locking outlook down

[AHarvey]

Hi all,

Before I suggest this to our director I wanted to make sure it was possible.

I'm not sure on our server setup but we use outlook for all our email at work, now, we deal in confidential material so we need to be extra careful in what employee's can access.

90% of our staff do not need to email anyone outside of the company.

is it possible to lock down outlook so that those 90% can only email internally?

 

[Columbo]

I can understand the principal and we have been down this road in our workplace however ultimately we didn't bother for the following.

Surely they can't access what they aren't supposed to see in work so why limiting external access change that?
What stops them just forwarding said material to an external email if someone was so inclined?
Limiting access would have actually reduced productivity, many of our staff work from home and in the evenings of their own accord and while not obviously expected it does make a valuable contribution.
A sensible and binding policy around usage and access agreed and signed between the company and the individual was found to be a far better solution for all involved.

 

[AHarvey]

I can understand the principal and we have been down this road in our workplace however ultimately we didn't bother for the following.

Surely they can't access what they aren't supposed to see in work so why limiting external access change that?
What stops them just forwarding said material to an external email if someone was so inclined?
Limiting access would have actually reduced productivity, many of our staff work from home and in the evenings of their own accord and while not obviously expected it does make a valuable contribution.
A sensible and binding policy around usage and access agreed and signed between the company and the individual was found to be a far better solution for all involved.

These staff already have the internet access completely locked down, the only site they can access is Adobe and that is purely for upgrades to their software. They can't access external email or file sharing sites like Dropbox.

We don't have home staff so no issue there and we do have reporting software about internet access, sites, times etc as well as PC monitoring software looking at what is running.

Despite having contracts in place to limit the risk of confidential information getting out there is always the chance someone could, for whatever reason, email it out. As we've 3 main clients, a breach of security for one would result in losing all of them.

 

[Jim99]

The server setup is pretty important.

 

[AHarvey]

The server setup is pretty important.

They pay a 3rd party IT firm to do it and they charge silly money, this was more of a case of a) can it be done to this level per user account and b)what sort of time frame should it take (ball park figure)

Just so we can then approach them to sort it.

 

[Caged]

Data loss prevention and a solid way of checking logs is probably going to be more important than trying to lock Outlook down to emailing externally.

Do you lock down USB ports etc?

 

[HungryHippos]

Assuming your Email server is running Exchange, then it's best to lock it down there so that all emails get the rules applied during transit.

A couple of Transport Rules would take care of it. One for emails sent out, one for inbound emails (I'd assume you'd block emails both ways).

 

[Cuchulain]

Hi all,

Before I suggest this to our director I wanted to make sure it was possible.

I'm not sure on our server setup but we use outlook for all our email at work, now, we deal in confidential material so we need to be extra careful in what employee's can access.

90% of our staff do not need to email anyone outside of the company.

is it possible to lock down outlook so that those 90% can only email internally?

Locking down email accounts is not the way to do it, a robust NDA is.

 

[Jim99]

They pay a 3rd party IT firm to do it and they charge silly money, this was more of a case of a) can it be done to this level per user account and b)what sort of time frame should it take (ball park figure)

Just so we can then approach them to sort it.

My point is that if you're using exchange, gmail, etc that's going to make a difference.

The client is unlikely to be the way you solve this.