Office 365 Forensics
What You'll Learn About Office 365 Forensics:
In this article, you'll discover how to use Office 365 Forensics to reduce risk and ensure compliance by:
- Maintaining audit history for the lifetime of your vital documents.
- Viewing detailed audit logs directly within SharePoint Online.
- Efficiently responding to audit requests as part of your forensic investigations.
- Ensuring traceability of all actions: see who performed what action, where, when, and how, ensuring full accountability.
- Leveraging advanced reporting and threat intelligence tools to secure your Microsoft 365 environment.
Whether you're part of a compliance team, a security professional, or involved in internal audits, these insights will help you manage and safeguard your Office 365 environment with ease.
Why Office 365 Forensics?
As organizations increasingly rely on Office 365 (now Microsoft 365) for collaboration and storage of critical data, the ability to perform forensic investigations is crucial. The need for Office 365 Forensics typically arises from:
Did you know?
Microsoft 365 retains SharePoint audit logs for only 180 days on E3 licenses and 1 year on E5 licenses. After that, your audit logs are permanently deleted.
- Security Breaches:
Whether it's a suspected data breach or unauthorized access, forensic analysis helps identify what happened, who was involved, and how to prevent future incidents. - Compliance Investigations:
Regulatory frameworks like Good Practice (GxP), HIPAA, and 21 CFR Part 11 require organizations to maintain complete audit trails of data activity. Forensic tools help ensure compliance by allowing organizations to verify their logs and respond to regulatory audit requests. - Internal Audits & Risk Management:
Detecting insider threats or unauthorized access to sensitive data, such as financial information, can protect an organization from significant risks. - Legal and HR Investigations:
Forensic analysis is often used to handle legal disputes or HR-related inquiries. Knowing when specific documents were accessed or edited is vital in proving chain-of-custody or demonstrating accountability.
Pain Points of Office 365 Forensic Investigations
While the need for forensic investigation is clear, there are common challenges that organizations face:
- Limited Audit Log Retention:
Microsoft’s default audit log retention for SharePoint is limited to 180 days for E3 licenses and 1 year for E5 licenses. After these periods, crucial forensic data can be lost forever, making it difficult to respond to audits or investigations. - Complexity of Audit Requests:
Without the right tools, responding to an audit request or performing a forensic investigation can take weeks, especially if you have to manually search through incomplete or disorganized logs. -
Lack of Monitoring:
Detecting and addressing security incidents often requires real-time or near-real-time monitoring. With the basic Microsoft 365 setup, organizations may struggle to identify and act on risks quickly.
Benefits of Using Audit Vault for M365 for Office 365 Forensic Investigations
Here's how Audit Vault for M365 helps you overcome those limitations and improves your forensic capabilities:
- Unlimited Audit Log Retention:
With Audit Vault for M365, you can preserve your audit logs for the lifetime of your vital documents, ensuring that no crucial audit data is ever lost. This is essential for compliance and risk management. - Compliance Assurance:
Protect your organization from regulatory fines and penalties by ensuring that your audit logs meet the requirements for GxP, HIPAA, 21 CFR Part 11, and other regulations. With our Compliance Certs, you’ll have documented proof of an unaltered, defensible audit history. - Cost Savings:
Microsoft’s extended audit log retention requires expensive E5 licenses or additional add-ons. Audit Vault for M365 offers unlimited audit retention at a fraction of the cost, making it a cost-effective alternative. - Easy Implementation:
We offer a concierge quick-start service that helps you set up Audit Vault for M365 in just minutes. No complex installations or configurations are required. - Integrated with Microsoft 365:
Audit Vault is fully integrated with SharePoint Online, giving you direct access to audit logs from any document in your library. This simplifies compliance monitoring and investigation processes. - Advanced Reporting and Threat Detection:
Leverage powerful reporting tools and advanced search capabilities to easily investigate incidents. Identify security threats and vulnerabilities before they escalate, and keep track of all actions on your documents for complete traceability. - Peace of Mind:
Knowing that your audit logs are preserved and defensible gives you peace of mind in the event of a compliance audit or internal investigation. Common examples would be the need to maintain electronic audit logs and full traceability in Life Sciences industry that require GxP Compliance, or personal and private information regulations like Law 25 Compliance. Audit Vault for M365 provides the transparency and security your organization needs.
Get Audit Vault for M365 Today!
Don’t wait until it’s too late to secure your audit logs. Start a 14-day free trial today and see how Audit Vault for M365 can help you safeguard your organization and perform Office 365 Forensics on your Microsoft environment.
