Secure Score

Overview

Microsoft Secure Score is a measurement tool within Microsoft 365 that provides organizations with an assessment of their security posture. It is part of the Microsoft Defender suite and helps administrators evaluate and improve security by offering actionable recommendations. The secure score is based on security configurations, user behavior, and other security-related activities in Microsoft 365 services like Azure AD, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Teams.

Here’s how the Microsoft Secure Score works:

Key Features

1. Scoring Mechanism: Microsoft Secure Score assigns points to each security action or recommendation that an organization can implement to enhance its security. The overall score reflects how well an organization is adhering to security best practices.

2. Actionable Recommendations: The platform provides a list of recommendations based on the organization's current security setup. Each recommendation includes details on how to implement it and how much it will improve the overall secure score.

3. Impact Measurement: The secure score also shows the potential impact of each recommendation, allowing administrators to prioritize higher-impact changes that are easier to implement.

4. Improvement Suggestions: The tool suggests actions like enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA), protecting sensitive data, or enforcing secure email policies, all aimed at reducing an organization’s exposure to security risks.

5. Integration: Microsoft Secure Score integrates across Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory, helping monitor security across identity, device, apps, and data layers.

6. Tracking Progress: It allows you to track your progress over time. You can see how implementing recommendations raises your secure score and monitor changes in security posture.

7. Benchmarks and Comparisons: Secure Score can also provide a comparison to industry averages or organizations of a similar size, helping companies understand how their security posture stacks up against others.

8. Custom Improvement Actions: Administrators can also define custom improvement actions that may not be covered by default, allowing them to track their own security measures.

Benefits

• Prioritized Recommendations: Helps prioritize security improvements based on what will have the greatest impact.

• Visibility: Gives visibility into security posture in an easy-to-understand, quantifiable score.

• Measurable Security: Enables organizations to track security efforts in a measurable way over time.

Example Recommendations

• Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Increase security by enforcing MFA for users.

• Limit access to external sharing: Reducing the ability of users to share files or folders externally can improve the score.

• Protect data with encryption: Implement data encryption policies to safeguard sensitive information.

• Use Conditional Access policies: Control how and when users can access Microsoft 365 resources based on their risk level.