1. Identity and administrator accounts
Require MFA for all users, use stronger controls for privileged administrators, avoid shared administrator accounts, remove dormant identities promptly and review who has Global Administrator or similarly powerful roles.
2. Conditional Access and sign-in risk
Where licensing allows, use Conditional Access to control risky sign-ins, unmanaged devices, legacy authentication and access from unexpected locations. Start with report-only testing before enforcing broad policies.
3. Endpoint and mobile-device management
Use Intune or another suitable management platform to define supported devices, encryption, screen lock, patching, compliance and remote wipe. Decide clearly whether personal devices may access company data and under what conditions.
4. Email and collaboration protection
Review anti-phishing, impersonation protection, malicious-link and attachment controls, external forwarding, guest access and sharing defaults across Exchange, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive.
5. Data protection and retention
Identify important or sensitive business information, apply sensible retention, sharing and access controls, and consider Purview capabilities where the business has stronger regulatory or contractual requirements.
6. Backup, recovery and incident readiness
Microsoft service resilience is not the same as a complete business backup strategy. Define how critical mail, files and collaboration data will be recovered after deletion, ransomware, account compromise or operational error.
7. Review licences before buying more tools
Many organisations pay for security functionality they have not configured. Review existing Microsoft licences and controls first, then identify genuine gaps before adding overlapping third-party products.
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