Notifying users about security incidents

As an administrator, you can send notifications to risky users and devices from the Security Dashboard.

Notifications alert the users about risk incidents on their devices and help them in deciding the next course of action to take. The default notification message contains information about the security incidents that are detected on the devices. You can customize the default notification message based on your requirements.

Procedure
  1. Enable the Threat Management service in the IBM® MaaS360® Portal.
  2. Enable Account Status in the End User Notification Settings for MaaS360 to send notifications to users when there is a change in risk status of user accounts.
    1. Path: Setup > Settings > Users Settings > Basic > End User Notification Settings > Account Status.
    2. Access privileges for Notify action
      MaaS360 administrators require the Notify access rights to view the Notify action in the Security Dashboard. By default, MaaS360 grants the Notify access rights to the following roles.
      • Administrator
      • Admin Level 2
      • Security Manager
      • Service Administrator

      You can grant the Notify access rights when you create a new role or update the existing roles.

Types of notifications

IBM MaaS360 supports the following types of notifications for security incidents.
  • User notifications
  • Device notifications

User notifications

Send email and SMS notifications to the email addresses and phone numbers that were provided by users during device enrollment.
Important:
  • The outgoing emails use the custom email branding settings (sender email address and name) that were configured by administrators in the MaaS360 Portal. For more information about branding settings, see Branding options for email configuration
  • SMS messages are limited to 160 characters. However, no character limit exists for email messages.
Follow these steps to send user notifications from the Security Dashboard.
  1. From the IBM MaaS360 Portal Home page, go to Security > Security Management > Security Dashboard.
  2. Send user notifications from the following workflows.
    • Top risky users widget
      1. Go to the Security Dashboard page.
      2. In the Top Users with Risk Incidents widget, click the Top risky users tab
      3. Click the icon and click Notify.
    • User List page
      1. Go to the Security Dashboard page.
      2. In the Top Users with Risk Incidents widget, click the Top risky users tab and click the View more link.
      3. In the User List page, click the icon and click Notify.
    • Summary View page
      1. Go to the Security Dashboard page.
      2. In the Top Users with Risk Incidents widget, click the Top risky users tab and then click the View more link.
      3. In the User List page, click the username.
      4. In the Summary View page, click the Notify button in the upper-right.

      The email ID and phone number of the user are displayed in the Send Notification window.

  3. Use the toggle icon to select at least one mode of notification (Email or SMS).
    Tip: The email address and the phone number that were provided at the enrollment are displayed. If an email address or phone number is unavailable for the user, the corresponding mode is unavailable. However, to update or sync those details in the User Directory, go to the Users > Directory page.
  4. Click Send notification.

Users receive alerts about security incidents in the form of SMS and email notification.

Device notifications

You can send device notifications from the Security Dashboard to multiple devices at once. The device notifications are displayed in the MaaS360 Messages app on the affected devices. Follow these steps to generate device notifications from the Security Dashboard.
Important: The device notifications are supported on enrolled and active Android and iOS devices only.
  1. From the IBM MaaS360 Portal Home page, go to Security > Security Management > Security Dashboard.
  2. Go to the user summary page from the Top Risky Users tab or the User List page.
  3. Select a username.
  4. In the Summary View page, go to Risky Devices section and select the devices you want to send notifications to.
  5. Click Notify.

The device notifications are displayed in the MaaS360 Messages app on the affected device.