Microsoft is preparing a new security feature for its Teams collaboration software that will keep you more informed about who is trying to communicate with you.
The latest addition (opens in a new tab) to the Microsoft 365 product roadmap explains that Microsoft Teams users will soon "have the option to acknowledge or leave group chat" when they receive an invite outside of their organization. The change is expected to go into effect sometime next month.
Although the roadmap entry offers few details, it highlights an unnecessary gap in security armor, which cybercriminals could exploit to gain access to sensitive data.
Microsoft team chat
Microsoft Teams has been letting users have group chats and calls outside of their organization and with personal users for a while now, but it's never been very good at letting you know where an invite is coming from.
It is a common problem. Those in busy organizations may not recognize a name simply due to the size of their workplace and may assume a stranger is actually a co-worker.
So far, the strongest security measure Microsoft has implemented to protect Teams users from this particular issue requires enabling external access capabilities. This means that the ability to be contacted by all Teams users, regardless of organization, is at the discretion of the user's organization administrator.
While the continued shift to remote working makes this a hugely useful feature, allowing organizations around the world to seamlessly collaborate online, the new update will come as a relief to members of large organizations, as well as any security-conscious worker. online.
Teams has had its fair share of security issues over the past year. While Microsoft has a reputation for fixing these issues quickly once they come to light, and has even gone so far as to enable end-to-end encryption on one-to-one calls, it may come as a bit of a surprise that a simple warning feature took so long to implement.
Bugs in software are inevitable, but when they expose users' files and information, it's easy to see how Teams' external access features could be misused.
While the upcoming update still depends on the vigilance of some users, it will certainly protect many savvy users from cyberattacks at work.