Microsoft Secure Score
Microsoft 365 Secure Score provides a comprehensive assessment of a company’s security posture and offers actionable recommendations to enhance the security of their Microsoft 365 environment. By regularly using the Secure Score tool, businesses can monitor their progress and continuously improve their security posture.
While using Microsoft 365 Secure Score, the following areas should be prioritized:
- Identity and Access Management, which includes features like multi-factor authentication, conditional access controls, and password policies, is the first area of focus when using Microsoft 365 Secure Score. These security measures are designed to protect user identities and prevent unauthorized access to Microsoft 365 services.
- Data protection entails implementing information security policies, data loss prevention plans, and data encryption mechanisms to safeguard sensitive data from theft or unauthorized access.
- Threat prevention entails putting anti-malware protection, email filtering, and security reports in place to detect and prevent security risks from affecting the firm.
- Device management techniques include device encryption, management policies, and mobile device management. The four main areas of focus are the protection of devices used to access Microsoft 365 services, as well as ensuring that they are properly managed and secured.
- Compliance measures include audit logs, data retention guidelines, and eDiscovery to help businesses meet legal and regulatory requirements.
By emphasizing these five critical areas, Microsoft 365 Safe Score offers enterprises a clear path to improve their security posture in Microsoft 365 and protect their data and systems from a variety of threats.
Remember that security is a process, and it’s vital to keep monitoring and improve continuously, to be always up to date and protect your environment.
Questions and Answers
- How often you check your organization’s Microsoft Secure Score depends on your organization’s needs. It’s recommended to check it at least once a month, but for highly regulated industries, it’s recommended to check it more frequently.
- Reviewing the recommendations provided by the tool is important to ensure that your organization’s data is secured. These recommendations can help you identify areas of concern and take appropriate actions to address them.
- Remember that keeping your secure score up to date is important and will help you to have a better visibility on your environment, always be proactive rather than reactive.
InLigo can help you with monitoring and reviewing your secure score, providing you with a detailed report, and recommendations on how to improve your score.
There are many common actions that you can take to improve your organization’s Secure Score, some of which include:
- Enabling multi-factor authentication for all users to protect against unauthorized access.
- Implementing data loss prevention policies to prevent accidental or intentional sharing of sensitive data.
- Enabling malware protection and making sure it’s up to date to protect your environment from malware infections.
- Implementing conditional access policies to control access to your tenant environment based on specific conditions like location, device, and security status.
- Reviewing and monitoring your organization’s Secure Score regularly to identify areas of concern and take appropriate actions to address them.
- Creating a cyber security incident response plan, which will help you to respond quickly and effectively in case of a security incident.
- Keep your security settings up-to-date, which will make it harder for cyber attackers to exploit vulnerabilities.
- Conduct regular security awareness training for your employees, this will help them identify and avoid phishing attempts and malware.
- Regularly backing up your data and make sure that your data is recoverable in case of a security incident or data loss.
Remember that all of these actions can be hard to implement and monitor, that’s why InLigo offers professional services to help you improve your score and keep your organization’s data secure.
- One of the great features of Secure Score is its ability to monitor and track the progress of security-related initiatives within your organization. It allows you to see how your security measures are impacting your score over time and identify areas where additional action is needed.
- You can use the Secure Score dashboard to view your score history and identify trends. For example, if you notice a decline in your score over time, it could indicate that your security measures are not working as effectively as they should be.
- Additionally, Secure Score also provides detailed security reports that provide insights into your tenant’s security status, risks, vulnerabilities and mitigation actions. These reports can help you identify areas of concern and track the progress of your security initiatives.
- Another important aspect is the integration of Secure Score with other security tools and technologies, which can provide a more comprehensive view of your organization’s security posture.
InLigo can help you with monitoring and tracking the progress of your security-related initiatives, providing you with a detailed report and recommendations on how to improve your score.
- Reviewing and interpreting the data provided by Secure Score can be a complex task, but there are some best practices that can help you to make sense of the data and take appropriate actions.
- One of the most important best practices is to review your score regularly, this will help you to understand your score’s history and identify trends.
- Another best practice is to review the security reports provided by the Secure Score, these reports provide detailed information about your tenant’s security status, risks, and vulnerabilities, and recommend actions to mitigate them.
- Identifying areas of concern and prioritizing actions to take, it’s crucial to understand the breakdown of your score into different security areas and measure your progress over time.
- To prioritize actions, it’s important to understand the severity of the vulnerabilities identified, the risks they pose, and their potential impact on your organization.
Remember that the goal of reviewing and interpreting the data provided by Secure Score is to understand your organization’s security posture and identify ways to improve it. And InLigo, can help you with reviewing and interpreting the data provided by Secure Score, providing you with a detailed report and recommendations on how to improve your score.
To ensure that your organization’s Secure Score is up-to-date and reflective of your current security posture, there are some best practices that you can follow:
- Review your score regularly, and check for updates and new recommendations provided by the Secure Score tool.
