Microsoft announces that Application Guard will be available to all Office 365 users with compatible licenses

It was in September 2020 when Microsoft announced the arrival of Application Guard for Office. A tool created to proactively prevent attacks suffered on our computers. And now, in January 2021, the company has announced that it is available to all Microsoft 365 users with supported licenses

The operation of Application Guard is simple but at the same time effective: block files downloaded from untrustworthy sources and make them not count with access to trusted resources when opened, by sandboxing such documents from untrusted sources.

Documents in secure environments

In this way, Application Guard for Office or what is the same, Microsoft Defender Application Guard for Office, makes use of a a separate space, a kind of sandbox, to open those documents that come from unsafe sources and thus minimize the threat before they are opened.

Microsoft noted that scans every malicious attack using Application Guard, in a way that serves to improve the use of machine learning to defend against threats. In addition, it informs that said files are also protected against kernel-based attacks, since the containers are based on Hyper-V.

The use of Application Guard for Office allows these documents that we open in that sandbox or isolated virtual space, to be edited or printed without having to leave that secure environment Files that come from unsecured sources, documents blocked by File Block, or those stored in potentially insecure folders or networks.

Application Guard also allows if a user needs it, protection can be disabled for a specific file Before, the document will be scanned with the Secure Documents feature if it is enabled. Along with document protection, Application Guard also monitors email security.

To be able to use Application Guard, computers must meet a series of requirements, both hardware and software :

• 64-bit CPU, with 4 cores (physical or virtual), virtualization extensions (Intel VT-x OR AMD-V ), Core i5 equivalent or better recommended
• Physical memory: 8 GB of RAM
• Hard disk: 10 GB free space on system drive (SSD recommended)
• Windows 10: Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, Client Build version 2004 (20H1) build 19041 or later
• Office: Office Current Channel Build version 2011 16.0.13530.10000 or later
• Update Package: Windows 10 KB4571756

Application Guard works with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 and is a feature that comes turned off by default and administrators can Deploy it to endpoint computers that are running at least Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, version 2004 (20H1) and have the cumulative monthly security update KB4571756 installed.

More information | Microsoft Via | Neowin