Trained professionals at Messaging Architects have been managing cloud migrations for more than a decade, and we can tell you that the security considerations around moving to Office 365 deserve just as much attention as the technical logistics. Too many organizations rush through their migration planning, focused entirely on timelines and user adoption, only to discover critical security gaps after they have already moved sensitive data to the cloud. But organizations that work with Messaging Architects can look forward to a successful, secure migration.
Before Migration: Building Your Foundation
Before taking any action, best practices call for conducting a thorough data governance exercise — including such issues as where to store information, data retention, data archiving, information sharing, monitoring, and data classification. To understand exactly what is being moved — before moving it — stakeholders should work with us to identify sensitive information like financial records, customer data, intellectual property, and categorize it according to your organization’s risk tolerance. This inventory becomes the foundation for implementing tools like Microsoft Purview Information Protection, which allows you to apply sensitivity labels and encryption policies that follow your data wherever it goes.
It is also vital to encrypt your data at rest and in transit before beginning to move it. Microsoft 365 provides built-in encryption through BitLocker for data at rest and TLS for data in transit, but you can increase security by holding your own private keys for ultra-secure organizations. Implementing Customer Key will give you additional control over the encryption keys protecting your data in Microsoft datacenters.
Access controls are equally critical in this preparatory phase. Best practices generally call for a review of current licensing, since basic business licenses provide functionality but not advanced security like Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Intune device management, and other advanced security features. A policy should require multi-factor authentication for all administrative accounts and restrict access to Office 365 resources based on device compliance, location, and risk level.
The migration phase is a vulnerable time for your organization. At this point you have data in two places, users are confused, and threat actors know this is an opportune time to strike. Careful management of data and the transition of data from one location to the other, along with business processes, are critical.
Detailed audit logs throughout the migration are also necessary. The Office 365 audit log captures every action users take, ensuring these logs are being collected and analyzed in real time. This creates both a security monitoring capability and a forensic record if something does go wrong.
After Migration: Sustaining Security
A comprehensive security assessment immediately after migration can be accomplished using Microsoft Secure Score. This tool analyzes your configuration and provides specific recommendations for improving your security posture. Working through these recommendations systematically will enable you and your Messaging Architects consulting team to prioritize those that address your highest-risk areas.
Incident response planning also becomes critical at this stage. SIEM tools (Security Information and Event Management) provide an effective way for organizations to both achieve regulatory compliance and respond swiftly to security threats. Because they can collect, analyze, and correlate security data from various sources in real time, they provide critical visibility.
Ongoing training monitoring is essential. Configuring Microsoft Defender for Office 365 will provide advanced threat protection against phishing, malware, and zero-day attacks. The threat intelligence it provides helps you understand the evolving threat landscape and adjust your defenses accordingly.
Ensuring you have a sophisticated email security platform, however, is of paramount importance. eMazzanti’s MXINSPECT can protect organizations from email threats including phishing, malware, spam, and other forms of objectionable or dangerous content by leveraging leading technologies in a suite that can be customized for businesses of varying size. Our program covers everything from phishing simulations to password best practices, pairing automated Cybersecurity controls with training to reduce risks without draining your resources.
Finally, a regular review cycle should be established. Security is not a one-time project but an ongoing process, including quarterly reviews of your access controls, monthly security awareness training for users, and continuous monitoring of your security metrics.
Your Office 365 migration represents both an opportunity and a responsibility, particularly around document security and information governance. O365 lets you store documents in many different locations, such as Libraries, OneDrive, Teams, and O365 Groups. Each can potentially share information with the outside world, so organizations need to determine their security, document storage and document sharing policies. These are huge areas that affect users and need buy-in from executives. By working with a Messaging Architects team to implement controls throughout the migration lifecycle, you protect your organization’s most valuable asset — its data — while enabling the productivity benefits that drove your cloud adoption decision in the first place.
Keep your data secure and compliant
- Archive
- eDiscovery
- Compliance
eGovernance is a Cloud based solution for preserving, discovering and accessing digital data within your email and document storage systems for compliance, audit, security, eDiscovery and warehousing of critical or older data.
