We’d like to introduce a new Mattermost capability we’re developing to protect your data against leakage, your users from harmful content, and ensure your organization’s policies are enforced. We call it RMIF—the Responsible Messaging Interoperability Framework. It’s an extensible framework for adding protections, transformations, and filters to information processed in Mattermost.
NOTE: This demo is all conceptual in nature and is not yet implemented in Mattermost. We’re looking to gather interest from our customers to determine if it should be in our roadmap.
Our initial version enhances the Mattermost for Microsoft Teams integration released with Mattermost version 10, and demonstrates our commitment to working with customers, partners, and the open-source community on secure, responsible use of Mattermost.
RMIF can detect URLs and files in Microsoft Teams messages or other external sources, and divert them for analysis. RMIF checks the URL and files with the Microsoft Azure Defender service before allowing them into Mattermost. Only safe contents are allowed by RMIF. Anything dangerous is blocked and logged, and the recipient is notified of the activity.
RMIF Dashboard
In the RMIF dashboard, you can see at a glance how many messages have been checked and the number of files filtered over time. The dashboard also includes a table view of all filtering events that have been logged with detailed drilldowns for each event.
Configuration settings
RMIF can be customized to suit the needs of your organization with the following:
- Choose sources to apply the filters to (external sources, webhooks, MS Teams, etc)
- Customize the text to show when a filter has been applied to a message
- Configure how you’d like to filter URLs with an allow or block list
- Configure file extensions you’d like to allow or block
Customers and partners can extend RMIF with their own preferred security tools. We’ve implemented the general framework for URL and File Filtering, User warnings, and Event Logging, and have already begun extending it to add more capabilities.
Benefits of RMIF
- Maximised Microsoft Investments: this framework supports interoperability between an organization’s existing Microsoft infrastructure and Mattermost, ensuring continued productivity and convenience for all users.
- Enhanced security posture: organisations can strengthen their security posture, by enforcing strict separation of systems during security incidents and encouraging compliance with procedures.
- Targeted security controls: organisations can more easily implement the specific controls and filters that are needed for their threat models, and can adapt them over time as appropriate.
- Improved user behaviors: the intuitive but subtle reminders by RMIF to users help cultivate a security-conscious culture within the organization, leading to better handling of sensitive information and reduced risk of accidental breaches.
Share your feedback
We would love to hear your feedback on RMIF. If you’re a customer with a need, or a partner looking to add your capabilities to Mattermost, please contact RMIF@mattermost.com.