What is Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS)?

Being head or administrator of a company is a matter of pride but comes with many responsibilities that others are least concerned about. And one of those major responsibility-cum-challenge is the protection of the company’s private information and data. According to a news published by India Times, it was revealed that almost 58% of mobile device users have suffered from data breaches. One of the biggest problems causing all these issues is weak passwords, as they are easily compromised. Moreover, now people can access their data at any place, at any device, and thus the security of all that data has become a challenge. There is already a solution to every problem, or a solution is being developed somewhere in the world. Here, considering the above-mentioned problem, we have found a solution, which is Microsoft EMS. 

What is Microsoft EMS? 

Earlier known as Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite, EMS is now known as Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security. Microsoft EMS is a suite comprising of four different products that earlier were available as four separate entities. EMS was launched to bring enterprise-grade security for small and medium businesses (SMBs), that Fortune 500 companies used.  The Microsoft EMS now comes with all those products bundled together, or as we can say, it is made up of four primary pillars. These include: 

• Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics
• Azure Rights Management
• Microsoft Intune
• Azure Active Directory Premium

In a technology world where employees want to work from anywhere and from their own devices, the Microsoft EMS plan allows maximum security and control over company’s critical data.

Microsoft EMS Bundled Products

Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics 

Microsoft EMS is mostly on the cloud, and therefore, the data, location, requests to access, and all other things are stored in the cloud only. The EMS constantly checks for the threats like anomalous behavior, malicious attacks, potential intruder, etc. On any such detection, it raises an alert and suggests the recommended action needed to resolve the issue. Summing up, the features provided under Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics include: 

• EMS has the ability to learn typical user behavior, which helps in recognizing only anomalous behaviors. 
• It possesses the ability to detect any suspicious patterns or behaviors very speedily, which otherwise can go unnoticed. 
• Prioritize risks and display clear incident information with a simple timeline to make investigation much quicker, easier, and more efficient.

Azure Rights and Management 

As we all know, not everyone can run or get all of the company’s information or documents related to that company in a company. Therefore, we need to block the information for some users based on certain factors like position, the date on which it is being viewed, etc. Here, the Azure Rights and Management becomes very as it is actually a security check, which helps in providing a check on whether the person trying to or having access to a particular data is actually allowed to do so or not. In short, it can be termed as “Document-level Security.” Some of the other features include: 

• Helps in controlling the sensitive email flow.
• Generating the security reports from SAP.
• Tracking the usage of documents by a user.
• A user can set the date of expiration of the document.

Microsoft Intune 

The control over data being accessed in a workspace is critical for a company to monitor the data being downloaded and malware being installed. This control helps the company keep their data secure from malware that might corrupt the files or lead to the breach of data and other sensitive information stored in the system. Some of the other features provided by Microsoft Intune are: 

• Managing the mobile application being used by the workforce.
• Protecting the company information by letting you access what and how data is being shared in the company.
• Checking whether the devices and applications being installed are compliant with the security requirements of a company or not.

 Azure Active Directory 

Using different services in a company needs different usernames and passwords for each service login but managing all those usernames and passwords is a big issue. With a company having thousands of employees, this management will create much burden for the administrator. This is where the Azure Active Directory comes to help. It is a cloud-based service that can be accessed by multiple tenants and provides identity management services. This Directory comes in four different versions, i.e., Free with Azure AD subscription and an Office 365 edition, providing the basic functions and services, and the other two are the premium versions: P1 and P2, which come with more functions and features like: 

• Streamlining the user experience and logins with single sign-on (SSO) across thousands of applications.
• Stepping up in security level and providing only conditional access.

Features of Microsoft EMS 

• Identity and access management 

The users are allowed to log in without any need for Passwords or patterns but rather voice recognition and Biometrics, thus making it more secure. The unified identity of each user is maintained to implement multi-factor authentication. 

• Integrated on-premises management 

Management of all the devices and apps from the cloud or integration of on-premise devices with your System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM) can easily be done using EMS. With the help of Intune, organizations can secure information and manage devices. Users can also use the devices of their choice to access corporate data and other resources, which helps them be more efficient.  

• Information Protection 

This EMS feature ensures the protection of information stored in the device no matter whether it is on the drive, cloud, or file share. EMS to make the data and information more secure also helps track the consent for the usage of that particular data. It can easily identify the credit card numbers and other security numbers present in a document, which are then marked sensitive or secret, and allows you to manage that document’s privacy settings. 

• Behavior-based threat analytics 

This includes protection from all the threats that we already hear nowadays in the market. EMS has the ability to detect what is normal and what is not, and therefore it detects the abnormal logins that have been made in the device.  

Microsoft EMS Pricing 

Microsoft EMS is available in different versions: E3 and E5, differing based on the features these offers and thus varying in their prices. M365 EMS E3 plan generally provides the functionality and features that are very basic, whereas M365 EMS E5 comes up with some advanced features, including Risk-based conditional access, Intelligent data classification and labeling, Microsoft Cloud App Security, and Microsoft Defender for Identity, and Privileged identity management. It has been genuinely priced, and the information regarding each version’s prices has been mentioned in the picture below. 

Microsoft EMS is a bundle of security offerings that can be purchased as a standalone product or when purchasing Microsoft 365. What is Microsoft 365? It’s a suite of Microsoft 365, Windows 10, and EMS. Read our comparison article to decide for your company: Microsoft 365 vs. Office 365

There are two tiers of Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS) called EMS E3 and EMS E5, which can be bought in four ways:

1. EMS E3 can be purchased as a standalone product
2. EMS E3 is included in the Microsoft 365 E3 bundle
3. EMS E5 can be purchased as a standalone product
4. EMS E5 is included in the Microsoft 365 E5 bundle

Conclusion

The mobile devices at workplaces are constantly exposed to cybersecurity attacks and hacking, due to which the companies are at risk of breaches. After viewing all the features, Microsoft EMS provides, it can be said that EMS bundle is a very powerful tool, and this is all you need for securing your business and corporate data. The data access control, identity encryption, device management, and all other EMS features are all helpful in enhancing the control over your IT. Key Features of Microsoft Enterprise Mobility & Security :

• Single sign-on to any app or service from any device
• Document-level security
• Secure access to company’s critical data from any device
• Constant monitoring and security