MDR for Better Office 365 Security

Microsoft Office 365 is a stalwart suite of apps that powers collaboration, communication and productivity for companies of all sizes. Companies gravitate toward tools like Exchange Online for email communications, SharePoint for document management and collaboration, Power BI for analytics, and Teams for unified communication and teamwork. Despite the many benefits, Office 365 security is tricky to get right. Threat actors increasingly target these tools and those who use them. On top of that, native security features call for tweaking and expertise to ensure effective configuration. Here’s how MDR for Office 365 strengthens your company’s security.   

How MDR Improves O365 Security 

The global Microsoft Office 365 services market is projected to be worth $126.9 billion by 2025. With the exponential rise in remote work and digital collaboration, Microsoft Office 365 is central to business operations worldwide, which makes properly securing it more critical than ever. The vast amount of sensitive data processed and stored within O365 applications, from emails in Exchange Online to documents in SharePoint Online, presents an attractive target for cybercriminals. Here’s how MDR helps O365 security with a service-oriented cybersecurity model that uses human expertise and tools. 

Enhanced threat visibility across the O365 ecosystem

 MDR services help you gain complete visibility into the threat landscape across the entire O365 ecosystem. Continuous monitoring of user activities, login attempts and file movements across O365 applications like Teams, Exchange Online and SharePoint Online helps you find threats faster. MDR providers can also quickly identify suspicious behavior and issue real-time high-fidelity alerts for your in-house team.  

Also, by analyzing threat data across multiple O365 apps, MDR providers can detect complex attack patterns that span different services, such as phishing emails in Exchange Online that lead to unauthorized data access in SharePoint. Some MDR services integrate with Microsoft Security Graph, which provides rich security intelligence and alerts from across Microsoft services, users and tenants. Smartly leveraging this integration gives you a unified view of threats across the O365 suite and enhances the ability to respond to incidents quickly. 

Security posture management and reporting

 MDR providers can offer detailed reporting and management capabilities that give you insights into your security posture within your O365 environment. Reports can pinpoint areas of strength and potential vulnerabilities. By analyzing O365 security data over time, MDR services can identify trends and provide predictive insights that help your business preemptively adjust its security strategies to address emerging threats. 

On a related note, MDR services assist businesses in meeting compliance requirements and managing governance policies across their O365 apps. By monitoring user activities and data access, MDR can help ensure compliance with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA or SOX. This includes detecting and mitigating risks related to data privacy and protection. 

Auditing and optimizing security settings

 A powerful benefit of MDR for O365 is that MDR providers can conduct thorough audits of your O365 security settings to identify potential vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that could expose your business to cyber threats. Audits could include critical O365 security reviews of things like: 

• Restricting access to sensitive data in SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Exchange Online based on the principle of least privilege. 
• Tailoring threat protection features such as anti-phishing and anti-malware policies in Exchange Online and optimizing Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) settings for the highest level of security. 
• Securing access to O365 apps through mobile devices and other endpoints using features like conditional access policies and multifactor authentication (MFA). 
• Implementing and optimizing DLP policies across O365 applications to protect sensitive information from being accidentally shared or leaked.

With adequate security configurations, you’ll stand a better chance of defending against incidents like the high-profile spate of phishing emails that pushed Darkgate malware via Microsoft Teams phishing messages. (The preventative action for this particular incident was only to allow Teams chat requests from designated external domains rather than from any user).  MDR providers can tailor their security monitoring and response strategies to the specific needs of your O365 environment and your industry. This bespoke approach ensures that security measures are comprehensive and relevant to the specific workloads and applications in use. Whether protecting sensitive data in Dynamics 365 or ensuring secure collaboration in Teams, MDR services can adapt to the unique challenges each organization faces. 

Contact Nuspire today to improve your O365 security with continuous monitoring and expert guidance.  

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