Microsoft 365 and its suite of solutions offer a slew of applications that are perfect for online work and collaboration when the hybrid method of work is the norm.
As a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of IT departments were forced to adopt Microsoft 365 solutions to facilitate remote work so that organizations could remain productive. However, one downside of this lies in the fact that not all IT teams were versed in Microsoft 365 and the depth of the solution. This has led to a lot of tenants and devices not being securely configured.
This increases the threat surface for organizations, especially with the number of mobile devices, including laptops that are now in play. All is not lost, however, as Microsoft 365 itself has several solutions that organizations can use to up their security and reduce their vulnerability.
The first step is to quickly identify where the organization stands in terms of what applications are most used, how employees are using and accessing them, how often they are used etc. Once this has been established, it is time to look at Microsoft 365’s Identity and Access Management platform and based on your previous assessment, apply what measures or combination of measures will help you.
Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is a good place to look as well as it offers both stand-alone solutions as well as it can synchronize with your on-prem Active Directory, to facilitate a hybrid environment. With such a configuration several other methods of authentication are introduced including single-sign-on. This method can use your on-prem active directory to authenticate users to the cloud and vice versa.
Azure AD is included with your Microsoft 365 tenant, as such if you do not have an on-prem active directory you are not left out albeit it will not be as full-featured as an on-prem solution. The only caveat to this and the previous solutions highlighted is that it will require a special license add-on, Azure AD Premium P1 or above to unlock all the identity and access management features fully. These features will enable more granular control over your environment
There is also Microsoft 365 Defender which is a purpose-built security suite for the platform.
That being said, even if you only have a standard Microsoft 365 license, there are features there that can be used to increase your security footing. Enabling Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on your tenant is one such feature.
These are just my ideas on what you can start looking at to get going in having a more secure 365 setup. What are your thoughts?
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