Microsoft recently came out with a list of updates to boost your Office 365 and enhance its performance along with many of its features. The latest updates rolled out included major security updates, brand new features, and bug fixes for Office 365 and Microsoft 365 for Windows.
Email Security Boost
Microsoft has recently introduced an additional layer to its email security system to enhance and improve the integrity of its email service to modify its incoming and outgoing messages. This new development is targeted to solve problems related to expired certificates, unsupported protocols or other third-party certificates.
The new protection updates include:
SMTP MTA-STS support
SMTP MTA – Strict Transport Security support, also called the MTA-STS support, is implemented to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to secure the email communication experience of its customers. It was earlier announced that the incoming and outgoing support for DNSSEC or (Domain Name System Security Extensions) and DANE for SMTP (DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities) was also under development which was finally added to this update.
The most common problem faced by the MTS-STS was that the TLS connections were frequently exposed to several man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks and downgrades. MITM attacks are possible only when the messages are rerouted to a different server belonging to the cybercriminals. On the other hand, Downgrades occur when the STARTTLS response is deleted, and the message in the cleartext is rendered.
This new development will ensure that all emails sent via Exchange Online are delivered without risks of cyber-attacks and interception while being thoroughly protected via encryption and authentication. This also strengthens several email security issues and resolves SMTP problems like expired TLS certificates, secure protocol support and certification issues by a third party or matching domain names.
DANE for SMTP support
DANE for SMTP (with DNSSEC support) is a new feature under development for a new future launch. This will provide enhanced protection for SMTP connections as compared to MTA-STS. The support for DANE for DNSSEC and SMTP will be released in two phases, with the first being prepared for a March 2022 launch.
Microsoft has been making several necessary arrangements to secure several domains in relation to email transport, including many of its primary email domains like live.com, hotmail.com and outlook.com. This MTA-STS support aims to protect all its users from MITM attacks.
Feature Updates
Here are all the details about the latest updates Microsoft has brought about:
- Microsoft Lists: The most prominent update is the Board View in Microsoft Lists. All your data will be available in a board format. Thus, giving you a great experience in terms of viewing your data, tracking items or identifying your process workflow.
- Excel Spreadsheets: This update made scrolling through a feature in Excel spreadsheets much easier, especially the ones with wide cells that are large.
- Update to Microsoft Search Conversations results in Bing: A Conversations vertical tab will be added while using Microsoft Search in Bing; all emails will be displayed here. Another separate tab will be made available for the Yammer search results.
- Video Creation on Office Mobile: A new feature has been added, where short videos up to 90 seconds can be recorded, with the additional key feature of adding text, ink, annotations, along with trimming and sharing options.
- Files recommendation for Office for Microsoft 365: This recommendation feature will allow you to easily keep track of your work while giving you the option of choosing files with the highest activity that might be more important to you. This file recommendation feature is made available to Excel, PowerPoint and Word, while making the name, recent changes, which person edited or shared it and even mentions, comments and edits.
- Outlook Updates: Suggested replies are a new feature that is like a short email response visible at the bottom of an email text. Three responses will be suggested by Outlook that can be just clicked on and sent, even edited if desired. The Groups icon of Microsoft 365 in the left pane of navigation will be changed only on the Outlook web application. The Groups icon will replace the current folder icon to bring about visual coherence between the Outlook web and desktop application.
Bug Fixes
This recent update roll has fixed bugs that were causing issues across the system. Some of the bugs that were fixed include:
- In Outlook, a bug caused an issue with the applications to become unresponsive after a contact card was loaded.
- In Excel, shapes and form controls were unable to call VBA macros due to the bugs.
- In Word, “Repeat Style” applied the Normal format instead of copying the style of the intended text.
- In Access, a bug kept causing the Insights add-in to hang mid operations.
Final Words
All the new upgrades introduced to Microsoft 365/Office 365 aim to provide the user with a smooth UI experience and improve email security at large. No matter the kind of work you do, your right to security should remain uncompromised. The encryption provided by Microsoft ensures that the end-to-end connection is one way without any risks of leaks and breaches. Email security boosts were a much-needed addition to tackle MITM and downgrade attacks. The other tweaks were made to fix bugs based on user experience and troubleshooting. With every update, new features are being rolled out to help overcome problems that are yet to be resolved by previous updates.