Understanding policies

Policies are essential components in protecting your environment's information. In this article, policies are described and information on the Policies page is examined as well.

Policy

In Datto SaaS Defense, a policy is a rule that blocks or allows access to content based on the criteria specified in the policy.

You can create a policy that blocks or allows access to the following:

  • Email: Based on specific email element values, known as triggers, such as the From address or Subject text.
  • Files: Based on specific file extension triggers, such as .docx or .exe. A file policy applies to attachments and archived files.
  • Links: Based on a full URL address trigger, as in www.testsite.com.

When a scan involves an email, file extension, or URL, SaaS Defense compares the scanned content with policy criteria. If elements of the scanned content meet the criteria in a client policy, the policy is invoked. If elements of the scanned content do not meet any policy criteria, the policy is not invoked.

EXAMPLE  An organization has a policy that requires all incoming emails from the domain example.com to be blocked. Therefore, when an email is received from example.com, the policy is invoked and the email is blocked. However, when an email is received from a different domain, like testco.com for example, the criteria for this policy is not met. Hence, the policy is not invoked.

You can create and implement as many policies as necessary to keep your environment secure.

NOTE   For information about creating policies, see the article Creating new policies.

Policies page

The Policies page is where you view and edit existing policies and create new policies.

Policies table

The Policies table displays all of the existing policies in your environment. When you create new policies, they are added to the table.

The information in the Policies table is described below.

Column Description
Action Identifies whether the policy blocks or allows content.
Policy Type Identifies the component for which the policy applies. There are three Policy Types:
  • Email: Policy controlling incoming email. For example, a policy may block all emails that include the word Invoice in the Subject field.
  • File: Policy controlling access to content that includes attachments and archived files with specific file extensions. For example, a policy may allow access to content that includes files with the .doc extension.
  • Link: Policy controlling access to content in which specific URLs are included. For example, a policy may block access to content that includes the URL www.examplesite.com.
Trigger Identifies the policy trigger. If a policy has more than one trigger, only the first trigger is displayed. To display all trigger details, click the policy's record.

To hide the trigger details, click the policy's record again.
Client Identifies the clients for which the policy applies. When a policy applies to more than one client, you can click the number in the Clients column to see a popup list of all clients.

This column is not visible for clients.
Services Identifies the services for which the policy applies.
Date Modified Identifies the date the policy was created or edited. Most recently created policies are listed first. This column is sortable.
Last column Provides ability to edit, delete, or view a policy. Policies can be edited or deleted only by the user that created the policy.

The View Policy icon is displayed for each policy that was not created by you.
When the icon is selected, the policy details are displayed.

Policies page toolbar

The Policies page toolbar allows you to select filtering options to display only the policy records that match the options you select. You can filter using a combination of Action, Policy Type, Trigger, Clients, and Service options.
Nee

NOTE  The Clients filter is not available for clients.

Trigger value search box

You can use this search box to display only the policy records that include the trigger value you enter. The list filters as you enter characters. In this example, only the policies whose trigger values include the letters mar are displayed.

Create a New Policy

Click this link to create a new policy. See the article Creating new policies.