Did you make a New Year’s resolution this year? If so, you’re not alone. Lots of people use this time to set goals, focus on new growth opportunities, or reprioritize what matters most to them. We’re doing the same here at edgefi. In 2025, we’ll be exercising more, spending less time watching dating shows on Netflix, and finally start making progress on that stack of books on our nightstand. More importantly, we’ll also be reemphasizing the core expertise that first kickstarted our company’s growth journey: Microsoft 365 security for the enterprise.
Unlike other resolutions that will be abandoned before Spring, we’re doubling down on this initiative because Microsoft 365 security is a significant risk hiding in plain sight. This isn’t just another SaaS tool—it’s the digital backbone of modern enterprise. During a recent investor call, Microsoft revealed that over 70% of Fortune 500 companies now use Copilot AI. That’s in addition to the millions of workers who use Word, Excel, Teams, SharePoint, and other Microsoft tools to make critical business decisions, share sensitive information, and collaborate on key projects.
Microsoft 365 is so woven into our daily work routines that we hardly give it a second thought. But that’s where the real danger lies. Microsoft’s ubiquity makes these tools attractive targets for cybercriminals. And while most organizations understand the need to harden their systems against cyber threats, the everyday nature of Microsoft 365 can lead to dangerous blind spots in enterprise security.
Why Microsoft 365 Security Demands Attention
Microsoft tools weren’t always such a threat. Back in the old days (aka the 80s and 90s), the Office suite was a program you downloaded from a physical disc—compact or floppy. All you had to do to keep people out of your private files was to keep them away from your computer. The cloud revolution changed all that.
Today, companies upload their data onto someone else’s server (aka the cloud) and keep it offsite. It’s a lot like those pods moving companies will drop in your driveway, load it up with your stuff, and someone else will move it to the next location. Very convenient!
But that convenience comes at a serious cost. Not only is it much easier for criminals to access your data when it’s outside your physical control, but the security landscape has become much more complex. To make matters worse, many companies mistakenly believe their cloud service provider handles data storage and security. In reality, providers create detailed security responsibility matrices that place the bulk of those duties onto the customer. As a result, companies often don’t appreciate how vulnerable they actually are.
Big Threats Hiding in Plain Sight
The inherent vulnerability of the cloud is compounded by the number of potential access points across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and by how deeply ingrained they are in our everyday routines. Here are just a few examples:
- Exchange: Email is a massive vulnerability for most businesses. Imagine the sensitive information you’ve shared with colleagues and coworkers over email that you wouldn’t share with a stranger, let alone a criminal. Financial data, passwords, industry secrets, and more are all potentially up for grabs if the wrong person compromises your email system.
- Teams: Productivity applications like Teams are growing in popularity as an email replacement, making them an often under appreciated data exposure risk. Microsoft Teams conversations often contain sensitive internal discussions, confidential project details, and business-critical information.
- Sharepoint: Companies now rely on solutions like SharePoint for document storage and collaboration, but ensuring the correct people have access to the appropriate data is a huge undertaking. A simple mistake like sharing a folder instead of a single document can expose an entire repository of sensitive information. Managing access over time is even more challenging—when employees leave, contractors finish projects, or business relationships change, those SharePoint permissions also need to change.
- Decentralized Usage: If managing cloud security wasn’t challenging enough, many employees access these applications on their mobile devices, making them a potential security blind spot.
Internal IT teams are already stretched razor-thin. Organizations with over 1,000 employees use an average of 177 SaaS applications. It would be easy to overlook the security setting of a seemingly innocuous internal tool like Teams. The risk of a data breach is too large, however, and the complexity of the security landscape only continues to grow.
The State of Microsoft 365 Security
Understanding your Microsoft 365 security posture doesn’t have to be a Sherlock Holmes-level mystery. Microsoft’s built-in Secure Score tool evaluates your environment across 1,000 checkpoints. It’s a lot like visiting a car dealership and receiving a printout of your vehicle’s health from bumper to bumper.
The Secure Score results are sobering. The average organization scores 45% on this assessment. Even best-in-class organizations typically only reach around 80%. The gap between current security levels and full protection paints a clear picture of the risk. But with most IT teams severely underutilizing these tools, there are also enormous opportunities for improvement.
Understanding your security gaps is just the first step. Organizations need a clear path forward and support from experts who can help them navigate it. That’s where edgefi’s approach makes a critical difference.
The edgefi Microsoft 365 Security Assessment
Most companies already have access to powerful security tools through their Microsoft 365 license—they just need help maximizing these resources. That’s why we’ve developed a three-part approach that illuminates existing security vulnerabilities and provides a clear roadmap for creating a more secure Microsoft 365 environment.
- Assessment: We begin by understanding your environment using tools you already have. We create a comprehensive view of your security landscape by combining insights from Microsoft SecureScore and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) SCuBA guidelines.
- Roadmap: With that information in hand, we build a roadmap that prioritizes your most critical security needs with the goal of helping you achieve a 100% SecureScore rating.
- Accountability: Of course, implementing a roadmap is its own challenge. Fortunately, edgefi will be there to provide quarterly updates and a refreshed roadmap on your journey to best-in-class cloud security.
Our security assessment is free if you purchase your Microsoft License through edgefi. If you’ve purchased your license somewhere else, you can move it to edgefi and receive this valuable security add-on, or we can perform a security assessment for a fee. However you choose to engage, our goal is to give you a clear understanding of your Microsoft 365 security posture and provide actionable recommendations for making improvements.
Ready to Take Control of Your Microsoft 365 Security?
In 2025, we resolve to be hyper-focused on helping IT teams make Microsoft 365 environments more secure. If you’re ready to take control of your Microsoft security, we hope you’ll join us on this journey. We’ll host monthly webinars throughout the year covering common Microsoft security issues. Join our mailing list so you don’t miss any of these valuable sessions.
If you’d like more information on transferring your Microsoft 365 license to edgefi or are interested in a standalone security assessment, we’re here to help. Contact us today and take the first step towards best-in-class Microsoft 365 security.
