Before we start, please not that if you want to see a table of contents for all the sections of this blog and their various Purview topics, you can locate the in the following link:
Microsoft Purview- Paint By Numbers Series (Part 0) - Overview - Microsoft Tech Community
Disclaimer
This document is not meant to replace any official documentation, including those found at docs.microsoft.com. Those documents are continually updated and maintained by Microsoft Corporation. If there is a discrepancy between this document and what you find in the Compliance User Interface (UI) or inside of a reference in docs.microsoft.com, you should always defer to that official documentation and contact your Microsoft Account team as needed. Links to the docs.microsoft.com data will be referenced both in the document steps as well as in the appendix.
All of the following steps should be done with test data, and where possible, testing should be performed in a test environment. Testing should never be performed against production data.
Target Audience
The Insider Risk Management section of this blog series is geared toward Security and Compliance officers who need to monitor users behavior when it comes to compliance data.
Document Scope
This document is meant to guide an administrator who is “net new” to Microsoft E5 Compliance through the use of Insider Risk Management (IRM).
It is presumed that you already data to search inside your tenant.
We will only step through a basic eDiscovery case (see the Use Case section).
This section will only cover the Alerts aspect of IRM.
Out-of-Scope
This document does not cover any other aspect of Microsoft E5 Compliance, including:
- Sensitive Information Types
- Exact Data Matching
- Data Protection Loss (DLP) for Exchange, OneDrive, Devices
- Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS)
- Records Management (retention and disposal)
- Overview of Advanced eDiscovery (AeD)
- Reports and Analytics available in of Advanced eDiscovery (AeD)
It is presumed that you have a pre-existing of understanding of what Microsoft E5 Compliance does and how to navigate the User Interface (UI).
It is also presumed you are using an existing Information Types (SIT) or a SIT you have created for your testing.
As it relates to Insider Risk Management we will not be covering:
- Permissions
- Settings
- Policies
- Cases (investigations)
- Users
- Notifications
- Creation of Advanced eDiscovery Cases from IRM
Use Case
There are many use cases related to accessing and sharing of sensitive data. One example is – A user is accessing and sharing sensitive data on a regular bass and management needs to know if there are any spikes in access or sharing of that information that might coordinate with negative HR reports, resignations, etc.
Overview of Document
This section will cover the triaging of Alerts before you create a case (investigation) for a user(s).
We will walk through the four parts of the Alert:
- Summary
- All risk factors
- Activity explorer
- User activity
Definitions
- Data Theft – This means data taken/stolen by departing users near their resignation or termination date.
- Data Leakage – Data leaks can range from accidental oversharing of information outside your organization to data theft with malicious intent.
- Indicators – Indicators included in insider risk management policies used to determine a risk score for an in-scope user. These policy indicators are only activated after a triggering event occurs for a user.
- Thresholds – Each indicator uses default thresholds that influences an activity's risk score, which in turn determines whether an alert's severity is low, medium, or high. The threshold is based on the number of events recorded for an activity per day.
- Triggers – Triggering events determine when a policy will begin to assign risk scores to a user's activity.
- Anonymization – Masking a user’s name and account information to prevent bias from investigators
- Telemetry – data from the M365 Audit log (ex. deletions, changes, label modifications, uploads, etc),
- Risk Score – Insider Risk Management leverages a score system to track how low or high a risk an activity is 100/100 is the highest risk possible. 0/100 is the lowest risk possible.
Notes
None
Pre-requisites
If you have performed parts 1-3 of this blog series, then you have everything you need to run this . If you have not done those parts of the blog, you will need to populate your test environment with test data for the steps to follow.
You must have enabled at least 1 Insider Risk Management license
It is recommended you have completed Part 3a DLP for Endpoint, or at the least, that you have on-boarded a minimum of one Windows 10/11 device to test the collection of Endpoint DLP policies into Insider Risk management (IRM).
You have loaded an Insider Risk Management (IRM) licensing for at least 1 week in order to collect as much telemetry as possible. That you have run Sensitivity and DLP testing during that 1 week, again, to add telemetry information to your IRM console.
You should have done steps 6-6c in this series.
Part 1 – Alerts
Alerts will be generated only after a Policy is created. If you have not done so already, please create a Policy as shown in part 6c.
- Go to the Insider Risk Management section in the left-hand side of the Compliance portal.
- In the top ribbon, click on Alerts.
- At the top you will see the alerts that need the most attention. In my example here I have 1 alert that needs attention.
- At the bottom, you will see the individual alerts. Each of these alerts will by default list the following:
- The Anonymized name
- Trigger for the Alert (ex. a DLP policy)
- Status
- Alert Severity
- Time detected
- Case
- Case Status
- Now click on an individual alert.
Part 1a – Summary
- You will now be taken to the specific alert. At the top you will see a general summary of the alert:
- why the alert was generated
- the triggering event
- the User profile (anonymized)
- the User Alert history.
- Now we will look at the specific telemetry associated with this alert in the tab at the bottom labeled All Risk Factors.
Part 1b – All Risk Factors
- At the bottom of the Summary page, you will see a breakdown of all the information on the tab labeled All Risk Factors. The panels on this tab will show more specifics on telemetry associated with the alert: Sensitive Information Types (SITs), top keywords, users, etc.
2. You can drill down into each of these by clicking on the line embedded in it the column of each panel labeled Number of activities. I will click on the U.S. SSN – numbers only link of 2146.
3. This will take you to the Activity Explorer page. Proceed to the next section for details on this page
Part 1c – Activity Explorer
- Click on Activity Explorer tab at the top.
2. On the left-hand side you can Filter by Date or Risk Factor as calculated by the Machine Learning of the system, amongst other options and sub-options. For example, 0/100 is no risk and 100/100 is the most at risk. Below you will see that I’ve filtered by the highest risk score (100/100).
3. The right-hand side lets you look at the list of activities associated with this report.
4. At the top are filters that let you more easily sift through the data. The default Activity is Any, but I recommend you narrow this to something more specific to your testing.
5.We are done with this section. Move to the User Explorer tab.
Part 1d – User Activity
- Click on Activity Explorer tab at the top.
2. On the left-hand side you can Filter the activity by Risk Category or Activity Type.
3. On the right-hand side you will see a graphical representation of what has happened over the period selected.
4. We are done with this section. You can proceed to the next part of this blog series.
Appendix and Links
Learn about insider risk management - Microsoft 365 Compliance | Microsoft Docs
Investigate insider risk management activities - Microsoft 365 Compliance | Microsoft Docs
Insider risk management cases - Microsoft 365 Compliance | Microsoft Docs
Insider risk management policies - Microsoft 365 Compliance | Microsoft Docs
Insider risk management notice templates - Microsoft 365 Compliance | Microsoft Docs
Insider risk management settings - Microsoft 365 Compliance | Microsoft Docs
Note: This solution is a sample and may be used with Microsoft Compliance tools for dissemination of reference information only. This solution is not intended or made available for use as a replacement for professional and individualized technical advice from Microsoft or a Microsoft certified partner when it comes to the implementation of a compliance and/or advanced eDiscovery solution and no license or right is granted by Microsoft to use this solution for such purposes. This solution is not designed or intended to be a substitute for professional technical advice from Microsoft or a Microsoft certified partner when it comes to the design or implementation of a compliance and/or advanced eDiscovery solution and should not be used as such. Customer bears the sole risk and responsibility for any use. Microsoft does not warrant that the solution or any materials provided in connection therewith will be sufficient for any business purposes or meet the business requirements of any person or organization.