25 Feb Securing Your Workplace With Microsoft 365
The modern age that we are living in is truly revolutionary, now that technology has taken over both our home and work lives more than anyone could have anticipated a few decades ago. Unfortunately, the new capabilities that tech allows us also presents security risks that previously didn’t exist.
Modern technologies have allowed organisations across the globe to adopt an at least partial remote working team – during the height of the pandemic, this new way of working allowed businesses of all sizes to continue trading, and in turn survive through the most uncertain of times.
However, alongside these new capabilities that technology allows comes one major downside. Our reliance on technology presents opportunities for cyber criminality. Most of us use a series of wonderful tools throughout the day, but the problem is that the majority have no idea of how to use them effectively – or more importantly – safely.
Microsoft 365 – as you already know – is not only one of the most famous but also one of the most capable business subscription services on the planet. It is likely that your team use at least some of the platform’s tools throughout their workday – therefore it is essential that they are as secure as possible when doing so. So, how secure is Microsoft 365?
How Secure Is Microsoft 365?
Before we start delving deeper into Microsoft 365’s security features, let’s explore – for the few that don’t know – what Microsoft is.
Microsoft 365 is the world’s leading productivity suite. Over a million companies around the world use Microsoft 365 daily, and over 250 million use the Microsoft Teams app. Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) is a subscription-based suite designed to improve levels of productivity and security through their services. The suite, offering practically everything a business could need to survive and thrive, has jettisoned to the very top of the list in regard to business suites.
Microsoft 365 as a platform is very secure. Its data centres are protected by top-of-the-line security infrastructure and processes making them practically impossible to breach directly. Microsoft offer a unique selling point: as part of your subscription they offer a financially backed 99.9% application uptime guarantee – meaning the platform is practically always functional. Going even further with their dedication to security, consistency and uptime, they offer a range of robust security features with various capabilities, such as access management, threat protection, information protection, and security and risk management.
The Security Features of Microsoft 365?
Microsoft 365 base their security ethos around four main pillars:
- Identity and Access Management
Microsoft identity and access management (IAM) solutions allow your IT to manage digital identities for you, meaning that access to your company’s applications, networks, and databases are secure. Microsoft IAM helps you to stay defended against suspicious login attempts, it protects user credentials with risk-based access controls, identity protection tools and authentication options. It is great – because it allows your IT administrators to permit access based on departmental needs, in the process ensuring that no one in the organisation has access to documents and data that they shouldn’t.
- Threat Protection
Microsoft threat protection includes automated security solutions that help to guarantee your email, data, applications, devices, and identities are secure against the most popular of 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 cause any damage. Powered by modern artificial intelligence (AI), Azure Sentinel offers the ability to respond to suspicious events at the earliest opportunity.
- Information Protection
Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) helps you to distribute, organise, and protect your company’s sensitive information across the Cloud, apps, and endpoints. MIP solutions help you to protect your data and sensitive information, whilst distributing it in a manner that will help to prevent any data loss from causing too many problems in the workplace.
Microsoft Information Governance (MIG) helps you to guarantee 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.
- Security & Risk Management
Microsoft 365 security and risk management allows you to rapidly identify and remediate risks from either malicious or – what can be common in the modern workplace – unintentional activities to protect your organisation’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 centred around Microsoft Cloud app security and compliance, and they will help you safely migrate to Cloud whilst giving you complete visibility of your applications and greater control over your data – in turn helping you to guarantee compliance to your legal and regulatory requirements.
What Is the Microsoft 365 Security Centre?
The Microsoft 365 Security Centre is the hub for managing all security across your Microsoft ecosystem. The Microsoft 365 Security Centre allows your security administrator and risk management team to protect your business and data.
What Is Microsoft Compliance Manager?
The Microsoft Compliance Manager helps you to stay on top of data and information privacy in your organisation. The compliance manager makes managing your various compliance requirements easy, including taking inventory of data protection risks and staying up to date with the necessary certifications.
Microsoft 365 Security Best Practices
Most users don’t realise just how extensive – and equipped – the built-in security features that come as standard within their Microsoft 365 subscription are. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities to achieve even better levels of security in your organisation. Let’s look at the top five ways to make your Microsoft 365 even more secure.
Multi-factor Authentication (MFA)
Multi-factor authentication is an easy 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 individual logging into an account. MFA come in the form of passcodes sent via phone and email, fingerprints, and passwords, which prevent cyber criminals from gaining access to your data and sensitive accounts, regardless of whether they know your passwords or not.
Office Message Encryption
Office Message Encryption ensures that the email messages shared and received within and outside your organisation are encrypted – this will give you peace of mind that confidentiality and security are consistently achieved.
Anti-Phishing Protection
Phishing attacks are growing in popularity. Phishing emails are the vessel for malicious links and attachments. As part of Microsoft Defender for Microsoft 365, Anti-Phishing protection and Safe attachment protection defend your organisation from the potentially disastrous effects which a malicious link or attachment could cause.
EDUCATION!
In our opinion this is the most important of all! Organisations around the world have spent a lot of capital and time to ensure that their teams are fully equipped with the tools to make their experience on the digital landscape as secure as possible. But this isn’t enough! Your team must know their role in the protection of your system – they must know how to navigate your systems safely, securely, and in the most productive way possible. The majority of modern-day cyber attacks require a human influence to make them possible, so your team must know what they can do to combat them – or at the very least, not facilitate them.
This can all seem a bit much to take onboard at once, but the short story is that Microsoft 365 offers a very secure environment for anyone to navigate. But that doesn’t mean it does enough – implement your own security measures alongside Microsoft’s to further bolster your security capabilities.
Modern technology to help you thrive securely
Technology is pivotal to your business and we want you to understand the value it provides when it is allowed to work seamlessly with your operations on the most updated tools available. Apogee values transparency and simplicity – we provide the IT support you need when you need it. Within this support is the guarantee that your technology is secure against all manner of cyber threats, that it is operationally beneficial to the way you run your business and is always updated to the latest version. We will work alongside you and guide you into a secure, brighter future with technology as your ally. Contact us now to find out how we can help you.
