14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has announced that the Outlook Mobile app can now be used by the government and its customers, as it now meets all security and compliance requirements.
Outlook for iOS and Android has recently been updated with improved architecture that makes it appropriate for Office 365 US Government Community Cloud (GCC) High and Department of Defense customers.
“To meet the high level of government security and compliance requirements, we updated the Outlook mobile architecture to use a native Microsoft sync technology. This change intends to reduce latency and will provide access to new enterprise-grade features such as S/MIME as they roll out on the updated architecture over the coming months,” Microsoft says.
Additionally, the software giant says the Outlook for iOS and Android can benefit from expanded Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS) capabilities, so GCC High and DoD customer scan use both the email apps and the Azure Active Directory Conditional Access and Intune App Protection Policies.
Direct connection to Exchange servers
One of the improvements that Microsoft made to the Outlook mobile app so that they meet government requirements is the removal of middle tier services, which means that the email client connects directly to the Exchange Online backend services with a Microsoft sync service.
Microsoft warns that GCC High and DoD users shouldn’t turn on the GCC mode toggle in the application, explaining that this would block authentication to the inbox, as it’s only aimed at existing customers with moderate security policies in place.
The company explains that in a future update this toggle would be removed to make the whole process more straightforward for everyone.
The new capabilities are available beginning with January 15, and Microsoft says that all government customers can now download the application on their devices. Details regarding the version that needs to be installed are available here for government customers.