exchange server and defender for o365

Question

hi team,

need your advise on the below

i have an exchange server and i want to integrate defender for o365 with it. No need for hybrid, my mailboxes will stay on exchange server, and I just need to leverage O365 protection.

1. can i use defender for o365 to achieve that? if yes, safe links, attachments will apply?
2. if yes, what are the prerequisites needed? (azure ad connect, connectors, MX...)

thank you

Answer 1

Hi,

Yes Defender for Office 365 is designed to do this. In majority of scenarios (on-premise, Cloud, Hybrid, and any other SMTP solution).

The only technical perquisite is to register MX record points to Exchange Online Protection (EOP)

See Here

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/transport-routing

For features and licencing, check here (example: Safe Documents is available only in A5/E5/F5/G5 Security licences)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/office-365-advanced-threat-protection-service-description

I hope this helped.

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Answer 2

Hi @eg1995

1.can i use defender for o365 to achieve that? if yes, safe links, attachments will apply?

Yes, they can work together. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 contain additional features that give more layers of security, control, and investigation.

Safe links policy and Attachments settings please refer to: Microsoft recommendations for EOP and Defender for Office 365 security settings | Microsoft Learn

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Answer 3

so to recap team, can I just use defender for o365 to protect my onpremises mailboxes as it already includes EOP? or should I assign both licenses to the users, EOP and defender for O365?