#1 Best MicrosoftOffice365 Configuration for Secure Business

IT service provider tip!

In the digital world information security is of critical importance to your business and to your customers. We are now working remotely more than ever and storing our work and personally identifiable information in multiple locations both physical and in the cloud. One of the most popular cloud based office and home products is MicrosoftOffice365, often known as ms365, or Office 365.

Does your business use MicrosoftOffice365 excellent suite of software applications? Has you or your IT service provider configured the product to optimise its excellent network security features? And have you trained your staff to use the products in a way that will secure your company’s and customers information?

Office 365 comes with a suite of security features which configured correctly will protect personally identifiable information that passes through the software and make the chance of data breach far less likely. Your IT service provider should have configured your software to take advantage of these features.

Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard, and Business Premium all come with anti-phishing, anti-spam, and anti-malware protection straight out of the box. Going up a level to the premium products, Business Premium includes extra security features for example as advanced protection for endpoints, for emails and collaboration software and for the actual data – encryption, sensitivity marking and data loss prevention.

Back in 2019 Microsoft claimed that Multifactor Authentication (MFA) was blocking 99.9% of account compromises. But as earlier as 2020 we were seeing hackers circumventing MFA in ms365 and by 2021 this was pretty much routine. One of the issues was that businesses were using insecure forms of MFA like text verification rather than authenticator apps and other methods.

To address this issue in ms365 Conditional Access guidance and tools were released. Conditional Access is essentially a Zero Trust policy and set of tools. Conditional Access can be configured in Azure with a premium license. This would be one of our key concerns that this license is likely to be used by large enterprise businesses and those who need it most – small businesses are unlikely to use it. Conditional Access is ideal in the byo device environment as it sets up restriction and device authorisation.

Set up correctly by one of our experts you can ensure that your product is fully configured to protect your business. This includes:

1. Setting up Multi-factor Authentication correctly with a secure verification option
2. Protecting your Admin accounts
3. Using preset security policies
4. Protecting all devices accessing your network
5. Using email securely
6. Working together in Teams to limit information leaving the Office secure environment
7. Set file sharing settings
8. Use ms365 apps
9. Manage calendar sharing
10. Maintain your work environment

As a computer network security company and IT service provider Secure Konnect will start by setting your business up to work in a secure manner from the outset. This limits the need for IT consults and is a great we to begin to secure your business. If you house all your companies data in the O365 ecosystem – and have the software configured correctly – you are starting on strong footing.

Dependent on your business requirements, Secure Konnect IT service providers can incorporate an O365 configuration into one of our small business packages which represent great value. Our team have decades of experience in digital transformation of businesses and have seen what works and what doesn’t in different types of companies of different sizes. Our aim is to provide you with the essential cyber security for your small business that you can add to as time and budget allow. See our packages for small business here.

Our consulting and strategy services mean that we take time to understand your unique business so we can suggest solutions designed for your organisation that fit with your current work practices. Undertaking regular cyber security awareness training is an excellent way to ensure that your human firewall – your staff understand the risks and develop secure working practices to protect the business and personally identifiable information.

Secure Konnect IT service provider team are just a message away. Contact us now for a free no obligation conversation about how to secure your business data with the excellent 365 suite. We look forward to talking to you.