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How Defender for Cloud Apps helps protect your Smartsheet

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As a productivity and collaboration cloud solution, Smartsheet holds sensitive information to your organization. Any abuse of Smartsheet by a malicious actor or any human error may expose your most critical assets and services to potential attacks.

Connecting Smartsheet to Defender for Cloud Apps gives you improved insights into your Smartsheet activities and provides threat detection for anomalous behavior.

Main threats

  • Compromised accounts and insider threats

  • Data leakage

  • Insufficient security awareness

  • Unmanaged bring your own device (BYOD)

How Defender for Cloud Apps helps to protect your environment

Control Smartsheet with policies

Type Name
Built-in anomaly detection policy Unusual file share activities
Unusual file deletion activities
Unusual administrative activities
Unusual multiple file download activities
Activity policy Build a customized policy by the Smartsheet Audit Log activities

Note

  • Login/Logouts activities are not supported by Smartsheet.
  • Smartsheet activities does not contain IP addresses.

For more information about creating policies, see Create a policy.

Automate governance controls

In addition to monitoring for potential threats, you can apply and automate the following Smartsheet governance actions to remediate detected threats:

Type Action
User governance Notify user on alert (via Microsoft Entra ID)
Require user to sign in again (via Microsoft Entra ID)
Suspend user (via Microsoft Entra ID)

For more information about remediating threats from apps, see Governing connected apps.

Protect Smartsheet in real time

Review our best practices for securing and collaborating with external users and blocking and protecting the download of sensitive data to unmanaged or risky devices.

Connect Smartsheet to Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

This section describes how to connect Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps to your existing Smartsheet via the App Connector APIs. The resulting connection gives you visibility into and control over your organization's use of Smartsheet.

Prerequisites

  • The Smartsheet user used to log in to Smartsheet must be a System Admin.
  • Event Reporting must be enabled by Smartsheet, either through standalone purchase or via an Enterprise plan with the Advance Platinum package.

Configure Smartsheet

Note

The Smartsheet license must be an Enterprise plan with the Platinum package.

Smartsheet accounts hosted in the EU region (the .eu domain suffix) aren't currently supported.

  1. Register to add Developer Tools to your existing Smartsheet account:

    1. Go to the Developer Sandbox Account Registration page.

    2. Enter your Smartsheet email address in the text box:

      Screenshot that shows the Developer Sandbox Account Registration page.

    3. An activation mail will appear in your mailbox. Activate Developer Tools by using the activation mail.

    4. In Smartsheet, select Create Developer Profile. Enter your name and email address. Select Save and then Close:

      Screenshot that shows the name and email text boxes.

  2. In Smartsheet, select Developer Tools:

    Screenshot that shows the Developer Tools menu item.

  3. In the Developer Tools dialog, select Create New App:

    Screenshot that shows the Create New App button.

  4. In the Create New App dialog, provide the following values:

    • App name: For example, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.

    • App description: For example, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps connects to Smartsheet via its API and detects threats within users' activity.

    • App URL: https://portal.cloudappsecurity.com

    • App contact/support: https://learn.microsoft.com/cloud-app-security/support-and-ts

    • App redirect URL: https://portal.cloudappsecurity.com/api/oauth/saga

      Note

      • For US Government GCC customers, enter the following value: https://portal.cloudappsecuritygov.com/api/oauth/saga
      • For US Government GCC High customers, enter the following value: https://portal.cloudappsecurity.us/api/oauth/saga

    • Publish App?: Select.

    • Logo: Leave blank.

      Screenshot that shows the Create New App dialog.

  5. Select Save. Copy the App client id and the App secret that are generated. You'll need them in the following steps.

Configure Defender for Cloud Apps

Note

The Smartsheet user configuring the integration must always remain a Smartsheet admin, even after the connector is installed.

  1. In the Microsoft Defender Portal, select Settings. Then choose Cloud Apps. Under Connected apps, select App Connectors.

  2. On the App connectors tab, select +Connect an app, and then select Smartsheet.

  3. In the next window, give the connector a descriptive name, and then select Next.

    Screenshot that shows the Connect Smartsheet button.

  4. On the Enter details screen, enter these values and select Next:

    • Client ID: The app client ID that you saved earlier.
    • Client Secret: The app secret that you saved earlier.

  5. On the External Link page, select Connect Smartsheet.

  6. In the Microsoft Defender Portal, select Settings. Then choose Cloud Apps. Under Connected apps, select App Connectors. Make sure the status of the connected App Connector is Connected.

  7. The first connection can take up to four hours to get all users and their activities in the seven days before the connection.

  8. After the connector's Status is marked as Connected, the connector is live and works.

Rate limits and limitations

The default rate limit is 300 requests per minute. For more information, see the Smartsheet documentation.

Limitations include:

  • Log in and log out activities aren't supported by Smartsheet.
  • Smartsheet activities don't contain IP addresses.
  • System activities are shown with the Smartsheet account name.

Next steps

Control cloud apps by using policies

If you run into any problems, we're here to help. To get assistance or support for your product issue, please open a support ticket.