Cybersecurity in Microsoft 365

In present times, business processes and organizational data are at risk of cyberattacks. Since everything is present in a digital format, it makes it easier for cybercriminals to penetrate the business security layers and cause loss of data.

This article explores some of the best practices you can follow to instill security in your business infrastructure using Microsoft security capabilities.

Multi-Factor Authentication

The starting point for cybersecurity is to enable multi-factor authentication. This concept requires multiple authentications of the user identity from distinctive platforms before allowing access to them.

In Microsoft 365, users can set up multi-factor authentication by using the Microsoft Authenticator App or any third-party authentication application. Microsoft also allows you to set up conditional access in the Business Premium plan. With conditional access, you gain more control over your security allowing you to define the conditions for the user before he/she logs in to the application.

Preset Security Policies

The Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard, and Premium all come with preset security policies. These policies help protect your system and data from spam, malware, and phishing attacks.

The preset security policies have three variants: Built-in protection, Standard protection, and Strict protection. By default, the Built-in protection is enabled, but you must consider enabling the standard or strict protection based on your business requirements and infrastructure.

Lastly, you can enable Microsoft Defender to have advanced protection for all the managed devices of your organization. This option is available only for the Business Premium plan.

Protect Admin Accounts

Since Microsoft 365 admin accounts hold a wide range of permissions and access to sensitive data, it’s important to protect them with the right security practices. Some of these practices include:

• Having a separate user account for regular usage instead of using the admin account for day-to-day tasks. Keep the admin account only for management and control usage.

• Create a break-glass-account. This is your backup admin account without the multi-factor authentication, allowing you to access the account even in case of losing your phone or such.

• Remember to sign out of the browser session when using your admin account for the administrative tasks.

Sharing Settings for SharePoint and OneDrive

Since these platforms contain a lot of your business data in the form of files and folders, it’s important to set the sharing settings for risk reduction. With the Business Premium plan of Microsoft 365, you can enable settings like scanning for safe links and safe attachments, set sensitivity labels, and have a data loss prevention setup in place.

Ensure Best Practices for Emails

As emails stand as a significant source of communication in the business environment, it’s important to educate your employees on the safety practices of emails. The general rule of thumb is to consider all the received emails and attachments as potential spam and only open them once they justify the set security standards.

To study more about the best practices to ensure safe emails and attachments, navigate to this Microsoft article.

All in all, security is a basic building block to have smooth and effective business processes. This article explored some of the many ways you can instill security in your business infrastructure.

If you want to explore the security capabilities of your business or train your employees in security practices, our coaches are here for you.