Does your business use Microsoft Edge for web browsing? It isn’t nearly as popular as Chrome, but it is the second most popular browser in use today. And because it’s full of business-friendly features, many organizations use it as the default browser for workplace PCs.
If you haven’t checked it out lately, this new announcement might make Edge worth a closer look. And if you’re already an Edge organization, you’ll want to know about this new tool in Edge so you can enable it and start benefiting from greater protections.
So what’s the new tool? Microsoft Edge is now better at protecting your company from data leaks.
Here’s how it works — and why it matters.
Data Is Everywhere — And Everything
To understand data leaks we need to start with a couple of foundational truths. First, data is everywhere.
Your business handles sensitive information like customer data, financial details, and perhaps even trade secrets or proprietary data.
Data is also everything — by which we mean that your business probably can’t survive in any capacity without the data you have.
Because of both the amount and the value of your data, it comes as no surprise that there are bad guys who want to steal it.
When unauthorized people gain access to your company’s data, that’s a data leak. They can happen in all sorts of ways, from Hollywood-style targeted hacking to simple email phishing schemes.
No single solution can plug every leak or block every attack, which is why comprehensive cybersecurity protection and training are both vital — and we can help with both of these.
But by adding together numerous smart solutions, your business can stay much more protected and secure than it would otherwise be. One of these new solutions is Microsoft Edge’s data leak control feature.
New Data Leak Control Capabilities
The new capabilities are already available in Microsoft Edge for Business. If you have admin credentials you’ll probably already be able to see them.
Essentially, Microsoft has given you a new, additional set of padlocks you can put on your data. The company has created various prebuilt settings on what kinds of data users are allowed to share within the browser, and who they are allowed to share it with.
It might take some configuration finesse, but once you get this set up properly it should be just about invisible. Regular business operations won’t be affected at all. But if an unsuspecting employee is getting tricked into emailing a customer database or other sensitive document, the system will jump in and prevent that file from being shared.
Additionally, Microsoft is using new advanced artificial intelligence to actively search for unusual patterns of data activity, stopping them before they turn into a breach.
Here’s a (massively oversimplified) example: say you’re a local Carolina-based business with a geographically central customer base. You don’t do business overseas, but all of the sudden an account in a remote country an ocean or two away is trying to download massive amounts of data, or one of your employees is attempting to send a data-rich file somewhere similar.
This behavior would look suspicious to a human, but of course you can’t have humans inspecting every single communication and packet of data. Microsoft’s AI can analyze this traffic in human-like ways but near instantly, with no capacity constraints, alerting you to a potential leak before it happens.
Setting up these new data leak controls is relatively simple. Make sure everyone’s running the latest version of Edge for Business and the rest of Microsoft 365, then work with your IT partner to configure these new controls in a way that works well for your business.
We can help you get these set up just right — and we can train your team in how to operate within this new system. Reach out today to learn more.