Combining cybersecurity and productivity doesn't have to be a barrier for your organization. Here's how we do it.
A major rise in the number of cyber threats over the past few years caused companies to start securing themselves better. We see that especially the small and medium enterprises are now the target of attacks because the large companies could take immediate action. Setting up advanced security without lowering productivity still proves to be a challenge for companies. Resources are often more limited, while large companies are able to put full effort into this.
At Safe-Connect, we were looking for a solution and asked ourselves, “what exactly do you need to create a secure and productive environment without spending a fortune?” We chose to work with Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Why?
Why Microsoft 365 Business Premium?
Microsoft is known for its good reputation around cybersecurity. Security tools such as Intune, Azure Information Protection and conditional access are indispensable for businesses. What is the difference between the Premium version and the Standard version? With the Premium version you get the advanced security on top of the productive tools. We quickly experienced that this advanced security is a necessity when it comes to cybersecurity. Why? With this security, for example, you set up policies within your company. At Maersk, things once went wrong because of the lack of a clear security policy with defined guidelines. That was one of the main reasons why they were victims of the Petya virus. An additional benefit is that although we appreciate security software like Avast or McAfee, we now leave them behind. The security that other software provides is automatically included in this subscription and makes additional software unnecessary. In addition to the advanced security, you still get access to Microsoft’s collaboration tools to enjoy productivity capabilities as well. For example, the Office suite, Teams, Outlook, OneDrive and SharePoint. In addition, it offers support for the following operating systems: Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android.
The plan is offered for 16.90 euros per month per user. It is specifically designed for companies with fewer than 300 users. It offers a productive environment with device management capabilities and integrated protection against cyber threats. Are you using Windows 7 pro or Windows 8.1 pro? Then this license gets you an upgrade to Windows 10 pro. Is your company larger than 300 employees? Then it’s best to opt for an Enterprise version.
Are you currently using the Standard version? Then you can enjoy a secure environment for an additional price of €6.40. That small difference in price provides your company with the necessary protection against attacks that can cause major financial damage.
What exactly is included in the MS 365 Business Premium security plan?
Defender
Formerly known as Advanced Threat Protection. Defender has evolved as a cloud-based security portal that protects your organization from advanced threats to email and collaboration tools. It achieves this by addressing 4 aspects: Protect, Detect, Investigate and Respond. Through the integrated Ai and automation, Defender can stop many attacks. For example, protection against Phishing, malware attacks and business emails being stolen. In addition, Defender can detect and investigate such threats, allowing us to identify them better and respond faster. Using built-in queries or self-created queries, we continue to look for threats within the organization. With the recommendations within the portal, we take action ourselves against advanced attacks. Defender is in the Cloud, so it works across multiple domains making everything easier to monitor and manage.
Azure Information Protection (AIP)
With this tool we manage and secure our emails, documents and sensitive data that we share outside the company. For example, you assign a label to a document and you can then determine the level of sensitivity. With AIP you can secure documents with credit card numbers so that only authorized people can access them. Secured documents can be stored in OneDrive, your local PC or a USB. The security is stored on the document itself. When you then want to send or share these with external parties, a warning will be given. If the other side then wants to access this document, they must log in with an authorized login with for example Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). With this tool, you can be sure that your company data stays in the right place. A Managed IT service provider like Safe-Connect can use the powerful logging and reporting to protect, analyze and handle data.
Conditional access
Company data is of high importance. With conditional access, you create policies and define them to your needs. These rules relate to login events. When a user wants to log in to access certain documents or environments, additional actions will be requested before a user can access an application or service. Multifactor Authentication (MFA) is a good baseline for increasing security. But you can also, for example, specify that a user can only log in in a specific country or on specific IP addresses. In this way you create different layers of security within your internal environment.
Intune
Intune is a cloud-based service with focus on Mobile Device Management and Mobile Application Management. With Intune we configure specific policies to manage applications on mobile devices such as: laptops, cell phones and tablets. This way, we prevent emails from being sent to people outside the organization, for example. It also helps to isolate corporate data from personal data. For example, if a mobile device is stolen, Intune can prevent access to corporate data on that device.
Azure Virtual Desktop
Azure Virtual Desktop is located in the Cloud. This technology allows you to connect to a virtual desktop on multiple devices where all your programs and settings needed for your work are available. Because it works completely in Cloud, the security is a lot higher than a physical computer. This way, you can work remotely in a secure way within your trusted environment.
Do you also want to use the full functionality of Microsoft Business Premium? That is possible with a reliable partner. As a Microsoft Silver Partner we help you to implement this plan as efficiently as possible within your company. We configure the entire solution and adjust it to your needs. Not sure yet what this plan can do for you? Then feel free to contact us, we are happy to help. Wondering what licenses you are currently using and if they are still suitable? Request a free audit here! We will check whether your current licenses are still advantageous for your needs and will look at the possibilities together.