Quantify the value of Netskope One SSE – Get the 2024 Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study

close
close
  • Why Netskope chevron

    Changing the way networking and security work together.

  • Our Customers chevron

    Netskope serves more than 3,400 customers worldwide including more than 30 of the Fortune 100

  • Our Partners chevron

    We partner with security leaders to help you secure your journey to the cloud.

A Leader in SSE. Now a Leader in Single-Vendor SASE.

Learn why Netskope debuted as a leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™️ for Single-Vendor Secure Access Service Edge

Get the report
Customer Visionary Spotlights

Read how innovative customers are successfully navigating today’s changing networking & security landscape through the Netskope One platform.

Get the eBook
Customer Visionary Spotlights
Netskope’s partner-centric go-to-market strategy enables our partners to maximize their growth and profitability while transforming enterprise security.

Learn about Netskope Partners
Group of diverse young professionals smiling
Your Network of Tomorrow

Plan your path toward a faster, more secure, and more resilient network designed for the applications and users that you support.

Get the white paper
Your Network of Tomorrow
Netskope Cloud Exchange

The Netskope Cloud Exchange (CE) provides customers with powerful integration tools to leverage investments across their security posture.

Learn about Cloud Exchange
Aerial view of a city
  • Security Service Edge chevron

    Protect against advanced and cloud-enabled threats and safeguard data across all vectors.

  • SD-WAN chevron

    Confidently provide secure, high-performance access to every remote user, device, site, and cloud.

  • Secure Access Service Edge chevron

    Netskope One SASE provides a cloud-native, fully-converged and single-vendor SASE solution.

The platform of the future is Netskope

Security Service Edge (SSE), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Cloud Firewall, Next Generation Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and Private Access for ZTNA built natively into a single solution to help every business on its journey to Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture.

Go to Products Overview
Netskope video
Next Gen SASE Branch is hybrid — connected, secured, and automated

Netskope Next Gen SASE Branch converges Context-Aware SASE Fabric, Zero-Trust Hybrid Security, and SkopeAI-powered Cloud Orchestrator into a unified cloud offering, ushering in a fully modernized branch experience for the borderless enterprise.

Learn about Next Gen SASE Branch
People at the open space office
SASE Architecture For Dummies

Get your complimentary copy of the only guide to SASE design you’ll ever need.

Get the eBook
SASE Architecture For Dummies eBook
Make the move to market-leading cloud security services with minimal latency and high reliability.

Learn about NewEdge
Lighted highway through mountainside switchbacks
Safely enable the use of generative AI applications with application access control, real-time user coaching, and best-in-class data protection.

Learn how we secure generative AI use
Safely Enable ChatGPT and Generative AI
Zero trust solutions for SSE and SASE deployments

Learn about Zero Trust
Boat driving through open sea
Netskope achieves FedRAMP High Authorization

Choose Netskope GovCloud to accelerate your agency’s transformation.

Learn about Netskope GovCloud
Netskope GovCloud
  • Resources chevron

    Learn more about how Netskope can help you secure your journey to the cloud.

  • Blog chevron

    Learn how Netskope enables security and networking transformation through secure access service edge (SASE)

  • Events and Workshops chevron

    Stay ahead of the latest security trends and connect with your peers.

  • Security Defined chevron

    Everything you need to know in our cybersecurity encyclopedia.

Security Visionaries Podcast

2025 Predictions
In this episode of Security Visionaries, we're joined by Kiersten Todt, President at Wondros and former Chief of Staff for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to discuss predictions for 2025 and beyond.

Play the podcast Browse all podcasts
2025 Predictions
Latest Blogs

Read how Netskope can enable the Zero Trust and SASE journey through secure access service edge (SASE) capabilities.

Read the blog
Sunrise and cloudy sky
SASE Week 2024 On-Demand

Learn how to navigate the latest advancements in SASE and zero trust and explore how these frameworks are adapting to address cybersecurity and infrastructure challenges

Explore sessions
SASE Week 2024
What is SASE?

Learn about the future convergence of networking and security tools in today’s cloud dominant business model.

Learn about SASE
  • Company chevron

    We help you stay ahead of cloud, data, and network security challenges.

  • Careers chevron

    Join Netskope's 3,000+ amazing team members building the industry’s leading cloud-native security platform.

  • Customer Solutions chevron

    We are here for you and with you every step of the way, ensuring your success with Netskope.

  • Training and Accreditations chevron

    Netskope training will help you become a cloud security expert.

Supporting sustainability through data security

Netskope is proud to participate in Vision 2045: an initiative aimed to raise awareness on private industry’s role in sustainability.

Find out more
Supporting Sustainability Through Data Security
Help shape the future of cloud security

At Netskope, founders and leaders work shoulder-to-shoulder with their colleagues, even the most renowned experts check their egos at the door, and the best ideas win.

Join the team
Careers at Netskope
Netskope dedicated service and support professionals will ensure you successful deploy and experience the full value of our platform.

Go to Customer Solutions
Netskope Professional Services
Secure your digital transformation journey and make the most of your cloud, web, and private applications with Netskope training.

Learn about Training and Certifications
Group of young professionals working

Leaky O365 Links: Accidental Exposure in O365 Link Sharing

Aug 18 2020

Did you know that the default “copy link” option in O365 personal accounts generates a public shared link with edit permissions? In this edition, we will cover how link sharing in O365 can lead to the accidental internal and public exposure of sensitive data. 

Netskope Threat Labs have shared a series of posts highlighting the exposure concerns in Google Calendar, Google Groups, Google link sharing, and Zendesk. The exposure concerns we highlight in this post about Office 365 are similar to those in our Google link sharing post, as both of these apps offer similar sharing settings to the user and security settings to the administrator. This blog post details how accidental data exposure happens in Office 365 and details the steps you can take to limit or disable external sharing. 

O365 link sharing

Similar to Google, Microsoft also provides link sharing for a wide range of O365 apps, including OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Calendar, and Sway. In each app, users can choose between view or edit permissions, and grant those permissions to “Anyone with the link,” “Specific people,” or “Only people in your organization” (only for users in Business accounts) as shown in Figure 1.

Screenshot of O365 link sharing settings
Figure 1: O365 link sharing settings

Unlike Google, O365 users are provided with an option to set a password for the link sharing as shown in Figure 2.

Screenshot showing expiration date and password option for link sharing
Figure 2: Expiration date and password option for link sharing

In O365 Business accounts, users are provided with an additional set of link sharing settings as shown in Figure 3.

Screenshot showing link sharing settings in O365 Business accounts
Figure 3: Link sharing settings in O365 Business accounts

The link sharing settings have the following options:

  • Anyone with the link → for sharing a link that allows everyone to access.
  • People in [your organization] with the link → for sharing a link that everyone within your organization can access.
  • People with existing access → for sharing with users who already have access granted explicitly to them
  • Specific people → for sharing with specific authenticated users either inside or outside your organization

Accidental exposure

Link sharing can lead to accidental exposure when a user sets inappropriately broad permissions when sharing a document. For example, an O365 personal account user might use the “Copy link” option to share a document with a friend. In this case, it would have been more secure to share the file explicitly with only that friend. If the link gets forwarded to someone else or shared publicly, anyone with the link can edit the document. The workflow that has the default permission allowing anyone with the link to edit, as shown in Figure 4.

Screenshot showing "copy link" option in O365 personal accounts
Figure 4: “Copy link” option in O365 personal accounts

In Business accounts, the default settings allow users to share documents publicly, the same way they can in personal accounts. However, administrators can restrict how broadly users can share documents, from the “most permissive” setting to the “least permissive” setting that only allows documents to be shared internally, pictured in Figure 5.

Screenshot showing the most permissive external sharing settings
Figure 5: Most permissive external sharing settings

Administrators can also configure an option to allow access to authenticated external users (or guests) using an invitation code to verify their identity that can be redeemed only once.

Even when the “least permissive” setting is chosen, users can still share documents with everyone within the organization via link sharing. This allows everyone in the organization to access and edit the document by default. This can cause an unwanted internal exposure of confidential data. Even within the organization, it is more secure to share documents with individual users to prevent potential insider threats and to only use “edit” permissions when necessary.

Office 365 Usage and Sharing Statistics

In the Netskope Security Cloud platform, OneDrive for Business is one of the most popular apps. On average, 26% of the total users on the platform accessed OneDrive for Business each day over the past six months.

Sharing documents is a common activity among OneDrive for Business users. In total, 23% of Office 365 for Business users shared documents with other individual users within their org, and 3% shared documents with other individual users outside their org. This is the approach we recommend — by specifying individuals, you limit access only to those users. Another 8% used the “Anyone with link” sharing option to share documents either internally or externally. For personal OneDrive accounts, the amount of sharing via link was lower, with only 1% of personal account users sharing files publicly.

The two biggest risks with link sharing are:

  1. Anyone can access and edit a file if they get their hands on the link, even if you didn’t intend to share the document with them. This is a risk even for sensitive internal data not intended to be shared with everyone in the organization.
  2. If the link is externally accessible, users can access the links even after they leave the organization.

Figure 6 shows a breakdown of the files shared publicly by type. The majority of the documents are Microsoft Office formats, with spreadsheets being the most common. Some other formats, including PDFs and images, are also represented in the “Other” slice. Some spreadsheets, documents, and other files contained confidential data that was likely not intended to be shared publicly.

Pie chart showing the different file types seen in public share links