Top 4 Ways to Secure Office 365

A security breach in your email can have major consequences for your organization. As hackers get smarter and develop new methods to crack your defenses, it’s more important than ever for companies to recognize the risk of a cybersecurity attack and have a strategy in place to reduce the possibility of one.

Recently, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published new guidelines for securing Office 365. We’ve got the lowdown and highly recommend using these best practices to make sure your Office 365 account is protected from cybersecurity threats.

1. Use Multi-Factor Authentication

This may be the easiest way to effectively increase the security of Office 365. By adding multi-factor authentication to every admin and user account in your org, you are requiring every user to complete a 2-step verification process. Microsoft 365 will ask for both your password and a unique pin code that you type into your phone to get access to your account.

Think about it: the greatest benefit of cloud technology is also its greatest vulnerability. And that’s the ability to access your data from anywhere. Weak or stolen user credentials make up 95% of all web application attacks. Multi-Factor Authentication prevents this risk by adding an additional verification step that involves your phone number.

2. Enable Mailbox Auditing

On January 2019, Microsoft decided to enable mailbox auditing in Office 365 accounts by default. Previously, this was not an automatic service. Companies who set up their Office 365 environments before that change now need to explicitly enable this feature.

By collecting audit data, your company can better investigate security vulnerabilities and breaches in your environment.

3. Do Not Sync Administrator Accounts with Office 365

Some organizations automatically have their administrator credentials synced to their Office 365 account. We strongly advise against this practice.

If your account for an on-premise environment is breached, an attacker can easily move to your cloud environment through the synced local administrator account. This would make the cybersecurity attack a hundred times worse. Needless to say, it is critical that you do not sync your passwords.

4. Disable Legacy Protocols

If you use legacy protocols for your mail, they present a big security risk. Many businesses still use devices like scanners or applications that are dependent on these legacy protocols.

Why is this bad? These protocols are creating vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. This is because they do not support Azure Active Directory which is the primary authentication method for Office 365. We suggest planning a new path forward to allow for a more secure environment.

Contact TechWise Group today to make the needed changes. You can also learn more about Office 365 security at the Department of Homeland Security.