Why security baselines are not enough for a secure Microsoft 365 environment
For a secure Microsoft 365 environment, Microsoft's standard recommendations—the security baselines—are insufficient. To truly secure your organization, you need to look further and tailor configurations to your specific needs. This requires continuous monitoring, proactive adjustments, and a holistic approach.
Microsoft 365 has been a dominant player in the productivity and collaboration tools market for years. That's not to say it's become more or less the standard in many companies and organizations. The ease of use of the cloud has certainly contributed to that success. Today, we store and share more data than ever before—including business-critical data—via Teams, OneDrive, or SharePoint.
Such a popular platform naturally requires the necessary security and performance. You might expect Microsoft 365 to be secure out-of-the-box. That's not necessarily the case. Several important security settings, such as multi-factor authentication and conditional access policies, are disabled by default and must therefore be configured manually. One important reason why this is the case is that every company or organization is different, with its own organizational chart, permissions structure, and compliance requirements.
Security baselines: the starting point
Microsoft does, of course, make recommendations. These are the so-called security baselines: preconfigured security settings and best practices that you can use as a starting point to secure your cloud environment. These configurations cover a wide range of Microsoft 365 services and apps, including Entra ID, Microsoft Intune, and the Microsoft Defender platform. An example of such a configuration is the default restriction of external sharing via SharePoint and OneDrive.
The Microsoft Security Baselines are quite valuable, but often insufficient for several reasons:
- Baselines are designed as a one-size-fits-all solution: they don't consider unique business processes or working methods
- Baselines offer only limited protection against advanced threats, such as zero-day attacks or Advanced Persistent Threats (APT).
- Cybercriminals are also very familiar with the security baselines and are constantly searching for vulnerabilities. Baselines aren't updated quickly enough to address these new threats.
A safe platform beyond the security baselines
Want to keep your Microsoft 365 platform safe and sound? Then you need to think beyond the Microsoft security baselines. This means at least three things:
1. Configure the security settings according to your organization's needs
That seems like a no-brainer, but the reality is that organizations still rely too much on the default settings in Microsoft 365. While these offer a basic level of security, they aren't tailored to your organization's specific risks and compliance requirements.
You'll need to delve deeper into the settings to further refine and adapt your policies, access control, and data security to your business processes, minimizing the risk of incidents.
2. Monitor continuously and proactively
Threats are constantly evolving. Correctly configuring everything once isn't enough. Only by continuously and proactively monitoring and detecting threats early can you keep your Microsoft 365 environment as secure as possible.
3. Approach security holistically
Cybersecurity goes beyond your technical settings. It requires a comprehensive view of user behavior, devices, applications, and the platform as a whole.
Some examples:
- Users: What is the number of (in)active users? How many guest users? What is the status of your Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)? To what extent are suspicious or risky sign-ins automatically blocked? These are all important settings you can configure in Entra ID and the Defender platform.
- Devices: Which devices are in use in your organization? How many of them are personal devices, and do they meet all security requirements? Are all devices up to date and do they have active antivirus software?
- Applications: Do you have an overview of all Microsoft 365 updates? Microsoft Intune is the ideal application for this. Are all third-party applications also secure? Be sure to provide a suitable management tool, as Microsoft Intune is not yet ideal for that.
The Microsoft 365 platform: What is your Microsoft 365 Secure Score? How well protected is your organization, and have you integrated the necessary security tools, such as Microsoft Defender?
AXI 365 Proactive Care: keep all the plates spinning
The default settings in Microsoft 365 provide a certain level of protection, but only with customization and proactive monitoring can you truly get the most out of your Microsoft 365 environment.
Even when the right measures are in place, the complexity of Microsoft 365 and the speed at which new threats emerge can still work against you. Security means keeping a lot of plates spinning at once. Continuous monitoring and fine-tuning configurations require time and specialist knowledge that your team may not always have. On top of that, you need the ability to react quickly to new vulnerabilities and threats. If you can’t, the line between a controlled situation and a security incident can be razor-thin.
That's precisely why AXI has launched its AXI365 Proactive Care program. AXI 365 Proactive Care is a service where our experts proactively monitor the health and security of your Microsoft 365 environment, allowing you to focus on your core business.
With AXI 365 Proactive Care, you receive customized reports via the Microsoft 365 Lighthouse platform, covering your security status, compliance status, applications, and much more. This allows us to proactively manage risks and recommend optimizations based on useful reports and recommendations.
Discover more benefits of AXI 365 Proactive Care
