Secure your workplace with Microsoft 365

The modern age we live in is truly revolutionary, as technology has taken over both our home and work lives more than anyone could have expected a few decades ago. Unfortunately, the new possibilities that technology offers us also bring security risks that did not exist before.

Modern technologies have enabled organizations around the world to adopt at least a partial remote working team – during the height of the pandemic, this new way of working allowed companies of all sizes to continue trading and on their own terms. turn to survive in the most uncertain times.

However, in addition to these new possibilities that technology makes possible, there is another major drawback. Our reliance on technology provides opportunities for cybercrime. Most of us use a range of wonderful tools throughout the day, but the problem is that the majority have no idea how to use them effectively – or more importantly – safely.

Microsoft 365 is – as you already know – not only one of the most famous, but also one of the most capable business subscription services in the world. It’s likely that your team will use at least some of the platform’s tools during their workday – so it’s essential that they are as secure as possible when doing so. So, how secure is Microsoft 365?

HOW SECURE IS MICROSOFT 365?

Before we dive deeper into the security features of Microsoft 365, let’s take a look – for the few who don’t know – what Microsoft is.

Microsoft 365 is the world’s leading productivity suite. More than a million companies around the world use Microsoft 365 daily and more than 250 million use the Microsoft Teams app. Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) is a subscription-based suite designed to improve productivity and security through their services. Offering pretty much everything a business needs to survive and thrive, the suite has been thrown to the top of the list when it comes to business suites.

Microsoft 365 as a platform is very secure. The data centers are protected by a top-of-the-line security infrastructure and processes, making them virtually impossible to breach directly. Microsoft offers a unique selling point: as part of your subscription, they offer a financially backed 99.9% uptime guarantee for applications – meaning the platform is virtually always functional. Taking their commitment to security, consistency and uptime even further, they offer a range of robust security features with various capabilities, such as access control, threat protection, information security, and security and risk management.

THE SECURITY FEATURES OF MICROSOFT 365?

Microsoft 365 bases their security ethos around four main pillars:

1. Identity & Access Management

With Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions from Microsoft, your IT can manage digital identities for you, meaning access to your company’s applications, networks and databases is secure. Microsoft IAM helps you stay defended against suspicious login attempts, protecting user credentials with risk-based access controls, identity protection tools, and authentication options. It’s great – because it allows your IT admins to grant access based on departmental needs, making sure no one in the organization has access to documents and data they shouldn’t.

2. Threat Protection

Microsoft Threat Protection includes automated security solutions that help ensure that your email, data, applications, devices, and identities are safe from the most popular cyber threats.

Microsoft has a feature called SIEM – Security Information and Event Management. Azure Sentinel can detect and more importantly prevent threats before they have a chance to do damage. Azure Sentinel is powered by modern artificial intelligence (AI) and provides the ability to respond to suspicious events as quickly as possible.

3. Information security

Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) helps you distribute, organize, and protect your company’s sensitive information across the cloud, apps, and endpoints. MIP solutions help you protect your data and sensitive information while also distributing it in a way that helps prevent data loss from causing too many problems in the workplace.

Microsoft Information Governance (MIG) helps you ensure compliance with data privacy regulations. It does this by enabling you to efficiently manage information records – through retention or deletion – with automated policies and pre-built data connectors.

4. Security and risk management

With Microsoft 365 security and risk management, you can quickly identify and remediate risks from malicious or – which can be common in the modern workplace – unintended activity to protect your organization’s sensitive, critical information.

MICROSOFT CLOUD APP SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT

The four pillars above are only part of Microsoft’s security first approach. They also have pillars around the security and compliance of Microsoft Cloud apps, helping you migrate to the cloud securely, while giving you complete visibility into your applications and greater control over your data, in turn ensuring that you meet your legal and regulatory requirements.

What is the Microsoft 365 Security Center?

The Microsoft 365 Security Center is the hub for managing all security in your Microsoft ecosystem. With the Microsoft 365 Security Center, your security administrator and risk management team can protect your business and data.

What is Microsoft Compliance Manager?

The Microsoft Compliance Manager helps you stay on top of data and information privacy in your organization. The compliance manager makes managing your various compliance requirements easy, including identifying data protection risks and keeping the necessary certifications up-to-date.

RECOMMENDED PROCEDURES FOR MICROSOFT 365 SECURITY

Most users don’t realize how comprehensive — and equipped — the built-in security features that come standard in their Microsoft 365 subscription. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities to achieve even better levels of security in your organization. Let’s take a look at the five best ways to make your Microsoft 365 even more secure.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Multi-factor authentication is a simple and highly effective way to improve the security of your business. MFA is the process of using more than one way to verify the identity of the person logging into an account. MFA come in the form of passcodes sent via phone and email, fingerprints and passwords, which prevent cybercriminals from accessing your data and sensitive accounts, whether they know your passwords or not.

Encryption of Office messages

Office Message Encryption ensures that the email messages shared and received inside and outside your organization are encrypted – giving you peace of mind that confidentiality and security are consistently achieved.

Antiphishing Protection

Phishing attacks are becoming more and more popular. Phishing emails are the vessel for malicious links and attachments. As part of Microsoft Defender for Microsoft 365, anti-phishing protection and secure attachment protection protect your organization from the potentially catastrophic consequences that a malicious link or attachment can cause.

EDUCATION!

In our opinion, this is the most important of all! Organizations around the world have spent a lot of capital and time making sure their teams are fully equipped with the tools to make their experience in the digital landscape as secure as possible. But this is not enough! Your team needs to know their role in protecting your system – they need to know how to navigate your systems safely, securely, and in the most productive way. Most modern cyber-attacks require human influence to enable them, so your team needs to know what to do to combat them – or at least not facilitate them.

This all seems a bit much to take in at once, but the short story is that Microsoft 365 provides a very safe environment for everyone to navigate. But that doesn’t mean it does enough – implement your own security measures alongside Microsoft’s to further bolster your security capabilities.

Source: apogeesolutions