Microsoft extends Account Guard to Canada for political parties using Office365

To help ensure Canadian candidates, political parties and think tanks using certain Microsoft products suffer as few interferences as possible the company has extended its Account Guard service to this country.

Microsoft said last week the security service is offered at no additional cost to customers in the political space using Office 365, Hotmail or Outlook.com to help protect them from cybersecurity threats.

The main services are notification of a verifiable threat or compromise by a known nation-state actor against the participant’s O365 account, and notification to both the organization and, where possible, the impacted individual if a registered Hotmail.com or Outlook.com account associated with the organization is verifiably threatened or compromised by a known nation-state actor.

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In addition, parties and candidates can get access to best practices and security guidance specific to those in the political space, cybersecurity webinars and workshops, recommendations to the participating organization for remediation if a compromise is confirmed and a direct line to Microsoft’s Defending Democracy Program team.

Those eligible are

• Canada-based political campaigns at the federal and provincial elections
• Canada-based political parties at the federal, provincial level
• Canada-based think tanks and democracy advocacy organizations
• Canada-based political technology vendors; and
• Select individuals (with Outlook.com and Hotmail.com personal emails) invited to participate by an eligible organization.

Microsoft cautions that Account Guard is not a full-service pre-emptive or protective program and is only one piece of a robust cybersecurity protection plan. “This service does not make a participant “hack-proof” – it is the customer’s responsibility to manage security, including the need to remain alert to threats and implement protective controls to improve their security posture.”