Atlassian Guard: The future of cloud security

Security requirements are constantly increasing due to the ever-changing threat landscape and the growing reliance on cloud platforms. Atlassian's cloud products have adapted accordingly, enabling companies to focus on getting the best out of their teams' work without worrying about protecting their data.

Atlassian builds all its cloud products on a common, trusted platform that provides its customers with essential security features from the start. In 2018, Atlassian Access was introduced as the first identity and access management tool specifically designed for the Atlassian Cloud. More than 70% of enterprise customers, such as United Airlines and Zoom, rely on Access. In 2023, the Beacon Beta program was launched, offering threat detection and response capabilities to help teams defend against threats to their Atlassian Cloud data.

At this year's Team, another layer of security for the Atlassian Cloud was introduced: Atlassian Guard. It provides comprehensive protection for critical assets and helps detect and neutralize potential threats at an early stage.

Stay secure with Atlassian Guard

Atlassian Guard combines existing Access and Beacon Beta features with advanced data loss prevention capabilities in one product. It helps companies minimize their risk profile and protect their assets. By implementing security policies across the Atlassian Cloud, data loss is effectively prevented. Additionally, security teams can detect and respond to suspicious activities early thanks to contextual alerts and analysis of their risk landscape.

With Atlassian Guard, teams can not only set controls but also utilize them effectively. The features of Atlassian Guard in the Premium plan include:

Proactive data loss prevention

With distributed teams working from unmanaged devices across multiple products, you need proactive controls to manage user access and protect sensitive work. Only then can you prevent incidents from the start.

Proactive data loss prevention is a key feature of Atlassian Guard. Enhanced authentication allows multiple policies to be set to block data exfiltration actions, such as exporting certain data and creating public links. Additionally, data classification enables the identification of business-critical data, thus reducing the risk of data loss.

Detection and investigation of suspicious activities

When a threat inevitably occurs, it's crucial to have visibility to detect suspicious activities and assess risks. This way, you can secure valuable work, avoid regulatory fines, and protect your business outcome.

The detection and investigation of suspicious activities are significantly enhanced with Atlassian Guard. Data misuse and anomalous user behavior can be detected through content scans and user activity detection, alerting you to risks such as excessive page exports and suspicious IP logins. Integration of alerts into Slack, Microsoft Teams, or a security information and event management (SIEM) tool that your security teams already use can further speed up incident response time. Additionally, automatic product discovery helps identify unauthorized Atlassian products and reduce the risk of shadow IT.

Rapid threat response

We know how labor-intensive it is to sift through logs to investigate a specific incident and determine what remediation actions to take, especially when every minute counts. Third-party threat detection tools can help identify anomalous behavior, but they don't know the intricacies of Atlassian products as well as Atlassian does.

For threat response, security teams have efficient tools available thanks to Atlassian Guard. Detailed alert information provides a consolidated overview of user actions, their location, and the number of other triggered alerts, enabling potential threats to be identified within minutes.

Atlassian Guard enables comprehensive investigation of suspicious events through actor profiles. Additionally, suggested remediation actions, such as restricting permissions, blocking accounts, or revoking API keys, help neutralize threats.

Two plans for different security needs

Atlassian Guard offers two plans to cover different security needs: Atlassian Guard Standard and Atlassian Guard Premium. While the Standard plan already offers a wide range of security features, the Premium plan goes a step further and offers additional features such as enhanced authentication, data classification, and SIEM integrations.

Atlassian Guard Standard

Atlassian Guard Standard offers all the features of Access and more. While the name has changed, the pace of innovation has remained the same. New features, such as enforced single sign-on (SSO) for external users and enhanced security policies for data and mobile devices, will be available soon.

Atlassian Guard Premium

Atlassian Guard Premium builds on Atlassian Guard Standard and goes a step further: data classification, enhanced threat detection and investigation capabilities, and robust logging. It offers the ability to set and enforce security policies for users and their work, quickly identify high-risk threats with centralized insights and alerts, and respond to threats within minutes of the alert.

Conclusion: a more secure future for the Atlassian Cloud

With the introduction of Atlassian Guard, Atlassian has ushered in the next chapter in cloud security for the Atlassian Cloud, providing its customers with a valuable tool to make their cloud environment even more secure while boosting productivity.

Sounds exciting? Customers can now register their interest in the limited availability of Atlassian Guard Premium.