by Steve Galloway | Nov 24, 2014
Microsoft Outlook Web App (or Outlook Web Access) is a browser-based email client. Outlook Web App (OWA) lets users access their Microsoft Exchange Server mailbox from almost any web browser. The tools has proven immensely popular, and in some cases organisations forego the deployment of desktop versions of Outlook in favour of OWA’s clean and intuitive presentation.
Additionally, OWA connects you to your contacts, calendars, tasks, and Office 365 tools like Sharepoint, Word online, Excel online etc., and other management facilities for handling your Office 365 accounts. Depending on user rights, some users have access to advanced services which permit network administration of in-house and third party installations.
by Steve Galloway | Nov 24, 2014
When you use Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or higher with a Microsoft Exchange account, contacts can be shared. You can create additional contacts folders and choose which of those folders to share. For example, you can create a contacts folder for a specific project and share it with your coworkers. Optionally, you can grant them permission to modify the contacts.
Note: Any message, contact, or task in Outlook can be marked private so that others don’t see the item in shared folder.
Contact sharing works through sharing invitation and sharing request e-mail messages. Sharing invitations offer the recipient access to your contacts folder. When you send a sharing invitation for your default Contacts folder, you can request access to the recipient’s default Contacts folder.
by Steve Galloway | Nov 24, 2014
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync enables users of desktop and mobile devices to access email, calendar, contacts, and tasks from their organization’s Microsoft Exchange server.
Microsoft Exchange is the de facto standard in public sector and corporate IT and is the email backbone of Microsoft’s Office 365 Office suite. Given Exchange’s dominance in premium email services, Exchange ActiveSync is licensed to all major mobile devices manufacturers, although there may be minor variations in subsets of the application used by Windows Phone, Apple, and Android.
The major advantage this brings to users is that it decentralises reliance on a “primary” workstation from which emails etc. have to be co-ordinated. ActiveSync cordinates all devices to a centralised server so that each device has access to all information equally.
Network administrators can limit availability of data to user devices, which is useful in industries where data sensitivity, or in cases where devices are lost or stolen. This usually depends on in-house organisational competency, or in the case of small businesses, access to “delegated” administrators – Microsoft approved third party engineers. ComStat is an authorised delegated network administrator.
ActiveSync is a protocol. In the past, POP3 and IMAP protocols have been widely adopted by manufacturers and users. As modern technology becomes more widely adopted however, POP3’s limitations particularly make it an awkward protocol for users who want to mirror email, contact, and calendaring information between multiple devices. As small business adopts Microsoft’s Office 365 applications, technologies like POP3 which cannot synchronise data between devices “organically” are losing their popularity.
Microsoft Exchange supports POP3, IMAP, MAPI, all of which are widely recognized email distribution protocols. In its native environment, however, MS Exchange performs optimally with ActiveSync. Office 365 users can connect up to 5 devices to their account services.
by Steve Galloway | Nov 18, 2014
From October 1st ComStat can provide support to help organisations and users manage data leakage and data protection.
On a large scale, data leakage is a serious issue which finds its way into national headlines. American retailer Target faced enormous losses and serious reputational damage in November 2013 when the company lost 40 million credit card numbers to hackers.
Small businesses may argue they do not face such risks, however small businesses are subject to the same data protection governance for due diligence regarding personal information, and even if a small business does not store credit card numbers electronically, users can still “leak” senstive date to third parties that can come back to haunt businesses.
ComStat network administrators have access to a large array of geographically relevant “policies” which can be established monitor outgoing email for sensitive information like credit card numbers, drivers licenses, passwords, in fact just about anything. On identification of an imminent “leak” users are notified with a number of options:
1. Users can override and permit transit of email, although the event is logged,
2. Sensitive information can be masked by the system,
3. Sensitive information can be delted,
4. Entire emails can be deleted with user notification.
ComStat’s engineers work with businesses with a strategy of using these kinds of tools to educate users of risk while enabling them to conduct their business with minimal obstruction.
In addition to monitoring email textual content, services also extend to identify attachments, which might comprise forms like applications, patents, etc.
Data leakage and data protection issues are difficult to meaasure because the risk of loss is usually hard to quantify until a significant event, by which time businesses can be exposed to substantial threat. As a lowest common denominator, however, businesses have an strict obligation to protect customer and third party personal information, and increasingly free email services like GMail, Yahoo, and Live do not provide tools to manage with the responsibilities European and UK law impose on businesses.
Although these services are aimed primarily at ComStat’s Exchange email users, the same tools are being expanded in 2014 and 2015 to encompass raw data storage like document libraries, spreadsheets, pdf’s, etc.
Please contact us to find out more about how our data protection services can help you.
by Steve Galloway | Sep 1, 2014
With effect from September 1st, ComStation.co.uk is providing support network administration for EOP security tools for email.
EOP (Exchange online Protection) is a Microsoft solution for managing virus, spam, phishing and other malicious formats. Critically, the service is managed at the data centre for incoming AND outgoing email. Managing incoming email in this way reduces the risk of contaminated email reaching users’ machines.
Microsoft estimates that over two thirds of email transiting the Internet is junk, spam, or malicious. In the field, ComStat devotes significant time to repairing customer equipment compromised by users inadvertently opening suspect email.
EOP includes control panels for customising filtering, IP blocks, domain name blocks, and more. EOP also integrates with ComStation.co.uk tools for data leakage protection, enabling organisations to manage senstive information in outgoing email which might include regulated personal data, credit card numbers, other company information, etc. Invoking data policies in thi way helps organisations to educate employees. Systems can be configured to allow users to override system recommendations while logging user decisions, and also unilateral suppression of sensitive information (e.g. credit card numbers, passwords, etc.)
EOP does not manage over PC security, however is a game changing solution for end users because it minimizes risk of costly damage to buiness networks and machines. Also, because the security process is managed at the data centre, ComStat is able to deliver “clean” email not only to user workstations, but also to the user’s connected devices like mobile phones, laptops and tablets.
EOP was orginally developed to support Microsoft Exchange, and is more than anything else specialised software that deals with email. In this respect, EOP’s email protection services are often more comprehensively tooled than conventional Anti Virus applications, and is used widely by the world’s largest businesses.
EOP is included in ComStat’s subscription email services for business users. EOP can be provided as a standalone solution (£2.00/mo per user account, £20.00 annual) for services provided by third party data centres.
