What is Microsoft 365 Copilot and How Do You Deploy It Securely?

What is Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot, launched in 2023, is an AI-powered productivity tool offering two distinct flavors:

1. Everyday AI companion: Integrated into Microsoft Edge and Chrome browsers, Copilot serves as a digital assistant, providing real-time support for web browsing and online tasks. Think summarizing webpage content, suggesting relevant information during searches, or drafting emails within web interfaces
2. Microsoft 365 Copilot: This version embeds seamlessly within Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It amplifies user capabilities by offering assistance with tasks like:
   • Creative generation: Suggesting writing styles, outlines, or visuals for presentations and documents.
   • Efficiency boosters: Automating repetitive tasks, summarizing complex data, or finding relevant information within emails and documents.
   • Skill upskilling: Providing contextual guidance and feedback to improve writing, presentation, and data analysis skills.

Copilot is still under development, but it holds promise for boosting individual and team productivity across various tasks and workflows. Its integration with existing Microsoft tools and focus on user-specific assistance cater to a broad range of professionals seeking to leverage AI in their daily work.

How Microsoft Copilot Works

Copilot inherits existing user permissions to access data, potentially allowing users to see sensitive information to which they should not have access. Secondly, Copilot makes it easy to create new content containing sensitive information. Microsoft’s guidelines explain how to use Copilot within the scope of your existing permissions and policies; however, this may not be enough to prevent data exposure. Sensitive data may end up in places like personal OneDrive shares or become accessible to unauthorized users. To deploy Copilot safely, organizations should take specific steps before and after the deployment to help minimize risks related to data exposure and unauthorized access

Before Copilot: Steps To Implement Copilot Securely and Effectively

Organizations aiming to use Copilot for Microsoft 365 must have at least 300 E3 or E5 licenses in their organization. Meeting Microsoft’s prerequisites is crucial before proceeding with the setup process. While most organizations using Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 should already meet these requirements, it would be a good idea to review the official list. Although Microsoft suggests upgrading to Windows 11 for an enhanced user experience, Copilot is also available on Windows 10. Once eligibility is confirmed, admins can begin the installation and setup process. Below are seven key steps to help you implement Copilot:

Step 1: Identify critical assets

To secure data, it is crucial to identify all data assets, their location, sensitivity level, and their associated access controls, and usage patterns. This involves scanning all identities, accounts, files, folders, site permissions, shared links, and sensitivity labels. This process helps organizations understand what data they have, where it is stored, who has access to it, and how it is being used, enabling them to identify potential vulnerabilities, ensure proper access controls, and protect sensitive data from unauthorized access or misuse.

Step 2: Manage sensitivity labels

Accurate, continuous and automatic scanning of sensitive content such as PII, PCI and IP is crucial for effective control. Automatic classification with basic or inaccurate labels can result in over-labeling, leading to excessive data restrictions and user frustration. This can cause collaboration issues, business process failures, and users may downgrade labels to avoid controls. Likewise, disabling DLP controls to avoid disruption becomes a common practice. Relying solely on users for labeling content is not the best idea as most data remains unlabeled, rendering controls useless for that data.

Step 3: Review access to critical resources

Many organizations are hesitant to automate processes concerning access to their data as they fear that automation could lead to unintended consequences and disruptions to their systems. For highly sensitive data, such as top-secret intellectual property or personal information about customers or patients, it is essential to carefully evaluate the level of access and ensure it is appropriate. Use a data security solution that can efficiently identify the location of critical data, determine who has access to it, track usage and ownership, and prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing or exposing it through Copilot.

Step 4: Automate risk management

You can use automation to handle risk management and stale access, streamlining compliance efforts. A comprehensive data security solution will help to eliminate outdated and risky links and permissions, while removing access that compromises sensitive data. Set up automations once and let them run, ensuring policy compliance without extensive manual intervention. This might also include dealing with approval requests and performing scheduled actions.

Step 5: Leverage the security features of Purview

With your files correctly labeled and your most pressing risks addressed, you can confidently implement the security measures offered by Microsoft Purview. These measures encompass a wide range of functions, including encryption, access control, monitoring and insightful visual indicators for labeled data. As a result, you gain more control over data access and reduce the risk of unauthorized disclosures. Embrace the benefits of generative AI and unlock new possibilities for data-driven insights and productivity gains.

After Copilot: Steps for Keeping Your Data Secure

Once you’ve deployed Copilot, there are specific steps you can take to ensure any malicious or risky behavior is quickly identified and remediated and that your blast radius doesn’t spiral out of control again.

Step 1: Monitoring access to sensitive data

To reduce the detection and response time for any threat to sensitive data, it is vital to monitor how all data is being used. Copilot makes it easy to search and access sensitive information, as well as monitor all data/object modifications, authentication events, link creation, and so on. When a user unexpectedly accesses a large amount of sensitive information they haven’t previously viewed or when a device or account is compromised by a malicious actor, you will need a solution that will deliver real-time notifications to enable a quick response.

Step 2: Automate policies for access control

Users consistently create new data, collaborate with others, and introduce potential vulnerabilities. To effectively protect sensitive information, it is essential to implement automation tools that continually identify and address security gaps. A data security platform will monitor user access, detect exposed critical data, and analyze usage patterns, enabling you to maintain strict data security protocols. This ongoing vigilance preserves the security measures you established before deploying Copilot, allowing you to use it safely and productively over time.