How to Quickly Improve Your Microsoft Secure Score

As businesses increasingly rely on Microsoft 365, managing its complex configurations becomes a critical task—one that directly impacts your business’ security posture. A recent independent study revealed that a majority of businesses have a Microsoft Secure Score below 50%, leaving them vulnerable to security threats.

What is Microsoft Secure Score?

Microsoft Secure Score is a powerful tool that provides a snapshot of your business' security posture within Microsoft 365. It’s an important metric that reflects how well your business is implementing security best practices. The higher your Secure Score, the more secure your environment is against potential threats.

With over a million organizations worldwide using Microsoft software, the importance of a solid Secure Score has grown significantly. In fact, cybersecurity insurance providers are increasingly using it to assess risk levels and determine premium rates. A higher score can often lead to lower insurance costs, as it indicates a stronger, more secure environment.

How is the Microsoft Secure Score Calculated?

The Secure Score is determined by averaging the security controls and tasks that have been implemented within your Microsoft 365 environment. Each recommended security action is assigned a certain number of points, usually 10 or fewer. These actions cover a range of areas, we’ve listed some examples below.

Enabling Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) which adds an extra layer of protection by requiring multiple forms of verification.
Making sure that all devices that are accessing your network are securely managed and meet the necessary security standards.
Implementing measures to prevent sensitive information from being accidentally or maliciously shared outside of your business.

Improve Your Microsoft Secure Score with iuvo Guardian

What is iuvo Guardian?

iuvo Guardian is a cutting-edge configuration-as-code solution that streamlines and automates the management of your Microsoft environment. With Microsoft rolling out dozens of updates each month, staying on top of these changes manually can be overwhelming and prone to errors. iuvo Guardian addresses this by making sure your configurations remain consistent and secure, helping you achieve and maintain a near-perfect Microsoft Secure Score.

Key Benefits of iuvo Guardian:

Efficient Management: Manage hundreds of settings across Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Intune, Exchange, and more within minutes.

Proactive Risk Management: Detect and mitigate risks before they escalate.

Enhanced Visibility: Gain deeper insights into your IT infrastructure.

Automated Processes: Streamline critical tasks to minimize manual intervention.

Expert Support: Rely on specialized support to tackle complex configurations.

Improved Microsoft Secure Score: Businesses that implement iuvo Guardian achieve Secure Scores upwards of 99.98%.

Why You Need iuvo Guardian

As cloud infrastructure continues to grow, particularly within Microsoft 365, the complexity of managing configurations increases, leading to higher risks. iuvo Guardian ensures that your business stays on top of these configurations, providing constant monitoring and alerts for any changes—intentional or otherwise. This proactive approach allows you to quickly revert unauthorized changes and maintain a secure environment.

For instance, misconfigurations in compliance policies, data exfiltration rules, or multi-factor authentication settings can have wide-reaching effects across your business. iuvo Guardian not only monitors these critical settings but also provides instant alerts if changes occur, allowing you to take immediate action.

Steps to Achieve A Near-Perfect Microsoft Secure Score With iuvo Guardian

A recent statistic from Gartner and Forrester revealed that over 80% of SaaS product breaches result from misconfigurations—a trend that’s expected to rise as environments grow in complexity. iuvo Guardian is designed to help you avoid these pitfalls by automating the management of your Microsoft 365 configurations.

Step 1: Baseline Assessment

iuvo Guardian begins by taking a snapshot of your current Microsoft 365 configuration and comparing it to industry-standard baselines focused on Microsoft Secure Score.

Step 2: Implementing Changes

Based on the assessment, you can select which recommendations to implement. iuvo Guardian will push these changes into your environment, helping you achieve a higher Secure Score.

Step 3: Continuous Monitoring

Once your baseline is established, iuvo Guardian continuously monitors your configurations, ensuring that any deviations are quickly identified and addressed.

Peace of Mind for Your IT Staff and Leadership Team

iuvo Guardian simplifies the complex task of managing your Microsoft 365 environment, offering significant benefits for both IT staff and leadership. For IT teams, it streamlines the process by automating the management of configurations, making sure that critical settings—like data protection policies, access controls, and compliance protocols—are consistently applied and maintained across the entire environment.

For leadership, iuvo Guardian offers reassurance that your business’ security posture is constantly monitored and optimized. It can also play a major role in helping your business meet regulatory and compliance standards, such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, ISO 27001, and industry-specific regulations like HIPAA or GDPR.

By aligning your configurations with best practices and addressing issues quickly, iuvo Guardian strengthens your security and helps you maintain the high standards that cyber insurers expect when determining policy terms and rates. Whether it’s ensuring that multi-factor authentication remains enabled across the company or preventing accidental misconfigurations that could expose sensitive data, iuvo Guardian is your trusted partner in maintaining a secure, compliant, and efficient Microsoft 365 environment.

Why Businesses Should Maintain a Strong Microsoft Secure Score

Having a high Microsoft Secure Score can help you pinpoint areas where your security measures may be lacking, which gives you the opportunity to address these vulnerabilities. It can also help you demonstrate your commitment to following best practices, which is important for meeting regulatory requirements in many industries. One of the potential financial benefits to having a strong Secure Score is that it could help you lower your cyber insurance premiums because a higher Secure Score reflects a lower risk level.

While maintaining a strong Secure Score is important and beneficial it’s easy for businesses to fall behind if they don’t actively maintain and advance their security measures.

The Impact of Microsoft Secure Scores on Cybersecurity Insurance

Your cybersecurity insurance premiums are risk-based, meaning that your business's security posture directly influences the cost of your coverage. Since insurance providers are increasingly using a business’ Secure Score to gauge their security strength, improving your Secure Score can mean that you’re enhancing your security and also potentially lowering your insurance costs.

Ready to Improve Your Microsoft Secure Score?

Don’t let configuration challenges put your business at risk. Contact us today to learn how iuvo Guardian can help you achieve a near-perfect Microsoft Secure Score and protect your business.