Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is taking no chances with dodgy attachments

By Anthony Spadafora
published

New update will add three additional file types to Defender's common attachment filter

Email warning
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Microsoft is working on a new update for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (opens in new tab) that will help better protect users of the company's email service (opens in new tab) from malicious attachments.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a cloud-based email filtering service that helps protect organizations from advanced threats to email and online collaboration tools (opens in new tab) such as phishing, business email compromise and malware (opens in new tab) attacks.

However, the service also provides investigation, hunting and remediation capabilities so that security teams can efficiently identify, prioritize, investigate and respond to threats.

While Defender for Office 365 can be used for cloud-based email protection for an organization's on-premises Exchange Server (opens in new tab) environment it can also be enabled to protect Exchange Online cloud-hosted (opens in new tab) mailboxes.

Common attachment filter update

In a new post (opens in new tab) to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap (opens in new tab), Microsoft explained that its currently updating the common attachment filter in Microsoft Defender for Office 365's anti-malware policy.

Essentially the company is adding three new file types to the service's common attachment filter or its default block list.

Beginning later this month, Defender for Office 365's Anti-malware policy will be updated with these new file types and you can refer to the service's Message Center to see the updated list.

Protecting your organization from malicious attachments containing malware is one of the main reasons companies use Microsoft Defender for Office 365. With this new update, the service will be even better at identifying malware so that it can prevent users from clicking on emails with dodgy attachments (opens in new tab).

Anthony Spadafora
Anthony Spadafora

After working with the TechRadar Pro team for the last several years, Anthony is now the security and networking editor at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches and ransomware gangs to the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. When not writing, you can find him tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home. 

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