Generative AI has the potential to improve arguably every industry, but with its productivity gains come new data security risks to mitigate and monitor.
In this blog, we’ll share how ePlus and Varonis work together to help organizations adopt gen AI intelligently and with confidence.
How do data security challenges grow with gen AI?
Gen AI requires a whole new level of data visibility and control. Jim Bundy, Director of Security Advisory Services at ePlus says, “Copilot will find it; so, you need to find it first.”
Many organizations lack the resources to audit their environment regularly or fully roll out auto-labeling policies effectively. Therefore, companies that can apply automation or use AI to conduct this level of auditing and classification are more likely to adopt Copilot successfully. These same companies are also less likely to experience a breach, regardless of their AI adoption plans.
Copilot relies on a user's existing user permissions from Microsoft 365 to determine what data a person has access to fulfill requests asked through prompts. Copilot can access all the sensitive data that a user can access, which is often far too much. On average, 10% of a company's M365 data is open to all employees.
Copilot can also rapidly generate net-new sensitive data that must be protected. Sensitive data in – sensitive data out. Without the proper security strategy in place to inherit the proper labeling, this newly created critical information can quickly end up in the wrong hands.
With Varonis, organizations can confidently roll out AI while continually assessing and improving their data security posture before, during, and after deployment.
Why Varonis + ePlus?
Data security has never been more important than in the age of gen AI.
Without the right technology partner to find and protect an organization’s most sensitive data, it can be extremely resource-intensive for security teams to label and enforce proper permissions.
Yet even the best-suited technical solution is only as powerful as the practitioner implementing it for the customer. The importance of having both a strong Data Security Platform like Varonis and a trusted partner like ePlus cannot be overstated.
Together, ePlus and Varonis help organizations navigate the powerful world of gen AI, implementing best practices to mitigate risk. Moreover, customers achieve a shorter time to deployment through this partnership and can roll out Copilot across the enterprise significantly faster.
Varonis remediates data exposure risks and monitors Copilot activity using proven automation. ePlus can help organizations operationalize Varonis quickly and build long-term data governance programs aligned with their data security needs.
Varonis for Microsoft 365 Copilot’s features include:
- Copilot policy automation: Use dozens of customizable automations to prevent data leaks and quickly get your Microsoft 365 environment ready for a successful gen AI rollout.
- Copilot monitoring and forensics: Capture all Copilot interactions, including which files are being referenced in prompt responses, all in a centralized and searchable audit trail.
- Copilot threat detection: Varonis’ user and entity behavior analysis engine (UEBA) factors in Copilot activity and notifies customers of abnormal or suspicious Copilot interactions with sensitive data.
- Athena AI integration: Easily investigate and resolve Copilot-related security incidents easily with Athena AI’s SOC assistant and natural language search capabilities.
Go beyond Copilot
In addition to security capabilities for Microsoft 365 Copilot, the Varonis Data Security Platform is your all-in-one platform to automatically find critical data, remediate exposure, and stop threats in the cloud and on-premises. Varonis is an industry leader in various cybersecurity verticals such as DSPM, threat detection, and more.
Varonis offers Managed Data Detection and Response (MDDR), the industry's first managed service dedicated to stopping threats at the data level.[1]
The service combines Varonis' award-winning threat detection technology and automation with a global team of elite threat hunters, forensics analysts, and incident responders who investigate and respond to threats around the clock.
Varonis integrates with leading EDR providers Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and SentinelOne, allowing our MDDR analysts to detect even more attacks and perform end-to-end investigations with little to no customer or third-party involvement.
In addition to Microsoft 365 Copilot, Varonis also helps ensure AI readiness in other platforms and cloud infrastructure, including Salesforce Einstein Copilot.
Ready to enable Copilot at your organization?
You deserve a strong security culture that can sustain your business today and tomorrow.
ePlus Security is a leading security technology advisor and integrator with a broad solutions portfolio, strong industry relationships, and an unmatched breadth of engineering talent and expertise. With a focus on customer experience, our security team designs and delivers outcome-focused, customized cybersecurity programs aimed at defining and mitigating business risk, maximizing technology investments, and creating safer digital environments.
Reach out to ePlus Security today to schedule an AI Security Data Readiness assessment which includes the Varonis Microsoft 365 Copilot Readiness Assessment to evaluate your current AI security posture. The assessment will quickly provide a clear, risk-based view of the data that matters most and a clear path to automated remediation.
[1] Blog: https://www.varonis.com/blog/managed-data-detection-and-response
Additional blog author: Avia Navickas, VP of Product Marketing, Varonis