Microsoft Teams enhances encryption efforts via Customer Key support

Microsoft Teams PC
Microsoft Teams PC (Image credit: Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • Customer Key support for Teams is available.
  • Customer Key provides protection against unauthorized parties viewing data.

Microsoft has announced that Customer Key support for Microsoft Teams is out in the wild, meaning organizations already utilizing Customer Key for SharePoint Online and Exchange Online will be able to add Teams into the fold.

Here's the full list of items that will be affected in Teams by the creation of a Customer Key data encryption policy:

  • Teams chat messages (1:1 chats, group chats, meeting chats and channel conversations)
  • Teams media messages (images, code snippets, video messages, audio messages, wiki images)
  • Teams call and meeting recordings stored in Teams storage
  • Teams chat notifications, Teams chat suggestions by Cortana, Teams status messages
  • User and signal information for Exchange Online
  • Exchange Online mailboxes that aren't already encrypted using mailbox level DEPs
  • Microsoft Information Protection exact data match (EDM) data – (data file schemas, rule packages, and the salts used to hash the sensitive data)

It's mentioned that encryption may take some time to achieve after a data encryption policy is enacted. Data is currently only encrypted from the time of policy assignment, though retroactive encryption is in the works.

You can see the full description of what's entailed in Customer Key support for Microsoft Teams via the Microsoft Teams blog.

Robert Carnevale

Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He's a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author of Cold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.