. Go to the “Home” tab and click the “Copilot” button.

Once enabled, you can access its features, from improved auto-complete suggestions based on your writing style, generating relevant images, summarizing web pages, getting real-time grammar and spelling advice, etc. This way, users will be able to collaborate better and manage daily tasks faster.

As you type the instruction, Copilot will generate relevant suggestions based on context and patterns which will speed up your workflow. By adjusting the settings, you can tailor these recommendations to your preferences.

In the first half of 2024, Microsoft is expected to add more languages to Copilot such as, Arabic, Czech, Korean, Norwegian, Dutch, Finnish, and several others.

Conclusion

Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered tool that uses machine learning algorithms to analyze the context and make relevant recommendations.

It is an example of how AI can augment human capabilities and enable new possibilities for innovation and creativity.

Copilot simplifies certain tasks by automating repetitive processes like writing emails or coding, saving time and effort while improving accuracy. It offers insightful suggestions based on best practices.

Key Features of Microsoft Intune

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Microsoft Intune helps organizations efficiently manage the mobile devices their employees utilize to access business assets.

Cloud-based Endpoint Management Solution

Intune allows central control of the endpoints, from software deployment to security policies, devices can be monitored through an easily configurable console.

The scalability of cloud computing and remote monitoring capabilities are undisputed. Therefore, it eliminates the need for onsite servers, it increases productivity and security.

Features & Benefits of Microsoft Intune

Intune allows organizations to manage their devices and applications securely. Its main features include mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM) for extra protection of sensitive data.

The platform provides zero-trust security measures so that organizations can comply with industry regulations. It offers support across various operating systems such as Android, iOS, Linux Ubuntu Desktop, macOS, making it a viable solution for a variety of needs in today’s ever-changing tech landscape.

Here are some of the features and benefits of Microsoft Intune:

Intune automates policy deployment and conditional access.

It provides flexibility and control for securing business data, regardless of the device.

Windows Autopilot works seamlessly with Intune, so setting up new devices has never been easier and more secure.

It offers self-service functionalities, such as resetting passwords, installing apps, removing devices, all through the Company Portal app.

Intune integrates with mobile threat defense services, including Microsoft Defender for Endpoint allowing organizations to implement superior threat protection, create security policies, etc.

Microsoft Intune Mitigates IT Security Risks

With Intune, employees can access on-premises data in a secure manner.

By using Intune-managed certificates with a proxy, like Azure’s Active Directory Application Proxy, access to mobile apps that connect to on-premises data can be enabled and the endpoint management solution will ensure it complies with the security policies.

Intune establishes secure access to email and data through Office 365.

Through Intune and Microsoft Enterprise Mobility and Security, your organization can create a conditional access policy to make certain that none of your employees’ apps or devices can access your Office 365 data unless they are compliant with your organization’s security policies.

Intune can help issue highly secure work phones.

Employees must have access to corporate data and applications to manage tasks effectively anytime, anywhere. You need to make sure that business data remains secure and that administrative costs are low.

With Intune’s management solutions, you can give an employee a new iPhone or Samsung device and they just have to follow a straightforward process, a corporate-branded setup to authenticate themselves. By launching the Intune Company Portal app, employees will be able to access the apps the administrator has made available to them.

Intune helps implement Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) protocols for your staff.

Enrolling personal devices into a management tool is a major challenge because many employees don’t want their employers to have any access to their personal devices.

However, Intune offers a BYOD approach that employees can agree to. It manages only the applications that contain corporate data, like Office apps. The organization can implement protection policies that can prevent employees from copying text from a corporate email profile into a consumer email profile, even within the same Outlook mobile app.

Intune allows organizations to issue limited-use shared tablets.

There are several instances when employees must have a device, like a tablet, to accomplish their tasks. You may have noticed several retail workers carrying tablets to check inventories, process sales, assist customers, etc. These tablets are usually configured in limited-use mode, allowing users only to access the applications required for their jobs.

With Microsoft Intune, administrators can provide device-based and app-based access to corporate data.

The organization can provide conditional access to employees based on if the device is corporate-owned or if it is part of a BYOD protocol that the company adhered to.

Conclusion

Microsoft Intune is not just a device management solution. It streamlines cybersecurity as it minimizes the need for multiple security platforms and reduces IT management burdens and costs.

Contact us today for more insights into how Microsoft Intune can strengthen your hybrid workforce’s security and IT management.