Microsoft brings new security features to Office 365
Microsoft adds Application Guard for Office. Application Guard for Office provides hardware-level and container-based protection against potentially malicious Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. It utilizes Microsoft Defender ATP to establish whether a document is either malicious or trusted.
Application Guard allows arbitrary scripts loaded by the browser to be executed in a separate virtual sandbox, even if the script has a virus and cannot infect the host. The company has also updated the Microsoft Office 365 family of products to bring similar functionality to run file attachments in virtualized containers to avoid potential attacks.
Image: Microsoft
In the field of office software, macro viruses are always the biggest problem that plagues businesses. Attackers often put macro viruses in documents and then induce users to execute macro files. For users who are not familiar with macros, it is very easy to be induced and actively execute macro files, and viruses carried in macro files can directly infect target computers. The director of the Microsoft Operating System Security Partner stated that documents that are not trusted, such as documents containing macros, are automatically placed in the virtualization container to prevent infection.
To use this feature, users need to enable the Windows 10 Application Guard Application Protection Service and use the Office 365 ProPlus Edition.