- Keep your security settings up-to-date and make sure that your security features are configured correctly, as this can have a significant impact on your score.
- Keep your environment updated, such as updating your Windows, Office, and Azure AD Connect, and make sure that your anti-virus software is up to date.
- Regularly audit your user accounts and make sure that users who no longer work for the company are removed, this will reduce the risk of these accounts being compromised.
- Regularly review and update your data loss prevention policies, access control policies and security policies.
- Keep an eye on the Secure Score performance over time and take action to improve it based on the specific requirements of your organization.
- Integrating Secure Score with other security tools and technologies can provide a more comprehensive view of your organization’s security posture and help you to identify and address potential vulnerabilities and risks.
- Secure Score can be integrated with other Microsoft security tools like Azure Security Center, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, and Azure AD Identity Protection, which will provide you with a more complete view of your organization’s security posture.
- Additionally, Secure Score can also be integrated with other third-party security tools like SIEM’s, threat intelligence platforms, and vulnerability scanners to provide a more comprehensive view of your organization’s security posture.
- Integrating Secure Score with other security tools and technologies will give you a more holistic view of your organization’s security posture and will make it easier to identify and address vulnerabilities and risks.
InLigo, can help you with integrating Secure Score with other security tools and technologies to provide a more comprehensive view of your organization’s security posture, and provide you with a detailed report and recommendations on how to improve your score.
Involving your team in using Microsoft Secure Score is crucial to ensure the success of your organization’s security initiatives. Here are some best practices for involving your team and communicating the results and action items:
- Make sure your team understands the importance of Microsoft Secure Score and how it relates to your organization’s security posture.
- Assign a team member or a team to be responsible for monitoring and reviewing the Secure Score and provide them with the necessary training and resources to do so.
- Hold regular meetings to review the score and the action items and encourage team members to provide feedback and input.
- Communicate the results and action items in a clear and concise manner, using simple language that is easy to understand.
- Set up regular security training sessions for your team members, this will help them understand and be aware of the best practices and actions that they should be taking to improve the score.
- Provide regular updates on your team’s progress and make sure they are aware of the specific actions they should be taking to improve the score.
InLigo can help you with involving your team in using Microsoft Secure Score and provide best practices for communicating the results and action items.
To get the most value out of Secure Score, it’s important to understand the breakdown of scores into different security areas and measure progress over time. Here are some best practices to help you do so:
- Understand the breakdown of your score into different security areas like identity, devices, email, and data. This will give you a clear idea of the areas where you need to focus on to improve your score.
- Review the breakdown of your score regularly and identify areas where you need to improve your security posture.
- Set up specific goals and targets for each security area and track your progress over time to see how you are improving in each area.
- Compare your score over time and identify trends, this will help you to understand where your score is headed and take appropriate actions.
- Review the score regularly and act on the recommendations provided by the tool to improve your score.
- Use the breakdown of your score and the progress over time, to identify areas that need improvement and act on the recommendations provided.
InLigo can help you with understanding the breakdown of scores into different security areas and how to measure progress over time, providing you with a detailed report and recommendations on how to improve your score.
Secure Score is primarily designed to assess the security posture of your organization’s Office 365 environment, and it’s not intended to be used to assess the security posture of external partners or vendors.
- However, you can use Secure Score as a guide to evaluate the security practices of external partners or vendors, by comparing their security posture to the recommendations provided by the tool.
- You can also ask your external partners or vendors to provide you with their Secure Score and use it as a baseline for your assessment or ask for their regular security reports as an indicator of their security status.
- Additionally, you can conduct security assessments, penetration tests or vulnerability scans to evaluate the security posture of your external partners or vendors.
And InLigo can help you with assessing the security posture of your external partners or vendors, providing you with a detailed report and recommendations on how to improve the score.
Remember that to have a complete security posture assessment, you should evaluate more than one aspect and not only rely on the Secure Score.
Verifying the actions taken to improve your overall security posture is an essential step to ensure the success of your security initiatives. Here are some best practices for verifying the effectiveness of the actions taken:
- Monitor the progress of your security initiatives and track the changes in your Secure Score over time. This will help you to see how your security measures are impacting your score.
- Review the security reports provided by Secure Score regularly and check if the recommendations provided by the tool are being implemented.
- Conduct regular audits and assessments to verify that your security settings are configured correctly and that your security measures are working as intended.
- Keep an eye on the security incidents, and track their numbers, severity, and origin to understand if the actions taken have had an impact.
- Establish regular security training sessions for your team members, this will ensure they are aware of the best practices and actions they should be taking to improve the score.
And InLigo can help you with verifying the actions taken, providing you with a detailed report and recommendations on how to improve your score.
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Schedule a FREE Secure Score assessment with InLigo.
We can also assist with implementing the recommendations provided by Secure Score to help you improve your score and enhance your cybersecurity posture.
