back to article Microsoft smartens up Edge for Business with screenshot blocking, logo branding, more

Edge for Business, Microsoft's year-old entry in the enterprise browser race, has received a handful of security and productivity upgrades that were announced on Tuesday at the technology giant's Build developer conference. While web browsers have long been subject to enterprise IT controls, both Google and Microsoft have …

  1. Andrew Hodgkinson

    Disingenuous and untrustworthy to the very last gasp

    This protection also applies to Copilot in the Edge sidebar so prompts and responses in Copilot cannot be captured by screenshot

    Very clever. So their malfunctioning-as-much-as-anyone-else's "AI" system can give wrong information that could put Microsoft in legal trouble - and yes, thankfully, that is a thing and long may it continue to be so (https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know) - but nobody can prove it because, conveniently, screenshots of the CoPilot window are prohibited.

    1. Tim99 Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Disingenuous and untrustworthy to the very last gasp

      Many of us have a phone with a pretty good camera, the included software for which may well be able to do OCR...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Safeguarding .?

    I once managed an estate for an education provider. Plain video calls were problematic as tutors had to ensure students cameras were not a threat to safeguarding. At the very minimum a blurred background and keep photos on the wall (which may show kids) out of shot.

    But now we have a random screen snapping app ?

    Not sure i could provide the assurances the DSL would need to be able to pass onto users.

    1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

      Re: Safeguarding .?

      So they are an education provider, but the staff dont have the brains to remove photos of their kids before they make a video call ?

      Why couldnt they just move the photos so they dont have to worry about blurrying the background...??

      Why do they even have to show their face in the first place ?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Safeguarding .?

        Wow - you grabbed hold of the wrong end of that stick so quickly it's a surprise your hands are still there.

        PP was talking about *students* who are on a call with a tutor. Who may be parents and have kids at home. Which is a safeguarding issue that tutors need to be aware of. Certainly in the UK.

        Students have to show their faces so you know the person you are getting the money from the government for is the right one.

        1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

          Re: Safeguarding .?

          AC: Students have to show their faces so you know the person you are getting the money from the government for is the right one.

          cow: Whts wrong with voice ?

          1. Robin

            Re: Safeguarding .?

            Restricting calls to voice is working around a problem that shouldn't even exist in the first place.

            What's wrong with not constantly taking screenshots of users' working environments?

            1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

              Re: Safeguarding .?

              How about everything ?

  3. Claptrap314 Silver badge
    Linux

    And here I am

    capturing screenshots of my browser what feels like every week in order to gather evidence for our SOC 2, Type II compliance. Oh, wait. I run Firefox....

    1. UnknownUnknown Silver badge

      Re: And here I am

      That’s ok.

      If you get subject to Edge for business do what anyone would do - take a photo with your (BYOD) phone and e-mail it to yourself ;-)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And here I am

        I have to stand outside in the rain when I do that - not enough mobile signal inside the building, and work won't give me the wifi password as it's not a work device. Except for the work-mandated 2FA which only works with a mobile phone.

        I wish I was joking. Correlation between times-I-need-to-do-this and times-it-is-absolutely-teeming-down is high.

        1. UnknownUnknown Silver badge

          Re: And here I am

          … of yeah here we have the conflict between many not being eligible ‘not an essential support user/on-call’ (or eligible manager) for a Company Provided Phone, people not being eligible for any BYOD allowance (not even a sliver) … but needing work or customer MFA on a phone:

          Pathetic nickel and diming your staff. The BYOD allowance is the most egregious IMHO.

  4. Roland6 Silver badge

    “ Edge for Business can block screen captures”

    Really helpful not…

    Hit this problem head on these last couple of days - writing some step-by-step user documentation for a new finance system and security suite prevented cut-and-paste of screenshots.

    1. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

      Re: “ Edge for Business can block screen captures”

      Run in a VM or use remote desktop.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: “ Edge for Business can block screen captures”

      The one weird trick that your corporation's helldesk jockey hates!

    3. UnknownUnknown Silver badge

      Re: “ Edge for Business can block screen captures”

      BYOD phone and a photo ?

      That will sort it out.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: “ Edge for Business can block screen captures”

      I have to verify function of our chain of medical lab software (i.e. Instrument 1 send value X, System 2 receives value X and passes it along to software 3, which reports value X to the actual medical journal system: can I show evidence that the correct value is passed along in each step?). Not all of the components have the ability to print a report, so we take a screen-grab. This mis-feature will make my life harder, and do virtually nothing to prevent anyone for ex-filtrating patient data should they choose to.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Don't worry. Hospitals are way down near the end of the list of companies that Redmond wants to be useful to.

  5. jimbot

    I wonder if the screenshot blocker has an "elephant in the room" limitation they forgot to mention, e.g. it only works with the screenshot tool included in the OS and not third-party screenshot tools. Other workarounds that spring to mind are running the OS in a VM and accessing it through an RDP session. ...or just using a different browser.

    I suppose it might block the casual, non-technical, non-malicious/accidental snappers as part of a wider solution if their machine and the web site they connect to are thoroughly locked down.

    1. katrinab Silver badge
      Alert

      It won't stop the casual non-technical people, because when they want to take a screenshot, they take a photo of the monitor with their phone camera.

  6. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

    Sounds real smart, especially when teams often take screenshots to report *problems*.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I came to post that.

      IT: Can you send me a screenshot of the error you're getting?

      User: No, I can't, you blocked screenshots!

  7. Howard Sway Silver badge

    will at least give IT managers something to cite as an example of security posture

    And make IT managers even more loathed by users who will then have to develop even more shadow IT and clunky workarounds to actually get their jobs done. As for IT support, just make sure you always have a few printouts of large black rectangles that you can wave around whenever a manager comes in to ask why a problem hasn't been solved yet.

  8. Plest Silver badge
    Happy

    Had this happen with other software that refused to allow screenshots, simply installed GreenShot and clicked outside the window to unfocus the app, then hit PrntScrn so Greenshot could grab the screen of my choice.

    I think I can confidently say there will be workarounds and clever bits of software, 'cos if you tell people they can't do something the smart ones with a lot of time on their hands will say, "Hold my beer."!

    1. katrinab Silver badge
      Facepalm

      And the dumb ones just take a photo of their monitor with their phone camera and share it via WhatsApp, so won't even notice that they have been blocked.

  9. Lennart Sorensen

    So does mean you can't share Edge on a teams meeting anymore? Or if you can, does teams now prevent other users from taking screen shots of the meeting presentation if Edge is being shown?

    Why do I have a feeling this isn't actually going to do what Microsoft claims at all.

  10. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

    I have a better idea.

    TUrn the computer off and give up.

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