The power of scheduled PowerScripts
PowerScripts is a feature within VitalSigns that allows for the controlled execution of Microsoft PowerShell scripts and commands. Starting with VitalSigns version 6.2 you can now schedule PowerScripts to run on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
This opens the door for a variety of proactive measures you can take automatically to keep your Office 365/Microsoft 365 environment running securely and efficiently.
Identify compromised mail files
You might be wondering what kind of script you might want to run on a daily basis. Consider the case of a user’s mail account getting compromised by a hacker. Would the user even know? Perhaps not, at least not right away. But that’s where scheduled PowerScripts come in. If a hacker gets into a user’s mail it’s normally for one of two reasons: 1) to steal information or 2) to send out SPAM. To cover their tracks hackers normally create mail rules which can be identified. You cannot expect users to periodically look at their own mail rules to see if there is one which they did not create. When was the last time you looked at your mail rules?
Stealing Information
When a hacker wants to steal corporate information, a great way to do that is to penetrate a user’s mail and create a mail rule which automatically forwards all incoming mail to an external email address.
Sending out SPAM
When a hacker wants to send out SPAM from a user’s mail account they will worry that some of the messages they send will be to bad, and the message might bounce back as undeliverable. If this happens the user will see the message and think “hey, I didn’t send that!” But the hacker doesn’t want this to happen so they will create a rule to delete inbound mail.
Solution
VitalSigns comes with pre-written scripts which will identify potentially troubling mail rules and it even includes scripts which allow the service desk to disable these rules. We don’t disable the rules automatically because there may be valid business reasons to have such rules but – of course – you can modify the included scripts in any way you desire to fully meet your needs.
We think this is a powerful and proactive way to keep a watchful eye on the security of your end user mail accounts automatically and regularly. This concept can be extended in an infinite variety and we welcome your suggestions for additional scripts we can include in the product.
What are PowerScripts?
PowerScripts is a feature within VitalSigns that allows for the controlled execution of Microsoft PowerShell scripts and commands. PowerScripts provide a secure wrapper around PowerShell scripts that run against of a specific thing (a Team a User, a Mailbox, a folder, etc.) or against selected things (a group of mailboxes, for example). PowerScripts are executed using stored credentials– which the user cannot see– and create an audit trail so you will know who did what, when and to what. PowerScripts can also be scheduled to run on a recurrent basis to proactively identify or prevent problems.
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