How to Secure Microsoft 365 for Business Plans
Businesses need protection from unauthorized access, different types of malware, and other online threats. The increasing use of Microsoft 365 for the content and business management security issue is becoming very serious. To ensure that your data stays secure, Microsoft 365 should be kept safe to improve an organization’s performance.
With that in mind, this article looks at best practices to secure Microsoft 365 for your business.
1. Go For a Strong Password
Use lengthy passwords because password brute force attacks are frequent in most organizations. They are more secure and hard to decrypt compared to short passwords. Therefore, encourage your users to try strings like Heart!0909!Choke or Penguins-2020D1-Patagonia.
It doesn’t have to be precisely this, but putting different characters together is essential. You can train your users to protect company devices by employing such passwords.
2. Implement Multi-Factor Authentication
This is the most effective and easiest way to increase security for your company. Multi-factor authentication might sound complicated, but it’s not. It allows users to type a specific code using their phones when logging into Microsoft 365. This prevents hackers’ attacks, especially if they know your password.
You could have implemented an excellent lengthy password, but it’s not good enough for proper protection. Thus, it would be best if you enforced multi-factor authentication to make it 100% secure.
3. Use Dedicated Admin Accounts
Administrative accounts come with elevated privileges, especially when targeting hackers and cybercriminals.
Some of the recommendations for admin accounts include:
Using them for administration only.
Setting them up for multi-factor authentication.
Having a separate admin user account to use when only necessary.
Closing all unnecessary apps like personal email accounts and unrelated browsers when using admin accounts.
Log out of the browser session once you are done with admin tasks.
4. Stop The Auto-Forward Feature For Emails
If hackers gain access to your users’ mailboxes, they can configure the mailbox to automatically forward emails.
This can happen even without the user’s consciousness. However, with a mail flow rule, this is avoidable.
You can create a mail transport rule-following these steps:
At the exchange admin center, go to mail flow.
Select rules then create new rules.
To see all options, Select **** at the bottom of the dialog box.
Apply settings
Then save.
5. Encrypt Office Messages For Microsoft 365 for Business
As long as your mailbox has highly valuable data, it is prone to cybercriminals. Therefore, your firm can send and receive encrypted emails inside and outside the firm.
Microsoft 365 has several security features, and encryption is one of them. Message encryption work with Gmail, Outlook, and other email services. It also ensures that only the intended recipients have viewed the message.
Microsoft encryption offers two types of protection when sending mail:
Encrypt
Do not forward
If you wish to send a secure email message in outlook go-to options in the email, then select permissions.
Since “do not forward” is the default protection, you can go to protect and change permission to encrypt.
6. Control Your Security Score
You can use a Microsoft secure score to measure whether your organization meets the necessary security requirements. This feature evaluates the protection status of your data, devices, and infrastructure, and then suggests how you can improve security.
Summary Of Best Security Practices With Microsoft 365
Organizations using Microsoft 365 should take security initiatives to avoid cyber-attacks. It would be wise to enable most of the practices in this article to have a negligible impact on your users’ day-to-day workflows.
Otherwise, your data might remain at risk as long as you are using Microsoft 365 for Business Plans
If you’re not sure about your security, you can always use a secure score, which is a new feature in Microsoft 365. It tells you how you are performing in terms of security. Also, it helps you improve where necessary depending on your score.