18May2020
08Apr2020
Updated! Checklist co-developed with Microsoft: Set up your SMB customers for secure remote working
I had the great pleasure to participate in a webinar today with David Bjurman-Birr (Partner Architect) and Jon Orton (Director of Product Marketing for Microsoft 365 SMB). David and I recently developed a checklist together for Microsoft 365 Business Premium, aimed at helping partners who work in the SMB space...
06Apr2020
Inventory and Control of Apps within and beyond the perimeter with Microsoft 365
Managing devices is a topic I have probably burnt my readers out on by this point, so it's time we move into the next stage: wrangling all those crazy third-party applications hiding out in your environment! To build up a foundation of good security, we must identify our apps and...
24Mar2020
Limiting privilege is a process, not an event
In some past blogs I have highlighted the importance of devices in your security, management and compliance journey. Why do I harp on that? Because it is the starting point. The mantra takes various forms, but basically you cannot protect what you cannot see. This applies to devices of course, but...
09Mar2020
New Updates to the Office 365 Security Checklist and Guide, including Free eBook
With more years comes more wisdom (and more reader feedback helps)! As such, it was time to polish up the guide that kicked off this whole journey. This is a big update, and in a much more consumable format, I think. I am even renaming it to "The NEW Office...
22Jan2020
Why you should take a real hard look at upgrading from Office 365 to Microsoft 365 this year
Readers of this blog are probably already familiar with the differences between Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans. But I still run into plenty of folks out there who think these are the same thing, or who believe this is for "cloud only" customers, and there are still others who...
07Jan2020
In preview now: A simpler protection framework for Teams and other Group-connected SharePoint sites
Microsoft has previously published a framework for protecting Teams. There is another very much like it for SharePoint. The goal was to create some recommendations that "balance security with ease of collaboration." Image credit: Microsoft It is a fine balance indeed. The most interesting feature of this framework is that Microsoft...
01Dec2019
2020 Edition of the Recommended Conditional access policy design guide is available now
I just finished updating the Conditional access design guide, part of the Microsoft 365 Best practices checklists. The new updates reflect some carefully considered feedback from my clients (real-world scenarios), as well as some new additions and a better organizational structure, in three major groups: Authentication Baseline policies – Replaces the Security...
22Nov2019
Updates to my Exchange Online and Office 365 ATP scripts
Just a quick note--this week I updated the Exchange Online and ATP scripts that I publish and use to provision new tenants--to fall more in line with the new best practices that were published by the Exchange Online Protection and Office 365 ATP teams.* You can also use the new...
11Nov2019