How can Azure Information Protection (AIP) help secure document sharing?

Azure Information Protection (AIP) plays a crucial role in securing document sharing through its capabilities of encryption, rights management, and visibility into shared data.

When documents are shared, especially sensitive or confidential ones, ensuring they are protected from unauthorized access and misuse is paramount. AIP provides encryption, which ensures that only authorized users can access the content, rendering the data unreadable to anyone without the proper permissions. This not only protects the information itself but also helps maintain compliance with various regulations regarding data protection.

Additionally, AIP implements rights management, which allows organizations to define what actions users can take with shared documents—such as editing, copying, or printing. This level of control ensures that sensitive information is shared in a way that aligns with company policy and risk management strategies.

Moreover, AIP offers visibility features that allow organizations to monitor and analyze how documents are shared, who accesses them, and whether any security policy violations occur. This insight enables better governance over how sensitive data is handled after it leaves the organization, ultimately enhancing overall security.

In contrast, while backup and recovery solutions are crucial for data protection, they don’t address real-time security concerns during document sharing. User authentication is important but operates at a different layer and doesn't directly secure the data