Security Considerations for Copilot for Microsoft 365

The speaker, a Microsoft 365 consultant, starts by arguing that comparing Copilot with general chatbots misses the point. Its value comes from working inside Word, Excel, Teams, Outlook and SharePoint. The core risk he describes is that Copilot can reach whatever the signed-in user can open, so overshared files, stale permissions and ad hoc grants become the real exposure.

The middle of the session walks through a set of controls. These include a sensitivity label taxonomy, automatic labeling for sensitive data types, DLP rules that stop Copilot from processing labeled content, watermarking, alerting and conditional access tied to device and location. In a live demo, a label that withheld the extract permission made Copilot refuse to summarize a document, and a DLP policy enforced that restriction. He also covered retention, communication compliance, insider risk management, guest reviews, quarterly permission reviews and the fact that some controls depend on license tier.

He closes with practical advice. Start with the business problem, train users so they adopt the tool, and roll out protections in phases, beginning with MFA and classification. He pointed to DSPM for AI in Purview for reviewing which AI apps touch sensitive data, and to the Defender portal for alerts.