Most small businesses set up Microsoft 365, create their user accounts, and assume that is sufficient. It is not. Microsoft ships every new tenant with default settings that are deliberately permissive — low friction for new users, but low protection for your business data. This article explains what a Microsoft 365 security assessment actually reviews, which default settings create the most risk, and what a properly hardened tenant looks like.
What Is the Microsoft Secure Score — and Why Does It Matter?
Microsoft Secure Score is a built-in measurement of your tenant's security posture, expressed as a percentage. When assessing SMB tenants, the starting point is typically between 20% and 40% — representing a tenant where multi-factor authentication is not enforced for most users, admin accounts are protected only by a password, email threat filters run on permissive defaults, no device compliance checks are applied, and audit logging may not be enabled at all.
The Six Most Common Security Gaps in SMB Tenants
1. Multi-Factor Authentication Not Enforced
This is the single highest-impact gap in most tenants. Without MFA, a stolen or guessed password is sufficient to access email, SharePoint, Teams, and all files stored in the cloud. Microsoft Security Defaults enable basic MFA for all users and are free in every Microsoft 365 subscription. Conditional Access policies — available in most Business Premium and higher plans — offer more granularity.
2. Admin Accounts Without Additional Protection
Global Administrator accounts have unrestricted access to your entire Microsoft 365 environment. Proper account hygiene requires dedicated admin accounts, MFA without exception, and a break-glass emergency account — a permanent global admin account used only when all other admin access is lost.
3. Email Security Running on Default Thresholds
Microsoft 365 includes Microsoft Defender for Office 365 in Business Premium and various Enterprise plans. By default, anti-phishing policies run at their lowest protection thresholds. Safe Links and Safe Attachments are often not enabled. DMARC, DKIM, and SPF records are the external side of email security — without them, anyone can send email appearing to come from your domain.
4. No Conditional Access Policies
Conditional Access is the policy engine between a user attempting to sign in and the resources they want to access. Without it, a valid username and password grants full access from anywhere, on any device — including personal phones without security controls.
5. Devices Not Enrolled in Intune
When users access Microsoft 365 from devices not enrolled in Microsoft Intune, you have no visibility into whether those devices are patched, encrypted, or equipped with security software. You cannot remotely wipe a device if it is lost or stolen.
6. No Security Alerts Configured
If an attacker gains access to a user account and sets up a silent forwarding rule to copy all incoming email to an external address — how long would it take you to notice? In most unmanaged tenants: months, or never. Microsoft 365 has built-in alert policies that can notify you immediately when high-risk events occur: mailbox forwarding rules created, bulk downloads from SharePoint, suspicious sign-in activity, admin permission changes.
What Happens During a Security Assessment
A Microsoft 365 security assessment is a structured review of your tenant against a defined security baseline, followed by hands-on remediation of all identified gaps. It is not a recommendation report for you to implement yourself — it is configuration work performed directly in your tenant. Steps: baseline measurement, gap analysis report, remediation (MFA and admin account protection first, then email security, endpoint management, monitoring), and a final before/after report with screenshots.
Reference: Microsoft 365 Security Assessment Service