What Is Azure Information Protection and How It Helps Secure Data

Azure Information Protection is a cloud-based solution that helps secure sensitive data. It provides a robust set of tools to classify, protect, and monitor data in real-time.

This solution is designed to meet the needs of organizations with complex data security requirements. It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft 365 services to provide a comprehensive data protection strategy.

Azure Information Protection uses machine learning and analytics to detect and prevent data breaches. It can classify data based on its sensitivity and automatically apply protection policies to ensure confidentiality.

By using Azure Information Protection, organizations can reduce the risk of data breaches and meet regulatory compliance requirements. It's a critical component of any organization's data security strategy.

Azure Information Protection (AIP) is a cloud-based solution that adds an extra layer of security to prevent unauthorized access, sharing, or distribution of sensitive information.

It's designed to work under the Microsoft Purview Information Protection system, which includes AIP and other advanced features for data security protection.

AIP brings new opportunities to create security taxonomies and added controls by tagging files using sensitivity labels, which are assigned explicit permissions depending on the department and business requirements.

These labels can be assigned manually, through file repository scanning, or automatically based on rules, giving users the flexibility to choose the best approach for their needs.

The Microsoft 365 suite of Office apps and the latest retail version of Microsoft Office include the ability to assign labels to files, making it easy to implement AIP in your organization.

Every document or email is protected by encryption and various authentication policies, ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive information.

Labels are assigned to documents, representing the kind of information they contain, and can be added automatically through rules or manually by the user.

Administrators can automatically classify documents containing sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, and ensure that only permitted users can view them.

This document-level security is strong and works well even outside the organization, as permissions remain with the file, not the device.

If someone without permission tries to view a file, they are blocked, providing an additional layer of security.

The configuration for AIP is done on the Azure portal, where policies and labels are created, and users can customize settings related to labels and assign policies to groups of users.

Once a policy is assigned to a user, they need to install the Azure Information Protection Viewer, a client that must be installed on their machine.

The viewer provides a label bar in the application, allowing users to manually apply labels to documents while saving them, or automate the labeling process based on keywords.

Active Directory and previous solutions have limitations, particularly when it comes to new files and documents being introduced daily.

Manual assignment of rights and folders to thousands of incoming files is a significant challenge.

New documents attached to emails and cloud storage repositories create new security problems that need to be addressed.

Azure Information Protection meets this need by adding an extra layer of security, primarily working inside Microsoft 365 apps, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Microsoft 365 groups.

Active Directory, a crucial tool for managing and organizing computer networks, has its limitations. One major limitation is its scalability, which can become a problem for large and complex networks.

As mentioned in the article, Active Directory's scalability issues can lead to performance problems and decreased efficiency. For instance, as the number of users and objects in the directory grows, the system's response time can slow down significantly.

Another limitation of Active Directory is its reliance on a single domain controller, which can cause issues during maintenance or hardware failures. This is because all domain controllers must be in sync, and any discrepancies can cause problems.

The article highlights that Active Directory's security features, while robust, can be difficult to implement and manage. This can lead to security vulnerabilities and compliance issues.

In addition, Active Directory's compatibility with older operating systems can be a problem, as it may not support all versions of Windows. This can create integration issues and make it difficult to upgrade or migrate to newer systems.

In the past, people have tried to tackle similar problems using various methods. One such solution was the development of specialized software that attempted to automate tasks.

However, these solutions often fell short due to their inability to adapt to changing circumstances. For example, the software was unable to handle unexpected data inputs.

Another approach was to use manual workarounds, which involved human intervention to bypass the limitations of the system. This method was time-consuming and prone to errors.

Despite these efforts, the results were often unsatisfactory, leading to frustration and wasted resources. In one notable case, a team spent months developing a custom solution that ultimately failed to meet its intended goals.

The limitations of these previous solutions highlight the need for a more effective approach.

You can extensively modify default sensitivity labels to suit your organizational needs. Microbyte can help you access and implement these custom labels.

Standard labels may include Personal, Private, Internal, Confidential, and Highly Confidential. These labels can be used to classify and protect sensitive information.

Built-in labelling support is available in newer versions of the Office suite of apps, which receive the latest features and upgrades.

To publish sensitive labels, you need to set, classify, and group them, then publish them internally as an established label policy.

Here are some common standard labels:

These labels can be enforced on all relevant users and user groups once published.

Automatic labelling of files is supported for Office apps, currently available via a Unified Labelling Client, which prompts users to add an appropriate label to their file or applies the label automatically.

Manual labelling methods include using the AIP Unified Labelling Client, which adds new features to File Explorer and PowerShell to apply labels to relevant files, and the AIP on-premises scanner, which scans file repositories for unlabelled and unclassified files.

Azure Information Protection (AIP) offers various label types and options to help you manage sensitive information.

The pre-existing Confidential label has specific restrictions and controls in place, restricting the sharing of sensitive information like credit card numbers, passwords, or source code.

Automatic labelling of files is supported for Office apps via a Unified Labelling Client, which prompts users to add a label to files containing sensitive information.

You can also create labels specifically for sending protected documents to people outside of your organization, useful for sending communications to regular B2B customers.

Highly Confidential Labels have additional elevated limitations, including encryption of all files with this label applied, preventing third-party access.

These labels also prevent confidential financial data from being exposed, and taking screengrabs of open files is blocked due to their confidential nature.

Some files may be emailed using a cloud-based email solution, but active rights management policies, labelling controls, and file encryption processes ensure that the document or file isn’t accessible to outsiders.

Enhanced Email Security is a feature that comes with Highly Confidential Labels, ensuring that sensitive information stays protected.

There are three main types of Azure Information Protection plans offered by Microsoft.

Microsoft sells these plans as add-ons to existing Office 365 subscriptions or as part of the security package.

The three types of plans are: Azure Information Protection for Office 365, Azure Information Protection Premium P1, and Azure Information Protection Premium P2.

Azure Information Protection for Office 365 is available for free to enterprises that subscribe to the Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E5 plans.

It provides encryption protection for emails and documents in Office 365 and on-premises Exchange and SharePoint, integrated security with Office apps, and access to administrator controls.

Azure Information Protection Premium P1 offers additional features such as on-premises connectors, track and revoke shared documents, and enable users to manually classify and label documents.

Azure Information Protection Premium P2 builds on Premium P1 with automated and recommended classification, labeling, and protection, as well as policy-based rules and Hold Your Own Key (HYOK) configurations.

Here are the three types of plans offered by Microsoft: