Crash Course in

Microsoft Purview:
A guide to securing and
managing your data estate
Crash Course in Microsoft Purview: A guide to securing and managing your data estate 2

Table of Contents

How to secure and manage your most important 3

asset—your data

Data visibility and governance 5

1 Discover, understand, and govern data
across clouds and platforms

Data loss prevention 11

2
Safeguard data wherever it lives

Data risk management 17

3 Identify, manage, and reduce insider risk
and other potential data vulnerabilities

Go beyond compliance with Microsoft Purview 25

Crash Course in Microsoft Purview: A guide to securing and managing your data estate 3

How to secure and

manage your most
important asset—
your data
Data has become the lifeblood of every business. But to fuel
innovation and growth, data must be readily discoverable,
understandable, governable, and safe.

Unfortunately, 42 percent of organizations say at least half of

their data is “dark”—that is, unknown or unused for business
purposes. This problem has been compounded by the shift to
hybrid work, unprecedented levels of digital transformation,
and environments that now span many different devices, apps,
and clouds.

The market has responded with dozens of products that

address fragments of the data protection, governance, and
compliance landscape. But these point solutions typically don’t
work well together, exposing infrastructure gaps and increasing
the complexity and costs of management.

Microsoft Purview was designed to meet these challenges. It’s a

platform-based approach that enables information protection,
data governance, risk management, and compliance across
multicloud, multiplatform data estates.
Crash Course in Microsoft Purview: A guide to securing and managing your data estate 4

As a single, comprehensive solution, Microsoft Purview can

simplify vendor management, improve operational efficiency,
and use AI and automation to eliminate manual work and
help out overburdened SecOps and DevOps teams. All of that
means your organization can better contain costs and do more
with less. That’s always good business, of course, but it’s even
more important in times of global economic uncertainty.

This e-book will walk you through how Microsoft Purview

can help you:

Understand and govern data across clouds

and platforms

Safeguard data wherever it lives and prevent

exfiltration with Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools

Identify, manage, and help reduce insider risk

and other data vulnerabilities
Crash Course in Microsoft Purview: A guide to securing and managing your data estate 5

Data visibility
and governance
Discover, understand, and govern
data across clouds and platforms

If you want to generate data-driven insights and make smart

business decisions, the first step is often aggregating and
analyzing huge datasets from multiple sources.

To do that, you need visibility across your entire environment—

everywhere that data is created, stored, and shared. But with
the volume of data growing faster than ever, it’s never been
harder to understand and govern all that information.

1 2 3
Crash Course in Microsoft Purview: A guide to securing and managing your data estate 6

Why is data governance so important? Because it’s the

key to democratizing data responsibly. Data fuels digital
transformation, whether it’s coming from products,
operations, or employee and customer experiences. But to
create value from that data, your employees need the tools
and access to work with it safely and confidently, regardless of
technical knowhow.

Organizations face many obstacles to this kind of empowering

data democratization, but they can start by identifying their
data estate end to end, understanding the business context of
data, and ensuring data quality.

With Microsoft Purview, you’ll have the tools and insights to

govern your data at scale by following the steps in this section.

1 2 3
 1 Data visibility and governance 7

Step 1

Create a unified map of

all your data
The Microsoft Purview Data Map provides the foundation
for effective data discovery, governance, and usage. It
captures metadata across analytics, software-as-a-service
(SaaS), and operation systems in hybrid, on-premises, and
multicloud environments.

The data map stays up to date with built-in capabilities that

automatically scan and classify your data. You can also use
Apache Atlas APIs to easily integrate all your data catalogs
and systems—part of a collective effort with the open-
source community to make it easy to learn and get started
with Microsoft Purview.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview Data Map.

Learn more about how data is classified with

Microsoft Purview Information Protection.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4
 1 Data visibility and governance 8

Step 2

Make data easily discoverable

and maximize its value
To maximize the business value of data for the people
in your organization who use it, you need to make that
data easily discoverable. Unfortunately, if they don’t
know exactly how the data estate is structured, users can
have a hard time finding something—even if they know
exactly what they’re looking for.

Microsoft Purview Data Catalog has a browsing

experience that lets users explore all your available data.
They can use various filters to search within a given
collection, navigate between related collections, or even
browse by source type, such as Azure Blob Storage, SQL
Server, or Power BI.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview Data Catalog.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4
 1 Data visibility and governance 9

Step 3

Create policies to access,

move, and share data
Automated access policies make it easier for everyone in
your organization to access the data they need, while still
ensuring it stays protected.

Microsoft Purview Data Use Management lets you apply

specific policies for accessing, moving, or sharing across
various data sources. For example, you might want to
create and apply different policies to a particular resource
based on who’s accessing it—whether that’s DevOps, the
data owner themselves, or other users looking for self-
service access.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview Data Use Management.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4
 1 Data visibility and governance 10

Step 4

Limit the growth of real-time

data by eliminating duplicates
Traditional data sharing in most organizations involves
a lot of copying, refreshing, and transferring behind the
scenes. That usually ends up increasing storage costs,
creating many duplicates, and slowing access to time-
sensitive data.

Microsoft Purview Data Sharing lets you share all of that

data in-place—without moving or copying it—in near
real time, within and across organizations.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview Data Sharing.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4
Crash Course in Microsoft Purview: A guide to securing and managing your data estate 11

Data loss
prevention
Safeguard data wherever it lives

Data is created, stored, and shared across apps, clouds, and devices.
Knowing and understanding all that data is critical, but so is the next
step of safeguarding it.

The key is a structured and automated approach. That lets you

understand what data is sensitive and business-critical, so you can
then manage and protect it across your environment.

With Microsoft Purview, you can more effectively safeguard your

data—even if it’s not stored on Microsoft platforms—by following
the steps in this section.

1 2 3
2 Data loss prevention 12

Step 1

Locate and manage sensitive

information, even within
unstructured data
Your digital estate likely contains massive amounts of
unstructured data—files, documents, emails, messages,
and more. To identify potential risks, you need to
understand where sensitive data lives, who can access it,
what users are doing with it, how it is being shared, and
where it is traveling.

Microsoft Purview Information Protection helps

you automatically discover and protect sensitive data
anywhere it lives, so you can more effectively manage it
and reduce overall risk.

Learn how with

Microsoft Purview Information Protection.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5
 2 Data loss prevention 13

Step 2

Deploy DLP policies to restrict

data leakage
To protect your most sensitive data, you need to identify and
prevent risky or unauthorized sharing, transferring, or using
of it across endpoints, apps, services, and on-premises files.

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention helps users

understand and take the right actions while using sensitive
data, helping balance security and productivity. It helps
protect sensitive data from exfiltration across applications,
services, and devices, with integrations built on your existing
capabilities. It’s easy to get started with DLP policies, too, with
configuration and deployment that’s quick and intuitive.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5
2 Data loss prevention 14

Step 3

Build cross-platform support

for applying labels and
protecting files
A software development kit (SDK) can help you add new
capabilities to your applications—and in the case of the
Microsoft Purview Information Protection SDK, you can
enable your apps to apply labels and protection to files. For
example, you might subscribe to services specific to HR or
finance, and you want to make sure that data is properly
classified when it’s exported from those apps.

The Microsoft Purview Information Protection SDK makes

the labeling and protection services from Office 365 Security
and Compliance Center available to third-party applications
and services. This lets you apply consistent labels and
protection, so applications and services can read and write
labels in the same predictable way.

Learn how with the

Microsoft Purview Information Protection SDK.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5
2 Data loss prevention 15

Step 4

Utilize data connectors to bring

in data from external sources
You need to safeguard sensitive data across your entire
environment, including non-Microsoft data sources such as
messaging or video-conferencing apps.

Microsoft Purview data connectors let you ingest data from

a wide variety of sources with high fidelity. Once ingested,
data can then be used across multiple solutions including
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management, eDiscovery,
Communication Compliance, and Insider Risk Management.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview data connectors.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5
 2 Data loss prevention 16

Step 5

Automate data classification

and governance at scale
You need to manage your records and information lifecycle
carefully to meet legal, business, privacy, and regulatory
obligations. That involves keeping what you need and getting
rid of what you don’t need broadly across your organization.
Built-in classification and governance can help, by automatically
classifying content and applying the appropriate policies. For
example, you might automatically apply retention labels to
anything with PII (Personally Identifiable Information), such as
passport or Social Security numbers.

Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management automates

classification and governance at scale, using file properties, pattern
recognition, 90+ sensitive info types, and machine learning.

Learn how with

Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5
Crash Course in Microsoft Purview: A guide to securing and managing your data estate 17

Data risk
management
Identify, manage, and
reduce insider risk and other
potential data vulnerabilities

Managing data protection and compliance can be a

massive challenge. And it’s made tougher by larger data
volumes, increasing regulatory complexity, remote work
environments, and growing insider risk.

Once you’ve understood and protected your data, the

final step in a comprehensive data protection approach
is reducing your data risk.

With Microsoft Purview, you’ll be able to get a better

handle on risk by following the steps in this section.

1 2 3
3 Data risk management 18

Step 1

Leverage machine learning to

identify potential insider risks
The proliferation of digital data and the rise of remote and
hybrid work have increased concern around insider risks.
Organizations everywhere face real challenges in protecting
themselves from harm arising from misuse of authorized
access—both accidental and malicious.

Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management uses machine

learning to correlate a broad range of signals to identify
potential insider risks, so you can quickly identify and
act on them.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3 Data risk management 19

Step 2

Detect potential violations

in communications related
to regulatory compliance or
business conduct
It’s important to foster compliant communications, by
protecting sensitive information and detecting inappropriate
messages, such as those containing harassing or threatening
language or adult content.

Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance provides

tools to help organizations identify these kinds of issues,
including compliance violations related to regulations
like SEC or FINRA. Built with privacy by design, these
tools provide role-based access controls, pseudonymize
usernames by default, and maintain audit logs to help
ensure user-level privacy.

Learn how with

Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
 3 Data risk management 20

Step 3

Store and retain core

business records
Your organization likely needs to meet regulatory and
compliance requirements around records management.
You need to be ready at any time to demonstrate
compliance with regulations, but ideally you also want
to dispose of data that’s no longer valuable or no longer
required for business or regulatory reasons.

Microsoft Purview Records Management gives you

a reliable system to manage and store regulatory,
legal, and business-critical records, retaining them in
unalterable, compliant formats.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview Records Management.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3 Data risk management 21

Step 4

Power forensic investigations

with audit-ready reporting
and insights
Your organization might need to conduct forensic or
compliance investigations at times, especially when
researching possible breaches and determining the scope
of a compromise. This can require specific information,
such as when and what a user searched for, as well as when
particular emails were accessed, replied to, or forwarded.

Microsoft Purview Audit makes forensic investigations

more productive and efficient. It provides insights on user
activity, high-bandwidth data access, and reporting that
helps you feel more prepared for audits. It can also help
you preserve audit logs to meet regulatory requirements
for up to 10 years.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview Audit.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
 3 Data risk management 22

Step 5

Identify legal risks

and investigate
If your organization needs to respond to a legal matter or
internal investigation, the first step will be discovering where
the relevant data lives. You’ll need to identify persons of
interest and their data sources, apply holds to preserve data,
and manage the communication process around legal holds.

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery provides an end-to-end

workflow to preserve, collect, analyze, review, and export
content for both internal and external investigations.
Intelligent machine learning capabilities such as deep
indexing, email threading, and near-duplicate detection can
also help you narrow down large volumes of data.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview eDiscovery.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3 Data risk management 23

Step 6

Continuously assess and track

your compliance effectiveness
Managing compliance requirements in a multicloud
environment can be challenging. You need to take
inventory of data protection risks, deal with complexity
when implementing controls, stay current with regulations
and certifications, and be ready to report to auditors.

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager can help

you continuously assess and track the effectiveness of
your compliance efforts. It has many capabilities that
simplify compliance and reduce risk, including pre-built
assessments for common standards—for example, around
certain industry or governmental bodies. You also get step-
by-step guidance on suggested improvements, as well as a
risk-based compliance score to help you understand your
compliance posture.

Learn how with Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3 Data risk management 24

Step 7

Automate workflows
and reporting
Microsoft Purview has built-in extensibility that can
help you adapt, extend, integrate, accelerate, and
support your compliance solutions, primarily using data
connectors and APIs.

One example is Microsoft Graph APIs for eDiscovery. If

your organization handles many eDiscovery requests and
cases, you know that the associated workflows can be
frequent, critical, and high volume. Automation can be a
big help, especially with common repeated tasks or large
numbers of activities.

Microsoft Graph APIs for eDiscovery provide a scalable

way to repeat processes consistently and effectively. By
supporting workflows with APIs, you can give yourself
flexible options for automation and integration, from
upstream processes (such as case creation) to downstream
(such as collection, review set queries, or export).

Learn more about the extensibility of Microsoft Purview.

Learn more about Microsoft Graph APIs for eDiscovery.

1 2 3 Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Crash Course in Microsoft Purview: A guide to securing and managing your data estate 25

Go beyond compliance
with Microsoft Purview
Microsoft Purview represents a new way to approach your data strategy, with a unified view
across multicloud, multiplatform environments. Security and compliance leaders can finally
bring together the business users of data with the protectors of data.

Every strategy covered in this e-book is available through Microsoft 365 E5 and Microsoft
Purview, a comprehensive portfolio of products that spans information protection, data
governance, risk management, and compliance.

With Microsoft Purview, you can close exposure gaps, simplify tasks through automation,
and control costs so you can do more with less. You can keep your most important asset—
your data—safe.

Microsoft Purview can help you consolidate your existing data

protection tools with a single comprehensive solution

Learn how >

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