When businesses make the switch to remote and hybrid work, one key concern always comes up: compliance—particularly security compliance.
While remote workers should be able to access data, communications, and files without difficulty, all that sensitive information also needs to be kept secure. In industries such as healthcare or finance, where there are strict regulations around data security, this is even more important. Businesses need to be extra careful about how data is managed, stored, and shared.
So, if you use a communications and collaboration platform for conferencing, messaging, and file sharing, how can you ensure a high level of security? In the case of Microsoft Teams, the ecosystem includes a variety of tools to maintain high levels of security compliance, regardless of industry.
With that in mind, here are five simple steps you can take to maintain compliance on Microsoft Teams:
1. Information Barriers and Communication Compliance
The first place you should check is Microsoft’s Purview Compliance Center. This tool is located in the Microsoft Teams ecosystem and is specifically designed to help business leaders with their compliance strategies.
Admins can use the Communication Compliance solution in the center to add specific policies, designed to monitor Teams communication for sensitive information. They can even be configured to watch for offensive language or other keywords you want to avoid.
Additionally, admins can set up Information Barriers that keep certain people or groups from communicating, to proactively make sure nothing leaks. These can be added to group conversations and one-on-one chats, or implemented at a team level, and users can set policies for features like eDiscovery for greater control over who can see what information.
Setting up Communication Compliance helps business leaders monitor their communications to stay a step ahead of potential risks, creating a solid start for security compliance.
2. Sensitivity Labels and Customer Keys
Another useful tool for protecting and managing sensitive data is the ability to add sensitivity labels and customer keys.
Sensitivity labels help companies protect and regulate access to sensitive content, giving them labels for privacy, guest access controls, and access management.
Customer keys, meanwhile, add a layer of encryption to content. Customer keys encrypt specific pieces of information, such as Teams chat messages, meeting recordings, or call recordings, so they can only be decrypted and accessed by those with permission.
Both of these features are helpful tools for keeping sensitive content marked and secured to keep them away from any unauthorized viewers.
3. Retention Policies, Data Loss Prevention, and Legal Hold
Microsoft Teams also includes several features for setting retention policies, managing data, and holding data for managing litigations. Each of these is a useful tool for ensuring security and compliance with all relevant regulations, and any organization looking to ensure data security should put them to use.
Companies can set their own retention policies within Microsoft Teams to retain important information, whether it’s for regulatory, legal, or business purposes. They can also determine how long information is saved, and remove content whenever it’s necessary.
Microsoft Teams also offers Data Loss Prevention within the Purview Compliance Center. Organizations can use it to minimize the risk of data leaks by protecting sensitive information and documents through policies designed to make sure no one shares data with the wrong groups.
Additionally, companies can use legal hold options within Teams, which is particularly helpful for managing litigation processes. Admins can place specific user mailboxes or teams on a legal hold, using customizable data retention policies.
When a hold is set, Microsoft Teams makes sure that messages are maintained and available during eDiscovery searches, even if the user deleted or edited the originals. Users can find Microsoft’s retention policies and instructions for implementing holds in the Microsoft Purview Compliance Center, so it’s easy for admins to find and use.
4. Content Search and eDiscovery
On a similar note, Microsoft Teams makes it easy to keep track of critical information with content search and eDiscovery tools.
eDiscovery is used for identifying, accessing, and managing information such as messages, files, meetings, and call summaries, whether it’s needed for litigation, auditing, or reviews. Information is electronically stored and can be managed from the Microsoft Purview environment.
This function includes content search capabilities and filters for Teams-only content, which helps sort through large amounts of data. All that data can then be exported for ease of access without compromising security.
5. Auditing Tools
Last but not least, Microsoft Teams includes a comprehensive audit log, which can be used in the Microsoft Purview Compliance Center. With the audit log, business leaders can set alerts, get audit reports, and export information should they need it. Additionally, Team leaders can set up alerts for log data in the compliance portal, filter it, and export it for analysis.
It’s a comprehensive auditing tool, allowing users to search data from each Microsoft environment, including Teams, Outlook, and other web-based applications. Admins, team leaders, and managers can make use of the tool to make sure their teams and employees are all handling sensitive data carefully and staying compliant with company guidelines.
All of these tools are excellent ways of maintaining security compliance on Microsoft Teams, especially as remote and hybrid work grows. When used along with the built-in privacy and security solutions in the Microsoft ecosystem, they can help businesses meet security regulations across industries. However, perhaps the most important key to security compliance is diligence and training—employees need to know what security regulations are in place, how they can follow them, and what to watch out for.
With the right tools and training in place, you can work remotely without fear, staying compliant with your security standards every step of the way.
