Staying Ahead of Risk: Liongard’s New Consolidated Microsoft 365 Inspector

In the dynamic world of business, Microsoft 365 (M365) has emerged as a key player, boasting a user base of 346 million and holding a substantial 47.9% share of the business cloud services industry. It has become integral to collaboration and productivity for nearly 3.8 million organizations globally. Now more than ever, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) play a crucial role, ensuring that businesses maximize the benefits of M365 while maintaining security and efficiency.

Microsoft 365 requires heightened security

The significance of M365 lies not only in its widespread use but also in the sensitive data it stores. With the rise of hybrid work models, traditional in-person and physical file servers have migrated to online Teams meetings and Sharepoint and OneDrive file shares. However, managing these platforms' security controls, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), mailbox auditing, and user access rights is a complex task, especially at scale. Research by VERIS indicates that 35% of security incidents stem from configuration errors, mainly from administrators, emphasizing the need for vigilant management as Microsoft expands its online services.

Enabling a comprehensive approach to managing M365

Liongard's approach to IT management has been a game-changer for MSPs and IT teams. Alongside 70+ other inspectors that cover systems across the IT stack. On a daily basis, Liongard’s M365 inspector creates a detailed historical timeline of the configurations and security controls, like MFA, and alerts for misconfigurations, drift, and changes from the accepted policy. Our Configuration Change Detection and Response (CCDR) platform delivers an advanced level of automation and oversight to IT management. Paired with our Cyber Risk dashboard, we provide IT teams with continuous visibility of their security posture.

Our latest enhancement integrates data from Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Azure AD into a single, comprehensive Microsoft 365 inspector. What’s more, the consolidated M365 Inspector is included within our base Essentials package, expanding accessibility to all businesses, and simplifying the implementation and maintenance experience for MSPs and Cloud Solution Providers (CSP). This advancement enables a leap forward in the secure management of M365 environments.

Benefits to the MSP ecosystem

Liongard’s benefits extend beyond cybersecurity. Our inspectors provide accurate data on user account licensing, aiding in cost-saving by preventing over-provisioning or top-line benefits from preventing revenue leakage. Its multi-tenancy features allow for streamlined auditing across various departments and entities, driving efficiencies for IT managers handling Microsoft 365-related reporting for accounting and finance teams.

As M365 continues to evolve, our commitment to updating and refining our inspectors ensures that MSPs and their clients stay ahead of cyber risks. We ensure that digital workspaces are not only productive and collaborative but also secure and cost-efficient. Liongard's continuous evolution underscores our mission to empower IT teams and MSPs with comprehensive monitoring, insightful data, and operational efficiency to manage the complexities of the modern IT environments.

References

1. Microsoft Cloud Service Providers - Microsoft. December 2023
2. Microsoft ecosystem value: new data reveals partner paths to profitability and growth. Microsoft. September 15, 2022
3. Microsoft Cloud Hits $111.6 Billion Annual Revenue. Office 365 IT Pros. July 27, 2023
4. Office 365 Reaches 345 Million Paid Seats. Office 365 IT Pros. April 28, 2022
5. Security Misconfigurations Caused 35% of All Time Cyber Incidents SOCRadar February 2023