How Defender for Cloud Apps helps protect your Box environment

Note

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (previously known as Microsoft Cloud App Security) is now part of Microsoft 365 Defender. The Microsoft 365 Defender portal allows security admins to perform their security tasks in one location. This will simplify workflows, and add the functionality of the other Microsoft 365 Defender services. Microsoft 365 Defender will be the home for monitoring and managing security across your Microsoft identities, data, devices, apps, and infrastructure. For more information about these changes, see Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps in Microsoft 365 Defender.

As a cloud file storage and collaboration tool, Box enables your users to share their documents across your organization and partners in a streamlined and efficient way. Using Box may expose your sensitive data not only internally, but also to external collaborators, or even worse make it publicly available via a shared link. Such incidents can be caused by malicious actors, or by unaware employees.

Connecting Box to Defender for Cloud Apps gives you improved insights into your users' activities, provide threat detection using machine learning based anomaly detections, information protection detections such as detecting external information sharing, and enabling automated remediation controls.

Main threats

• Compromised accounts and insider threats
• Data leakage
• Insufficient security awareness
• Malware
• Ransomware
• Unmanaged bring your own device (BYOD)

How Defender for Cloud Apps helps to protect your environment

• Detect cloud threats, compromised accounts, and malicious insiders
• Discover, classify, label, and protect regulated and sensitive data stored in the cloud
• Enforce DLP and compliance policies for data stored in the cloud
• Limit exposure of shared data and enforce collaboration policies
• Use the audit trail of activities for forensic investigations

Control Box with built-in policies and policy templates

You can use the following built-in policy templates to detect and notify you about potential threats:

Type	Name
Built-in anomaly detection policy	Activity from anonymous IP addresses Activity from infrequent country Activity from suspicious IP addresses Impossible travel Activity performed by terminated user (requires Azure Active Directory as IdP) Malware detection Multiple failed login attempts Ransomware detection Unusual administrative activities Unusual file deletion activities Unusual file share activities Unusual multiple file download activities
Activity policy template	Logon from a risky IP address Mass download by a single user Potential ransomware activity
File policy template	Detect a file shared with an unauthorized domain Detect a file shared with personal email addresses Detect files with PII/PCI/PHI

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 Box governance actions to remediate detected threats:

Type	Action
Data governance	- Change shared link access level on folders - Put folders in admin quarantine - Put folders in user quarantine - Remove a collaborator from folders - Remove direct shared links on folders - Remove external collaborators on folders - Send DLP violation digest to file owners - Send violation digest to last file editor - Set expiration date to a folder shared link - Trash folder
User governance	- Suspend user - Notify user on alert (via Azure AD) - Require user to sign in again (via Azure AD) - Suspend user (via Azure AD)

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

Protect Box 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.

Next steps

How to connect Box to Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps